Using Obsidian for developing a plot

Latte Other Software & Development
1

Hi,

I’m exploring the possibilities of using Obsidian to expand the plotting capabilities available in Scrivener.

As of now, I’ve always just created separate documents for different themes in a Development Notes section. For example, I can have separate documents for:

  • Male protagonist
  • Female protagonist
  • Antagonist
  • Relations in a couple
  • The environment in which they move
  • Things to do when together

In Scrivener I can create internal links between, for example:

  • the male and female protagonists
  • the protagonists and the environment in which they move
  • things to do in the free time when together

When going through each document/card, I can see the links to the other themes, and go explore them.

With Obsidian, these links could be seen as a graph. Do you think this has some real usefulness? If you use Obsidian, how do you use the graph? In the long run, it ends up being useful of just messy?

A case I may think to: I see there is a link between the male protagonist and the environment. But I don’t see one between the female protagonist and the environment. This should show me, immediately, that I didn’t develop that aspect of the story.

Can you integrate the notes written in Scrivener with Obsidian? I’m thinking that I could export the documents from my Development Notes folder, and open them as a vault in Obsidian. Scrivener will export them numbered, so they will appear in the correct order in Obsidian.

At this point, the exported documents should be immediately available for graphing in Obsidian. I could therefore update the vault with new links and changes to the text. When done, the documents could be returned to Scrivener.

But are internal links exported from Scrivener compatible with the Markdown ones used by Obsidian? (I must check it, while testing the system). Obsidian can save internal links with the standard Markdown syntax, and Scrivener should be able to translate them into its own format. But will it convert them into its internal links?

Paolo

2

Isn’t it best to cover this with the Obsidian forum?

3 Likes
3

After further considerations, I think that the workflow should be different.

  • All the initial Development Notes about protagonists, environment, etc. should be done in Obsidian. It’s not yet the writing stage, but the ideation one. An ideation tool seems to be more appropriate.
  • After having shaped the themes, the resulting .md documents can be imported into Scrivener, when I can start writing.
  • The Scrivener project will have a document only dedicated to linking to the Obsidian vault. Returning there, when needed, would be just a click.

Paolo

4

Something that would help this workflow (Obsidian → Scrivener) is the ability of converting the Wiki-style links. Obsidian privileges the more human-readable Wiki-style ones, while Scrivener can understand the classic Markdown style. Adding compatibility with the former would make the transfer of files effortless.

Obsidian has a plugin that can do the conversion, but having this compatibility directly in Scrivener would make it easier.

Paolo

5

Paolo, I’ve posted a lot on integrating Scrivener with Obsidian. If you search, I’m sure you will bump into the discussions on this. I think you will find some of the things we discussed in those threads helpful.

1 Like
6

In the past, my workflow was:

  • Shape the initial idea in Scapple.
  • Expand the diagram points in separate documents in Scrivener.
  • Built the story from there.

What I have always missed (among other things) is a way to keep the deep level coherent. Links betweed documents have always been a great help in keeping all together while the project was growing.

However, Obsidian introduces a further level of assistance, by making the links visual. After the initial shaping in Scapple, it’s a bit like a way of continuing to think visually, this time not on the igniting idea, but on the proliferation of branches in the actual development.

It’s a great level of control. Yes, I wish a future version of Scrivener did include something like Obsidian’s Graph, tailored for story development. It would be like a better way to see the constellations, instead of the individual stars.

Paolo

7

Something I really like in the wiki links of Obsidian: the aliases. For example:

  • In a note I want to refer to traditional foods. But I also need a note about a party with traditional foods, because their inclusion in a group of notes about parties makes more sense than them in isolation.
  • I can therefore just use an alias in a link, and write: “There are party with traditional foods|traditional foods in the village”, and this will appear as “There are traditional foods in the village”.

All very fast.

What I miss from Obsidian (and one of the reasons I would like these features in Scrivener) is a more accessible snapshot function. I’m deeply reshaping the cards, and sometimes I wish I could see what I had written in a previous version. The snapshot function in Obsidian (File Recovery) is rudimental and hard to use. Scrivener, we all know how great it is.

Paolo