Wikis for Writers by Misa Buckley
With NaNoWriMo just around the corner, I thought I'd share an organisational tool that you might not have thought about - wikis.
I imagine most are familiar with Wikipedia, so understand the concept of a wiki. What you might not know is that you can create your own. There are several that work along the principals of Wordpress - you set up an account and the wiki is a subdomain - but you can also download the program and host it on your own webspace. I went with the former option, and created a wiki on wikispaces.
I created my wiki to worldbuild for a series of urban fantasy novellas. So far, I've created sections on characters, species and "episodes", and even in these early stages the database is proving invaluable. Not only can I set out an article for each component, but I can link them - for instance, I have a character called Gaia, who is a Golem. So her page links to the one on Golems, meaning that I can check on how I've developed that species at a click.
Right now, my wiki is private and only I can see or edit it, but wikispaces allows a variety of options. It can be set up for others to see and edit, while keeping it private from the internet at large. So if you have a big project that involves other writers, it provides an area to collaborate and pool ideas.
It can also be set to public view (but private editing). You might wonder why you'd want to do such a thing, but readers love delving into the "guts" of a book, especially if it's part of a series. Wikis exist for famous novel series like The Wheel of Time (WOT) and films like Star Wars (Wookiepedia). I'm planning to host my wiki eventually as part of the website, so that readers can really immerse themselves - it's nice to offer that sort of interactivity.
But even if you don't want to go the whole hog, a wiki remains a fabulous way to organise your notes in a way that should be familiar. I really recommend it :)
I imagine most are familiar with Wikipedia, so understand the concept of a wiki. What you might not know is that you can create your own. There are several that work along the principals of Wordpress - you set up an account and the wiki is a subdomain - but you can also download the program and host it on your own webspace. I went with the former option, and created a wiki on wikispaces.
I created my wiki to worldbuild for a series of urban fantasy novellas. So far, I've created sections on characters, species and "episodes", and even in these early stages the database is proving invaluable. Not only can I set out an article for each component, but I can link them - for instance, I have a character called Gaia, who is a Golem. So her page links to the one on Golems, meaning that I can check on how I've developed that species at a click.
Right now, my wiki is private and only I can see or edit it, but wikispaces allows a variety of options. It can be set up for others to see and edit, while keeping it private from the internet at large. So if you have a big project that involves other writers, it provides an area to collaborate and pool ideas.
It can also be set to public view (but private editing). You might wonder why you'd want to do such a thing, but readers love delving into the "guts" of a book, especially if it's part of a series. Wikis exist for famous novel series like The Wheel of Time (WOT) and films like Star Wars (Wookiepedia). I'm planning to host my wiki eventually as part of the website, so that readers can really immerse themselves - it's nice to offer that sort of interactivity.
But even if you don't want to go the whole hog, a wiki remains a fabulous way to organise your notes in a way that should be familiar. I really recommend it :)
