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Why I built the Storyteller OS My own story organization journey For years, I've been on a journey to craft my own story. A significant part of that time has gone into mastering the art of storytelling while diligently jotting down notes as my narrative took shape. Initially, I turned to various notebooks and binders to capture my thoughts, but I quickly found these analog systems overwhelming. My notes became scattered, and as time went on, important details and connections slipped through the cracks.
If you’ve ever felt this way, you're not alone. Seeking a better solution, I moved to digital note-taking with Google Docs. I organized my world building notes into general documents sorted by characters, groups, and settings. Yet again, I faced challenges with organization; my notes felt disjointed. Some entries were relevant to both specific characters and elements of the world, making it frustrating to keep details confined to separate documents.
Around 2017-2018, I tried Evernote, which brought me closer to the organizational clarity I was after. The ability to create a hierarchy of notes and hyperlink notes to each other was promising. However, in 2019, I discovered Notion, a tool that seemed to offer the comprehensive capabilities I had been looking for.
Notion's database functionality and document editing features opened up a world of possibilities. The ability to create a database and display it uniquely on any page within my Notion workspace was a game-changer for me. Finally, I found the method I had long desired for organizing my story notes.
After dedicating a couple of weeks to migrating all my notes into Notion, I carefully structured them within databases and pages. This effort laid the groundwork for what would evolve into my own version of the Storyteller OS—designed specifically for writers like you and me.
The all-in-one workspace StoryFlint fans wanted In the early days of StoryFlint, I made it a point to connect with new subscribers and template users by sending out a survey. I wanted to understand what types of Notion templates they were interested in to guide my next creations better. Here’s what I discovered from their responses:
StoryFlint subscriber survey results The top five results were:
All-encompassing "Write a Novel" Notion Workspace Plot/Subplot Visualization Template Storyworld Builder Scene Construction Template Theme, Motif, and Symbol Builder I decided to combine these top five choices into a single, comprehensive template.
The flagship StoryFlint Notion template The Storyteller OS is an augmentation of my personal story organization system. Truth is, the Storyteller OS is much simpler than my own story organization system. If I were to sell my personal setup as it is, I know that no one would grasp how to use it. Therefore, I streamlined my workspace, simplifying it to create a more accessible and user-friendly template.
The Storyteller OS is also the culmination of other templates I've built for StoryFlint. With it being StoryFlint's flagship template, it contains:
With the Storyteller OS, users can access a comprehensive all-in-one workspace that integrates all these other StoryFlint products seamlessly for multiple writing projects.
The attributes of a good story organization system Capturing ideas A great story organization system should allow you to capture inspiration anytime and anywhere, ensuring that brilliant ideas are recorded immediately. Whether through a user-friendly app or a small notebook, having an accessible tool is essential for saving those creative sparks that fuel storytelling.
The Storyteller OS is a great tool for this by having a designated dashboard to capture your ideas quickly and organize them later. See more info about the Quick Capture dashboard below.
The Storyteller OS, being a Notion template, is accessible wherever Notion is available—whether on your laptop, tablet, or phone, through the Notion app or a web browser. So when an ideas hits you, you can easily jot it down in your Storyteller OS project.
Connecting details Many story organization systems neglect to show how different story elements connect, making it difficult for writers to grasp the bigger picture of their narrative. To enhance storytelling quality and depth, it's essential to have a method for linking ideas and viewing overarching themes, whether through mind mapping, visual timelines, or organizing notes with tags and categories.
The Storyteller OS utilizes a Zettelkasten method approach to its note organization system. The Zettelkasten method involves creating individual notes that are linked together to form a web of knowledge, allowing for easy reference and the development of complex ideas.
See more info later in this article about how the Storyteller OS uses the Zettelkasten method with a project's Details database.
Storing research inspiration Research and inspiration are key ingredients for telling great stories. By keeping all your research materials—like articles and quotes—in one spot, you can easily find them using tags or categories. This not only makes your workflow smoother but also helps you quickly grab historical facts or dialogue that are super important for authenticity and character development.
Every Storyteller OS project comes with its own designated Research Library database to store research and inspiration and then connect individual notes from said research to other elements of the story.
