For both professional and aspiring writers, Logseq can be an incredibly powerful tool.
This is particularly true for fiction authors. Many of them are constantly getting ideas — plotlines, characters, character arcs, backstories, world-building details, dialogues, descriptions, and so on. Some of them have set up a system where they jot down their thoughts on index cards and organize them by category. Later on, when they are ready to incorporate these ideas into a novel or short story, they can pull them out for reference.
This is a great use case for Logseq. Savvy authors can enter ideas as they occur into Logseq on a daily basis. Later on, when the time is right, they can easily access all the ideas they’ve ever had on any topic. This is far superior to the index card method, because:
Their previous entries come up chronologically, so they can examine the evolution of a particular concept over time, which may spark even more ideas.
Once in a while, they may surprise themselves when they see something from years ago that they have forgotten — human memory is far from perfect.
Logseq can show them connections between ideas that eluded them before. Some ideas, previously thought to be unconnected, can come together in unexpected, synergistic ways.
All of the above showcase the value of Logseq.
At the moment, Logseq is still not as well known as one would prefer. The authors of my personal acquaintance are still not aware of it, and I don’t know of any published authors out there who are using Logseq on a daily basis.
Of course, one doesn’t have to be an author to capture ideas with Logseq. Your own ideas may be entirely different from those of a novelist, but the same methodology applies. Logseq goes well beyond the benefits of keeping a daily journal — it give you something like an x-ray vision through your own mind from the past to the present.
Not sure if I can provide an example but here’s how I used block-based outliners for writing a 200k fantasy novel:
1. The master outline
a Chapter summary block tagged #summary. When filtered on tag, it reduces the document to the bare-bones outline. Useful for seeing the big picture.
a brainstorming block. Anything relared to the chapter outline goes here, pre-writing.
Scene by scene outlines: breakdown of each chaptee into scenes and a more detailed outline for each scene, pre-writing.
Scene todos and revision notes: anything I need to remember to change after having written the chapter. I usually leave these open for a while, they might become obsolete once as the story develops.
As I write, I make notes in the daily journal and tag specific chapter/scene blocks if anything random comes up I need to remember. I schedule cleanup time to clean the outline as I go and move any relevant notes from the journal pages into revision notes to keep things tidy.
2. Character pages
These have some character templates, but mostly I use them as tags inside daily notes when I explore character relationships with other characters, their arcs and the worldbuilding.
3. World bible
Pages for specific world-building elements. These tend to become very convoluted and often contradictory, so every now and again I’ll go and make a ‘canon’ version by pulling all references into the sidebar and distill down the truth. This is where some surprising insights can come to light.
4. A revision inbox
Just a hashtag to serve as a quick catch-all for everything I capture on the go or stuff that exceeds a single chapter/scene. I will periodically clean this up and place into their respective scene notes. Feedback from readers goes here.
That said, I’ve had to switch from Logseq back to Roam because of lazy loading and overall performance when cleaning up the world bible. I do hope it becomes faster eventually.
The master outline was the issue because it is a long document. Quickly focusing into anything beyond Chapter 20 became impossible.
Similarly, when I had 15+ items in the sidebar and trying to do actual research, performance dropped significantly to the point where even typing text had a noticeable delay. Such a shame because it’s otherwise a fantastic tool.