How do you store story notes?

[VydorScope]

So now that I am starting book four in this series I am getting to the point where I have notes all over the place in various word docs. I need to organize them and keep them for easy search/reference. I am not alone in this I am sure... what do you all use for that? Things I have considered so far:

Clean/merge down to one massive word doc of doom! This probably is the easiest but least good option?

Scrivener - Recently grabbed the free trial. Kind of like it, but looks like getting information OUT of if would be tough? Not talking about exporting a novel, I mean getting character sketches, and etc out.

Wiki on my web server - This is even worse for getting stuff out of it in to another form, but is far more accessible then any desktop app.

What do you all us?

[Harper Kingsley]

Scrivener can export in RTF or PDF, so you would still be able to add stuff to your notes even if you no longer have Scrivener. It was a surprisingly easy conversion considering other conversion programs I've dealt with (converting lfs to anything has them looking like crap.)

Personally, I think I need to get more organized. I had my character notes on 3x5 cards, but they've disappeared somewhere. I'm like, "Uh..." There's not much I can do about it now.

[teh603]

I use an old- fashioned notebook for my notes. The last time I did anything using a document for notes, I ended up having to bounce between the notes and the actual manuscript, and it was a bit of a pain.

[Steven Lyle Jordan]

I've had good success with Word docs, one for story breakdowns, one for notes (to make cross-referencing easier). I usually carry them on my smartphone, so I can reference them anywhere, open them on my PC through the USB cable, and change them as needed from either device.

I'd consider merging your note docs into one (you may be able to consolidate that info), and your story breakdown docs into another.

[G J Lau]

Originally Posted by Steven Lyle Jordan

I've had good success with Word docs, one for story breakdowns, one for notes (to make cross-referencing easier). I usually carry them on my smartphone, so I can reference them anywhere, open them on my PC through the USB cable, and change them as needed from either device.

I use a similar combination of media: Word documents, written scribbles, and dictated scraps on my smartphone. Usually, I don't generate a whole lot of notes while writing, and most of the ones I do are about characters' back stories. Once I've incorporated a plot idea into the story, then the story itself becomes my repository.

I do tend to compile lots of bookmarks for web sources that contain useful information I need to refer to on a regular basis. My latest book was a novella set in 1863, and I had tons of on-line sources I went back and forth to on a regular basis while writing the story.

[frostschutz]

Scrivener is an Outliner. There are alternatives, several of them operate on regular text files. I like Leo, although that one has an emphasis on coding rather than regular plaintext.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outliner

It's an interesting approach to text editing, although very different from plain word, so it might take some getting used to...

[Suzanna]

I think OneNote or Evernote is great for things like this. You can create a notebook for the series, then add different notebooks (or tabs in the case of OneNote) within that for different aspects of your story/world. The only limit is your imagination.

[Lazer]

I am just polishing up a non-fiction with twenty four characters, most of whom had their names changed to protect their privacy.

As a high schooler would say, SCRIVENER RULES!. I have no idea how I would have kept this all together without S.

And yes, you can export in a lot of different formats, including Kindle with a working TOC.

[sbroome]

I send myself a ton of emails and then sort them in an outlook folder. It works for me.