Blogger and WU reader LJ Cohen has created an ingenious method of organizing information that’s embeddable into your wip — and not a post-it or scribbled napkin in sight — called TiddlyWikiWrite. In part one of her two-part series on TiddlyWikiWrite, Lisa described what a wiki was and how writers can use them to corral the mountains of information needed for a book. Part two shows us TiddlyWikiWrite in action. I can’t wait to give this one a whirl. Click the link to embiggen — Kath.
Examples of Use
1. Research
Tiddlers can easily hold information gleaned from books or websites, including live hyperlinks to URLs. (At its most basic, think of the Tiddlywiki as a digital repository for virtual index cards.)
It was much simpler to copy/paste the information into a tagged tiddler along with the URL for the source than to lose the bookmark amongst the hundreds of bookmarks in my firefox setup.
2. Character Development
I created a tiddler for each character (right), including physical description, role in his/her culture, connection to other characters (linked with wikiWords), history, motivation, etc.
This is a list of all the character tiddlers in my Heal Thyself wiki. It’s also helpful to see all my characters’ names in one list.
And this is the tiddler for my main female protagonist (left). Lilliane’s entry is not all that extensive, as I only did a minimal to moderate amount of pre-planning with this project. But even approaching this novel more like a ‘pantser’, I found using the wiki to be invaluable in keeping me on track.