How to Make a Notebook for Your Novel

Ideas for compiling an aesthetically pleasing notebook devoted to organizing your novel.

A moodboard page in my novel notebook.

Are you tired of writing out ideas and outlines for your novel in a plain old notebook or google document?

Upon beginning my newest novel, I decided to eternalize its aesthetics in a journal. My novel notebook organizes the information needed to outline and develop my novel in an aesthetic manner. It began as a very experimental project wholly dictated by aesthetics and excerpts, but then I began to write a list of different pages that I could include to further develop the entire novel itself. I won’t share images of all of the pages due to the intimacy of the text (it would reveal parts of the story) but I will illuminate you with certain images and ideas for what you can do to design your own novel notebook, which has proven to be a valuable resource for developing my book.

First off, I would highly recommend buying scrapbook pages, washi tape, and ephemera, as well as printing out your own images and collages. I also recommend buying distress ink if you don’t want to keep your pages plain and white. I use the distress ink to blot and tint my pages into a brown shade to make them look more vintage. A novel notebook of this caliber would be incomplete without these items to further the aesthetic of your book. In my novel notebook I bought a lot of vintage, book-themed, and “dark academia” style ephemera because my book is about two anachronistic writers who fall in love, and their writing style takes after the classics. They also have a special love for vintage styles, and thus the ephemera follows my book’s theme. Are you writing a horror novel? Then find darker ephemera that is bloody and gothic. Are you writing a book that takes place in a rural setting? Then invest in some nature-themed ephemera. Are you writing a book that takes place in space or on another planet? Then find some ephemera that is space themed, or science based. Now, onto the different pages you can include in your novel notebook.

Moodboards

Again, figure out the general aesthetic of your book. Are you writing a fantasy? Then find images of what you imagine the world within your book to look like. Find images that remind you of the world’s culture. Find images that remind you of scenes in your book. Then not only can you print out and paste these images into your novel notebook, you can also collage them. I use the app Shuffles and the website Canva to collage my graphics. Shuffles is an app made by Pinterest and it directly uploads your images from your Pinterest account into the app. Pinterest is the perfect website for collecting images for your notebook, by the way. And Canva is a graphic-making website with templates that exist for practically anything; Instagram posts, logos, magazine pages, book covers, PowerPoint presentations, etcetera. With these resources I make moodboards, print them out, and paste them into my pages! At times I also collage excerpts over the moodboards.

A page featuring moodboards I made, excerpts from my novel and ephemera that I purchased.

Ideas

You can devote a page or multiple pages to ideas for your novel, including location ideas, name ideas, etcetera. On one of my idea-devoted pages, I wrote bullet-point lists for date ideas, because I am writing a slow-burn romance novel.

An Outline

You can devote a page to a general outline for your novel. It can be a loose outline, a detailed one, or simply just ideas for an outline. You can always rip out or paste over the outline if your ideas change throughout writing the book!

Loose-leaf Excerpts

Are you a person who writes excerpts on receipts, stationary, or practically any looseleaf page you can find when you are out and about? I know I am. So I devote some pages to incorporating my loose-leaf excerpts into my notebook.

A List of Things to Implement

Are you on your first draft? I assume you are. I have a page devoted to things I need to revise and implement into my story on the second draft, which serves as a reminder to fix plot holes and things I need to add to deliver more substance and backstory to my plot.

Playlists

Do you have a playlist that you listen to when you write your novel? Do your characters have certain music that they listen to? Do you have a playlist devoted to music that you want in the ideal movie adaption of your novel? Or any other types of playlists? Then include a list of songs in some of your pages! I know that for me my novel playlist is far too long to incorporate into the notebook, but my characters HAVE made playlists for each other, so I decided to incorporate the songs they picked out for one another on a few pages. That is yet another idea, characters making playlists for each other.

Documents within your Novel

Do your characters write poems? Do they write books themselves? Do your characters write letters? Are there important documents in your novel’s world such as lore-related books, imaginary recipes or recipe books? There are a plethora of ideas for documents that can exist when it comes to worldbuilding a novel. Think of the Harry Potter franchise. There are real books that exist that are books WITHIN the Harry Potter universe. You can devote a page or multiple pages to the documents featured in your novel. I have a page of poems that the two love interests have written for each other.

Locations

What are the locations in your novel? Devote a few pages to them, detailing and describing what they look like, and where they are. You can even include images that look how you imagine the buildings or scenery to look.

Locations in my novel. I have many other pages dedicated to more locations, as there are very many locations in my book.

Character Biographies

Write character biographies in your notebook! This is very important, as it helps to develop each character individually. Some things you can include are the character’s age, backstory, tastes and interests, relationships, character development, and their favorite things, etcetera. And DON’T forget to include a picture of each character, whether it is some fan art that you have drawn or commissioned, or your ideal face claim for what you imagine them to look like. I’ve found this to be very helpful to refer back to, especially when you have a large number of characters! Of course, you don’t have to get super descriptive if you have too many characters in your book and don’t want your entire novel notebook to be devoted to just character biographies.

Character biographies from my novel. (Blurred for privacy)

The Three Act Structure

If you don’t know what the three-act structure is when it comes to novel writing, I highly recommend that you google it because it is the usual blueprint for every story and film ever. I used the websites Milanote and Reedsy to make and detail my three-act structure. Then I printed out the graphic from Milanote and pasted it within my notebook.

Dialogue Ideas

You can have a page devoted to a list of dialogue ideas! I do. It’s helpful to refer back to when you are having trouble developing a scene, and they are inspiring future prompts for progressions in your story.

Scene Ideas

A list of scene ideas is very convenient, and it serves as a list of prompts for when you need inspiration.

Chapter Summaries

I have a document that details every scene that takes place within each of my chapters so that when I need to refer back to a certain scene for information, or when I need to fix something, I can easily find out where in the book a certain scene takes place. I haven’t incorporated my chapter summaries in the book yet, but it is a good idea nonetheless!

Subplots

You can also add pages devoted to the subplots within your novel!

Your Character’s Favorite Books and Media

Do your characters have favorite books, movies, or TV shows? Are you a worldbuilder where these things are invented? Then incorporating a page for this can be a brilliant idea for worldbuilding.

Note: I am writing a romance novel that takes place in modern America, so I don’t have many ideas for things to put in your novel notebook that pertain to fantasy worldbuilding. But I know that there is an endless amount of ideas when it comes to that, and I’d HIGHLY recommend creating a novel notebook if you are writing a book that includes a lot of worldbuilding. You can simply look up ways to worldbuild and then incorporate your findings into your notebook.

I hope this post was of use to you authors out there! I know that when I was researching this subject, I couldn’t find anything about creating an aesthetically pleasing novel notebook. So I hope this idea inspires you and encourages you to make a novel notebook of your own! I know my notebook is extremely helpful, and it is always nice to hold something physical in your hands rather than having to organize everything online. I have yet to find a good and free program dedicated to organizing your novel anyway, but if you have any that you use, please comment below because I would love to check them out!

Sincerely,

Dharma Bum Poetess