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Do you have a lot of lore to keep track of? Whether you're an author, a Game Master, or simply someone who really really likes worldbuilding, this post is for you.
Here's a quick overview of what I'll be talking about:
Platforms people use to create personal wikis
Formats and organization systems you may find useful when creating your own wiki
A brief look at the actual content you might put in your wiki (I'm planning a more in-depth post on that later with more images and demos)
And because this is gonna be a long'un, I'm putting a read-more here! I'll also make downloadable epub and PDF versions of this post available for free on my Ko-Fi at some point in the future.
(I'm also planning to reblog with a list of links later on, but I want this initial post shows up in search)
Also now that you're here, I'm going to say this isn't, like, super comprehensive or anything. I'm just talking about stuff I know a little about or have experience with. Please feel free to reblog with additions and/or corrections as needed!
According to Wikipedia, "a wiki is a hypertext publication collaboratively edited and managed by its own audience, using a web browser."
In this case, you'll likely be the sole person making updates to your wiki. The web browser part is optional these days as well, as you'll soon see.
Websites for creating worldbuilding wikis
WorldAnvil
This one is actually designed for people who want to create big worldbuilding wikis.
Pros: Worldbuilding prompts! Those are great. It's got a pretty comprehensive set of article types too.
Cons: Kind of expensive to upgrade for features like making your wiki private, and it does NOT work well with adblock turned on, so if you don't want to pay for a membership you'll get inundated with ads. I'm not a huge fan of the interface in general and a lot of it isn't intuitive, but I like what they're doing so I support them anyway.
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Tiddlywiki/Tiddlyhost.com.
In addition to having a cat as its icon and also a silly name, each 'article' you create with this is called a 'tiddler' which makes me think of Chuck Tingle. I haven't used it much myself yet, but I did make an account and it seems pretty neat.
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Miraheze
A community-hosted wiki platform that runs on MediaWiki (which is what Wikipedia runs off of).
Pros: It's not Fandom.com.
Cons: You have to request a wiki and can't just make it yourself, as far as I can tell. I haven't actually looked into this one as much.
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Neocities
An option for if you want to go super oldschool and create a website using only basic html and hyperlinks (without the handy shortcuts of bbcode or Markdown). Monthly cost is $5 usd if you want to have more space and your own domain.
Pros: 100% control over your content.
Cons: Doesn't support PHP databases for wiki software, and can be fairly labour-intensive to update if you break a link or something.
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Fandom.com
Unfortunately, this one is the top result you'll get when you look up how to make your own wiki. I'm only including it here to tell you to stay as far away from it as possible!!
Its staff are known to ban wiki creators from their own wikis and a bunch of other nonsense that I'm not getting into here.
Programs and apps/web apps for creating worldbuilding wikis
Obsidian.md
My personal favourite. I'm planning to make a whole post about how I use it in the near future as part of this article series.
It's a markdown-based application that you can get on just about any platform (Windows, MacOS, Linux, iOS, Android, etc) which is great. Obsidian is really easy to pick up and use and also has great themes and community plugins!
Best thing is, it's FREE and you only have to pay if you use their publishing service, which... I don't, so.
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Notion
I've heard this one is pretty good too. Idk if it costs anything. It's another "second brain" style app (might be markdown also?) and I think it might do more than Obsidian, but I haven't checked it out much myself.
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Microsoft Word/Google Docs etc.
...Or just about any word processor that lets you create internal hyperlinks. Word may work best due to the collapsible headings so it doesn't get too unwieldy, but *shrug* whatever floats your boat.
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Excel/Google Sheets etc.
Or, again, any spreadsheet creator that lets you create internal hyperlinks.
I'd recommend having some basic spreadsheet knowledge before doing this. It could get complicated. Before I started using Obsidian, I was using Sheets to keep track of my glossary, notes about characters, and plot ideas.
