This post was written specifically for the #AuthorToolboxBlogHop.

In a recent post here, I said that one of my projects for this year was to organize my notes for my House Valerius series. So, because of that (and, in all honesty, because I’m struggling to think of another topic), I’m going to show you how I’m compiling those notes.

A couple of things before I get started:

1. Since I predominantly use Scrivener for my writing, it’s also what I’m using for this. I expect that the basics can be adapted to other formats.
2. Since I’ve only just started collating everything, this has to be considered a work in progress and incomplete.
3. With my intent to revise the first two books as well as work on the third or supplementary short stories, these notes are not specific to any one work.

Character Notes

First of all, I divided it things into primary, secondary and tertiary characters. Then, each named character gets their own folder with three notecards inside. One for their physical descriptions, one for the important biographical details and one for their links to other characters.

The Houses

In the world of my series, the Ceteri (my race of biological vampires hidden amidst humanity) are grouped into various Houses. I divided these into those still active as of the main series and those that had been either lost or destroyed.

Inside each House folder are notecards for their foundings; other notable events, details & locations for both their primary building and other properties or businesses owed, and a list of characters affiliated with that House.

Glossary

This section has notes for names, titles and the like unique to the Ceteri society. The first folder has cards for occasions, such as the annual meeting where the rulers of all the Houses gather together.

The second folder has notes on the terms used for specific groups of people within the Ceteri society.

And the third folder is for the terms or titles given to certain individuals.

Plot

All of the above sections are mainly going to be for use with backstory but this last section is for plot notes. First there are notecards for events or plotlines that I plan to include in the next book.

Then I have cards for the unanswered questions that have come out of the previous two books that need to be resolved or explored further.

That’s all I have set up at the moment. I hope setting these out like so might help when it comes to compiling your own notes.

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