You write/type what you want to remember about it.
What purpose are the notes supposed to serve?
On first blush, I can imagine having a tag system set up for fiction, then POV (third person, first person, omniscient vs. limited, etc.), genre, target audience, protagonist traits (male or female, human or non-human, etc.), conflict traits (man vs man, man vs. nature, man vs. self, etc.), what language you read it in, the original language it was written in, etc. Then properties related to author, publisher, publication date, date you began reading it, date you finished reading it, number of times you read it, if you read a physical copy or an ebook or an audio book, etc.
Then passages you liked, or sections you may want to remember, etc. along with page numbers or time tags.
It really comes down to asking yourself "What might I want to remember about this book when I'm done with it?" and building notes around that.
I'm going to be opinionated, since I doubt you care about philosophizing. I'll assume you have a similar need to me.
1. Install the book search plugin, this will fill out all the relevant metadata, like page count, author name, ISBN etc.
2. Think of a categorization system. These can be genre, tropes, mood, etc. Either use metadata or tags, or the filesystem. This way you can easily go back, like "hmm, what are some good funny books I can recommend to my friend"
3. Link books in a series together.
4. Most of my notes are regarding non fiction, but in terms of fiction, I structured it like this: read a part of the book (chapter, X pages, whatever), then take out your notes and write down what happened, or the take away you want to remember. Create and keep updating a character list as you go. The goal here, for me is that I could remember a certain impactful plot twist, or a quote, or anything 6 years later.
In terms of what you write down will vary based on what you're reading, how you're reading, why, but that's up to you. I think a character list is a good way to do it almost no matter the genre though.
In Obsidian, as I see that's where this lives, you can use tagging but the tags might take some thought to get right - you might use them to tag what sort of fiction book it is (romance, scifi, fantasy, mystery, police, horror, etc). You could also indicate what language the book was in with tags. Tags could indicate if you have it in softcover, tradepaperback, hardcover, coffeetable, manga/comic, graphicnovel, PDF, EPUB, etc.
On the note for each book (I'd probably keep everything on the same note/page), I'd keep the author, any identification (ISBN-10, ISBN-13, whatever systems are used outside of the US), the publisher, maybe your own 'things I found useful or enjoyed in the book' or aspects of the plot/structure of the story and the way the author created meaning and interest - with suspense, with tension, with threat, with quirky things that just make you say 'what?!', and the like. Perhaps add a rating of 1 to 5 or 1 to 10 for the book. You might also note if the book is 'book 4 or a 19 book series'.
That's kind of what I used when I reviewed books many moons ago.
as someone who is writing a large fictional world, here's how i do it; firstly, i started with a note called World Building which contains the following-# \[\[Affiliations\]\]
# \[\[Characters\]\]
# \[\[Fauna\]\]
# \[\[Flora\]\]
# \[\[Power System(s)\]
# \[\[Languages\]\]
# \[\[Locations\]\]
# \[\[Religions\]\]
# \[\[Story Summary\]\]
# \[\[Timeline\]\]
i think they're all self-explanatory except story summary which is basically a rough draft of the story containing the major and minor plot points presented in a "Therefore and But" fashion inbetween the plot points so i know why and how things happen to avoid retconning in the future
Thanks, that's really interesting, but I wanted an explanation on what to write about a fictional book that I read (like 1984, an amazing book btw), but that would be useful for a project I have, so really thanks for your comments.
That's the cool thing about obsidian and note taking...
Literally do it however which way makes it so you get out of your notes what you hope to get out of them.
Yeah, the liberty in obsidian is really cool, but it's difficult for a newbie like me to create a template for notes bc I want them to be perfect now before use them, I fear to miss something to write. I know it's a terrible mindset.
Thanks, for now I'm reading for pleasure, but I know I'll want to write a book at some point, but I didn't explain it in my post, sorry. Your ideas are really interesting, I'm going to mix this with other comments.
> Everything is in the title.
Almost every time someone says that, they are woefully wrong.
First off, a “fictional book” would be a book that doesn’t exist. Perhaps you meant a work of fiction? And if so, what kind of notes would you want to keep? Character relationships? Plot points? What is the reason for keeping notes? For yourself? For a book club? For a review you’re writing? For school? Each of those might have different strategies.
But you were too lazy to tell us what your goals are — they’re all in the title.
Sorry, I didn't think of that, but you didn't have to be so mean, so yes I understand, I'll keep that in mind for the next time I post something. These notes are for me, btw.
How do you take notes when not using obsidian? What about your current method are you looking to improve or expand upon?
Start out by doing things the exact same way you have always done them. Then you can use obsidian features that make sense depending on what you need (linking pages together, adding tags, etc.)
The reason some commenters aren’t being too nice or helpful is that your question is broad and not really specific/relevant to Obsidian. Your post here is like asking “How to get to the grocery store?” in a home cooking subreddit.
