What is Reddit's opinion of Linked Notes?

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I use Google Docs a lot. I'd say for 90% of my design, outline, timeline, and planning work.

One thing that Google Docs doesn't do, or something it might do that I haven't found, is create hyperlinks between documents. Kind of like a Wikipedia for your story. I love wiki's because you can just click on the hyperlink words in case you forgot what that term was. It's great for my needs.

Linked Notes is a good, easy to use, local hosted freeware wiki software. Careful, it's .NET framework based meaning it will only work on Windows machines.

I'm sure there are other alternatives for Mac OS or Linux, if anyone is interested enough to look into wiki's.

Timelines would work. Also creating a wiki on your own local hard drive could work. You can write a chronological summary about all your story elements. In that summary, text hyperlinks could bring you to other wiki pages to fill in more details. You know, just like Wikipedia, but for your own story world.

The one freeware wiki program I use is for Windows only, because it requires the .NET framework. It's not the most sophisticated software, but it's free. I'm sure there are others out there, and others for Mac OS or Linux, I just haven't looked. Scrivener can do a decent job emulating a wiki, since it can create hyperlinks between pages.

EDIT - There's also the Aeon Timeline plugin for Scrivener for an additional fee. But doing this, you could create a Scrivener-wiki and have an accompanying visual timeline drawn out.

Have you considered a wiki? Or using Scrivener's hypertext referencing?

I use the free desktop version of Linked Notes. It automatically creates hypertext links if the words you're typing are the same as a page's title. That way, if you're reading one idea and you forget something that's mentioned, you can click the link and read up on that. Just like reading topics in Wikipedia, but for your story.

The catch is that it only works in Windows because it uses .NET framework. Sorry Apple and Linux peeps, unless you get a virtual machine with a Windows boot.

Scrivener already has a hypertext linking feature, so you can do it in there too.

The other catch is that you're pretty much writing all the background information into wiki pages, which can take a while especially if you have a lot of big and complex ideas linked together. It would be like writing another book made up of just your scribbled notes. If you're patient and willing to do it, then I recommend you try it.

> And the 'prequels' may be good stories on their own, and/or likely attribute to the 'lore' of the universe.

If your story is a smashing success, people will want to know more. And you will be ready! How convenient.

If you're interested, I recommend using a wiki or something that creates hyperlinks to keep all your prequel installments straight if you have more than one or two. That's probably the biggest downside of writing numerous installments in a persistent universe: organization is more complicated.

I also recommend making a universal timeline showing all the stories' events in a linear fashion. Nothing is more embarrassing than referencing a scene in one short story that hasn't technically occurred yet in the other. Then you got to use time travel to explain how the characters reacted to events in a scene without actually going there yet. But then that means they could have influenced themselves to act the way they will after they get there, so then would they have acted differently knowing what they previously wanted to do in advance?

For simple wiki-based note taking, I use Linked Notes which automatically matches text to a wiki page of the same title. It's quick, painless, unlimited, free, and un/fortunately only for Windows because it requires the .NET framework. Scrivener has a macOS client if you have Apple. It has a lot of bells and whistles that are neat, and it often goes on sale especially in advance of Nanowrimo coming up. I use Scrivener for writing the actual manuscript, as Linked Notes isn't the best at word processing.

Or just get started writing and enjoy the ride.

> I wish you luck with your own writing career.

And the same to you!

I created my own Wiki (it's fairly easy dw) :

http://www.linkednotes.com/

And I have simply created a repository of all the 2nd/3rd Line issues I have resolved and a brief description of how I resolved them. I also have a separate section outlining how i've implemented/changed something. It is incredibly useful and has saved me a lot of stress in the longrun. That is my method of documentation (not including the more corporate documentation side of things)

With regards to the position you're in, it may seem daunting, however it is a rare opportunity to really learn things from the bare bones up. Dealing with a network of that size does not mean it isn't something you can learn a lot from. Principals that may apply on a network that size will more often than not still apply to larger network. When I first started dealing with my first corporate network (around 10 workstations, 2 servers) I made sure that I did everything to a standard that was much higher than was needed, down the all of the cable runs being perfectly parallel etc. Instead of thinking of your current position as a lot of pressure and a chance for you to really cock things up, try an think of it as an opportunity to really excel!

The most important piece of advice I would give somebody just starting out, is if you don't know how to do something, ask! Whether it be a community such as this one or a friend, it is much better to admit that you don't know how to do something than to bodge it.

The other main piece of advice I will give to make your life easier is to undersell and over deliver, not over sell and under deliver. If you think something may take a week, tell them it'll take 2, that way it allows you time to do it properly, and delivering it before the time you set is positive. Don't tell them it'll take a week, as if it goes wrong you will feel massively under pressure and look bad in the process.

I'll stop typing now, just my thoughts!

Best of luck.

Sorry, my nerd was showing!

Linkednotes is a piece of freeware; you can find it here. Linkednotes can be installed and ran directly from a flash or jump drive (or USB stick, depending on where you live, might be named differently). You can then run the program and work on your outline, etc, straight from that flash drive on almost any computer that runs Windows.

The problem, though, is that program needs another program to run--more appropriately, a framework called .NET, which is made by Microsoft and is also free (a lot of newer computers already have it, and dozens of other programs need it to run, including several games). However, if you do not have the ability to install said framework on the computer, you can't run Linkednotes; for example, my work computers don't have .NET, and they won't let me install it.

See, kids, this is what it looks like to be overqualified for your job!

I also recommend some kind of wiki page. I use a wiki-type of notepad called Linked Notes. It's pretty barebones, but I like it that way. It's simple to use and the hyperlinks are automatically created if you type a word that exists as a page. It stays local to your drive, and isn't stored on the internet. You can even run it inside a thumbdrive because the application filesize is tiny. You can carry the thumbdrive with you and run it off any Windows desktop. It's like a regular notepad file but with hyperlinks and multiple pages. If you get the premium edition, there are some export functions that can publish it online or into an RTF or MS Word document.

NOTE: This particular Linked Notes wiki application requires Microsoft .NET to run, so you can't use this if you have an Apple computer.