There are as many organization systems as there are people who want to organize their stuff. Everybody needs something a little different! I find the ones that work best for me are systems that have a lot of customization options.
Here are a couple I know of.
Johnny Decimal
This system is absurdly simple in its concept and yet so versatile. From their website (it's just johnnydecimal dot com but I'll link it in a reblog later):
Take everything you need to organise and sort it in to, at most, ten large buckets.
Make sure the buckets are unambiguously different.
Put a label on each bucket.
Their website has a better explanation than I can give in this post, but I'll sum up the appeal of this system as quoted from their site: "There's only one place anything can ever be."
Usefully, part of this method is creating a directory for the rest of the system.
So if you're like me and tend to shove things wherever only to lose track of it later, this is a great system—especially when used in conjunction with the Zettelkasten Method (see below).
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Zettelkasten Method
Originally devised as an extensive paper-based knowledge management system, Zettelkasten is meant to easily add new entries to a knowledge base while giving each one a unique ID for easy 'linking.'
The creator of this method said 'it is not important where you place the note, as long as you can link to it.'
As with the Johnny Decimal system, I can't explain it super succinctly (nor can the website, if I'm being honest), so I'll include a link in a future reblog for a video that gave me an excellent run-down of the basics.
An organization system is only useful if you can actually, y'know, use it.
It can be fun to set up a super-detailed organization system with predetermined categories for everything, but is it easy for you to use? How will you navigate it?
Making decisions
There will be a lot of decisions to make as you set up your system. The only set-in-stone rule I follow is... don't set anything in stone. It's okay if you decide something that doesn't work later on.
Figuring out your categories
My advice: go fairly broad. You can always sub-categorize. I'm going to go over my own wikis for Athenaeum and Rocket Boosters in detail in a later post, but here are the starting top-level categories I'd recommend for worldbuilders:
A meta category for notes about your database, templates, and any relevant research you've done.
Characters, including main characters, minor characters, and important figures
Worldbuilding
In the last category, which is the main reason for the existence of my wiki, I might have:
Culture
History
Locations
Organizations
Lore (if relevant)
Technology
Transportation
I'll go over the nuances of these 'main' subcategories in that future post I mentioned. In other words, the stuff that actually goes in those categories!
Determining the importance and relevance of worldbuilding elements
You'll need to figure out whether a topic is complex enough to deserve its own entry, or if it should be a sub-heading under another entry. It's okay if you decide on both! I have short subheadings under some entries that amount to "see [link to main entry on that topic]."
I've also decided to expand subheadings into their own topics, and I've removed topics as their own entry and shoved them under subheadings. I do this a lot, in fact! So it's okay if you don't know.
Templates
Will you be creating several of one type of entry?
Individual character profiles
Towns and cities
Factions
(to name a few)
It might be handy to figure out the basic types of information you'll need about each of those things and create a template for them.
A character template might have spaces for the basics, such as name, role, age, and so on.
Some characters will have a lot more information, and some might have even less than what your template dictates! And that's fine.
A word of warning about using system-creation as procrastination
Creating a wiki can be a daunting task. You might decide it's not for you, and that's okay. But you might also decide to go headlong into the process and work on every minute detail, and that is also okay, but.
But.
Beware of using your wiki as an excuse to procrastinate your actual writing/session preparation. Yes, use it to keep track of all the lore you've injected into your manuscript/campaign/whatever, just make sure it stays in its place as a companion to your main project rather than becoming your main project.
How formal should your entries be?
Honestly this one's entirely up to you. I have a mix. Some entries are written like Wikipedia entries with a thorough explanation of the topic with proper punctuation and formatting, while others are simply bullet-point lists of thoughts and ideas that I can return to at a later date.
What methods do you use to keep track of your lore and worldbuilding? Let me know in a reblog or comment!
And please make sure to check the notes. I'll be reblogging with links, and then reblogging that reblog to make sure they're, y'know, actually visible in the notes.