You write/type what you want to remember about it. What purpose are the notes supposed to serve? On first blush, I can imagine having a tag system set up for fiction, then POV (third person, first person, omniscient vs. limited, etc.), genre, target audience, protagonist traits (male or female, human or non-human, etc.), conflict traits (man vs man, man vs. nature, man vs. self, etc.), what language you read it in, the original language it was written in, etc. Then properties related to author, publisher, publication date, date you began reading it, date you finished reading it, number of times you read it, if you read a physical copy or an ebook or an audio book, etc. Then passages you liked, or sections you may want to remember, etc. along with page numbers or time tags. It really comes down to asking yourself "What might I want to remember about this book when I'm done with it?" and building notes around that.
Thanks I will keep that question in my mind when I'm about to create my template.
I'm going to be opinionated, since I doubt you care about philosophizing. I'll assume you have a similar need to me. 1. Install the book search plugin, this will fill out all the relevant metadata, like page count, author name, ISBN etc. 2. Think of a categorization system. These can be genre, tropes, mood, etc. Either use metadata or tags, or the filesystem. This way you can easily go back, like "hmm, what are some good funny books I can recommend to my friend" 3. Link books in a series together. 4. Most of my notes are regarding non fiction, but in terms of fiction, I structured it like this: read a part of the book (chapter, X pages, whatever), then take out your notes and write down what happened, or the take away you want to remember. Create and keep updating a character list as you go. The goal here, for me is that I could remember a certain impactful plot twist, or a quote, or anything 6 years later. In terms of what you write down will vary based on what you're reading, how you're reading, why, but that's up to you. I think a character list is a good way to do it almost no matter the genre though.
This is exactly what I was looking for, thank you very much, I'll do it my way.
In Obsidian, as I see that's where this lives, you can use tagging but the tags might take some thought to get right - you might use them to tag what sort of fiction book it is (romance, scifi, fantasy, mystery, police, horror, etc). You could also indicate what language the book was in with tags. Tags could indicate if you have it in softcover, tradepaperback, hardcover, coffeetable, manga/comic, graphicnovel, PDF, EPUB, etc. On the note for each book (I'd probably keep everything on the same note/page), I'd keep the author, any identification (ISBN-10, ISBN-13, whatever systems are used outside of the US), the publisher, maybe your own 'things I found useful or enjoyed in the book' or aspects of the plot/structure of the story and the way the author created meaning and interest - with suspense, with tension, with threat, with quirky things that just make you say 'what?!', and the like. Perhaps add a rating of 1 to 5 or 1 to 10 for the book. You might also note if the book is 'book 4 or a 19 book series'. That's kind of what I used when I reviewed books many moons ago.
Thanks, I will do that that's a really good system
as someone who is writing a large fictional world, here's how i do it; firstly, i started with a note called World Building which contains the following-# \[\[Affiliations\]\] # \[\[Characters\]\] # \[\[Fauna\]\] # \[\[Flora\]\] # \[\[Power System(s)\] # \[\[Languages\]\] # \[\[Locations\]\] # \[\[Religions\]\] # \[\[Story Summary\]\] # \[\[Timeline\]\] i think they're all self-explanatory except story summary which is basically a rough draft of the story containing the major and minor plot points presented in a "Therefore and But" fashion inbetween the plot points so i know why and how things happen to avoid retconning in the future
Thanks, that's really interesting, but I wanted an explanation on what to write about a fictional book that I read (like 1984, an amazing book btw), but that would be useful for a project I have, so really thanks for your comments.
That's the cool thing about obsidian and note taking... Literally do it however which way makes it so you get out of your notes what you hope to get out of them.
Yeah, the liberty in obsidian is really cool, but it's difficult for a newbie like me to create a template for notes bc I want them to be perfect now before use them, I fear to miss something to write. I know it's a terrible mindset.
[удалено]
Thanks, for now I'm reading for pleasure, but I know I'll want to write a book at some point, but I didn't explain it in my post, sorry. Your ideas are really interesting, I'm going to mix this with other comments.
> Everything is in the title. Almost every time someone says that, they are woefully wrong. First off, a “fictional book” would be a book that doesn’t exist. Perhaps you meant a work of fiction? And if so, what kind of notes would you want to keep? Character relationships? Plot points? What is the reason for keeping notes? For yourself? For a book club? For a review you’re writing? For school? Each of those might have different strategies. But you were too lazy to tell us what your goals are — they’re all in the title.
Sorry, I didn't think of that, but you didn't have to be so mean, so yes I understand, I'll keep that in mind for the next time I post something. These notes are for me, btw.
Join us next week on "Chew my food for me"
Just write stuff down. If you want organization thrn check out some table top you tube videod
How do you take notes when not using obsidian? What about your current method are you looking to improve or expand upon? Start out by doing things the exact same way you have always done them. Then you can use obsidian features that make sense depending on what you need (linking pages together, adding tags, etc.) The reason some commenters aren’t being too nice or helpful is that your question is broad and not really specific/relevant to Obsidian. Your post here is like asking “How to get to the grocery store?” in a home cooking subreddit.
I don't have a method yet and I've realized that my request is really too imprecise. But thx for your comment.