For the past few months, I’ve been obsessed with bullet journaling. If you don’t know what that is, check here, here, and here for the basic information. If you have heard about it, you probably already know how invaluable a bullet journal can be for planning and organizing your life.
But if you’re a writer and haven’t used your bujo for your writing yet, I may be about to blow your mind. Keeping a writer’s bullet journal can help you achieve your writing goals, from idea all the way through to publication. Plus, it’ll keep you super organized at every step. Bonus!
A traditional bullet journal has four main sections: index, key, logs, and collections, all of which are explained in the links above. In this series, I’m going to break down the collections I add to make my bujo writing-friendly. Feel free to use any or all of these collections to help you in your writing life, or tweak them according to your needs. Remember: just like writing, there is no one way to bullet journal!
Disclaimer: I’m a writer, not an artist. In fact, I can barely draw a straight line with a ruler. So while it is customary to include pictures in posts like this, I can only guide you with words & links. 🙂
OK, let’s get to it, fellow writers!
Mind Mapping for Inspiration
Mind Mapping is a wonderful way to find ideas. If you want to see examples of what I’m referring to, check out this great post by author Iain Broome. Say you want to write a fantasy novel and you have a character and parts of a world, but you’re really not sure how to flesh it out. I’d recommend sitting down with your bullet journal and dedicating a few pages to Mind Mapping that project. Take your central idea and write it in the center bubble. Branching out, brainstorm parts of the story and give each idea its own bubble. Then take one of those bubble branches and put its main bubble on the next page, leaving room to expand it out with any & every idea related to it you can think of. Don’t hold back. No idea is bad or stupid or silly. This is a place for everything under the sun, literally! When you feel done, pick out your favorite ideas and arrange them into a list to use on your Outlining page later. Then go back and choose another bubble branch from your main Mind Map and do it all over again, repeating this process until you have enough info about your story/characters/setting. Voila!
Ideas List
Ever had an idea and not written it down, only to forget it? Or you wrote it down and now have no clue where that note went? Sigh. It’s happened to all of us. But when you keep all your ideas in one place, those frustrations become a thing of the past. The second collection I recommend for your writer’s bujo is an Ideas List. I include columns in my Idea List for the title of the project, the genre, and then a space for notes on the basic plot and characters. That way, nothing falls through the cracks. When I’m starting a new project, I can review all my possible ideas in one place, eventually choosing one to Mind Map.
Genre List
So now you have an idea. But what kind of idea is it? Having a list of all the different genre types can help you with this problem, as well as inspire you when you’re stuck for an idea entirely. Ever tried writing a novel outside your usual genre? A Genre List can show you the way to new worlds of imagination, or just get you out of a writing rut. And when you approach a publisher or publish yourself, it’s important to know where you fit in the world of the virtual bookshelf.
Character List
Next, I recommend a Character List. This doesn’t need to be detailed; a list with the character’s name and a brief description will suffice. This is a great place to keep characters that you don’t know where to put yet as well, like ones you Mind Mapped for a project, but then cut for some reason or another, or someone you saw in a cafe and want to recall for later, but don’t have a story for yet. Add to this whenever the character bug strikes you.
Name List
I come across great names to use in my stories all the time. But when I sit down to write, I always draw a blank as to what they were. That’s where a Name List comes in. In this collection, you keep track of all those wonderful monikers that flee your brain as soon as you sit down in front of the keyboard. You’ll never name a secondary character ‘UNKNOWN ’ again. You can even break them down into separate lists for heroines, heroes, and secondary characters, if you want to get specific about it. If you’re stuck, here’s a great place to browse.
Character Pages
OK, I know what you’re saying: I already have a Character List. Why do I need Character Pages as well? Because they’re different. Yes, they really are. You’ve come up with an idea, found your genre, created your characters and named them. You’re ready to start your project, but first, you need to know your characters inside and out. You need a place to jot down how they speak, how they react to situations, what they want most in life. You need a separate page (or three) for each character in your current WIP, with enough space to get into their skin. Yes, you really do. Trust me. Here’s a link to a good character development worksheet. In addition to what’s listed there, I’d include a few lines for your character’s motivations and goals. Here’s a great post to explain what I mean by that.
Outline Pages
And now we get into the meat of a writer’s bullet journal. If you’re an outliner (or planner, as they‘re commonly called), the next section is for you. Everyone does the outlining process differently, so feel free to customize these pages however you want. If you’re a write-without-planning type (or a pantser, as most people refer to it), you can still use Outlining Pages to take brief notes or write down dialogue snippets or whatever you need them for. Personally, I’m a combo of both (or a plantser, as I like to call myself). I use the Outlining Pages to write a scene list as I go along, knowing that I can revise or trash it any time I like. You can also use them to build yourself a template based on whatever you use to construct your tales, be it the Three Act structure or a Beat Sheet or some other method (here’s a list of videos to help you figure out what to use, if you don’t know yet). Then, every time you start a new project in your writer’s bujo, you can copy those pages and paste them into your new project’s section.
So that should get you started with creating your Writer’s Bullet Journal. With these collections, you’ll be on your way to a completed novel in no time! Check back here in the next few weeks for the second installment in the series, where I show you how to take your novel from first word to publication. And as always, if you have comments or ideas to share, please leave them down below. Happy writing, fellow writers!