Accessing notes easily Organizing your ideas is crucial for crafting a well-structured story. Have you considered using cloud-based tools to keep your notes accessible? This approach not only allows for easy organization but also helps you retrieve your ideas across different devices. By doing so, you can enhance character development and strengthen plot connections.
The Storyteller OS uses a system of interconnected databases and linked views, so you can access the same notes from different relevant spots. This way, you won’t have to dig through loads of documents, making it easier to keep your narrative clear and organized.
See more info later in this article about how the Storyteller OS uses linked database views for easy note access.
Staying consistent with ideas Tweaking details in your story means you've got to update everything that's connected. Keep in mind, your story isn’t set in stone; it's more like a living thing that grows and changes with every word you put down. Having a system that's both flexible and sturdy is your secret weapon to turning your story into something truly amazing.
The Storyteller OS does this by having an interconnected system of databases and linked views so you never lose track of an idea and can easily recollect your ideas and notes when you need them.
Keeping track of progress Keeping track of your progress is super important for staying motivated and organizing your story. It highlights the real results of your hard work and shows how each chapter adds to the overall narrative. Using a progress tracker helps you set milestones and keeps you writing regularly.
The Storyteller OS helps you set timelines for finishing each book and chapter of your project. It also lets you break down your story into scenes, treating them like individual tasks to help you wrap up your project successfully.
See more info later in this article about the Storyteller OS's Get Writing Done dashboard to help you stay motivated and productive with your writing project.
The structure of the Storyteller OS The Storyteller OS is really just three different components – a Projects database, a Knowledge Base, and a Reflection Journal.
Projects database The Projects section of your Storyteller OS home page. The Projects database allows you to generate a project template for housing all your story notes, setting writing goals, and scheduling work times to complete your project.
Knowledge Base The Knowledge Base section of your Storyteller OS home page. This knowledge base is meant for you to organize what writing lessons you've learned from articles, videos, courses, and your self reflections into bite-sized pieces of information that you can refer back to and use for progressing through your projects.
Reflection Journal The Reflection Journal section of your Storyteller OS home page. A journal is a great way to reflect on your work regularly. You can create journal entries and use the pre-built template inside of it to think back over what you accomplished in your writing journey, what barriers you experienced, and what lessons you learned this week to add to your Knowledge Base.
How a Storyteller OS project is structured: Databases Databases are what power the connectivity of your story notes within a Storyteller OS project. For every project you create in the Storyteller OS, 23 databases are generated for storing your notes, ideas, and elements:
The databases section that's generated for every project your create in the Storyteller OS. Books database – By default, the project template breaks your story into Books. If your project is a standalone book, you only have to create one book. You can easily repurpose “Books” to be whatever medium your story is. (i.e. Movies, TV Seasons, etc.) – just relabel them as such. Chapters database – Chapters are used as subsets of books. You can easily repurpose "Chapters" to be whatever medium your story is (i.e. Episodes, Acts, Sequences, etc.) – just relabel them as such.Scenes database – house all your notes for each scene for your story and even write out your scenes within it.Plot Lines database – keep track of various plot lines in your story and what scenes are in them.Characters database – house all your character notes and build characters with a built-in guide.Archetypes database – a pre-filled database of sample character archetypes for you to use for character building.Enneagrams database – a pre-filled database of sample personality Enneagrams for you to use for character building.Values database – a pre-filled database of sample values for you to use for character building.Needs database – a pre-filled database of sample needs for you to use for character building.Positive Traits database – a pre-filled database of sample positive character traits for you to use for character building.Negative Traits database – a pre-filled database of sample negative character traits for you to use for character building.Emotions database – a pre-filled database of frequent emotions a character would have based on the positive and negative traits you select for them. Character Goals database – store all your characters' goals/motivations in your story. Used for character building.Lies database – store all your characters' Lies they believe about themselves or the world. Used for character building.Ghost/Wounds database – store all your characters' traumas. Used for character building.Groups/Races database – house all your notes about the different gangs, groups, cults, and races of your story's world.Locations database – house all your notes about the different locations of your story's world.Events database – house all your notes about the historical events that happen in your story's world that happen before, during, or after you story takes place.World Elements database – house all your notes about all the other things about your world like religions, fauna, flora, foods, professions, etc.Research Library database – House all your notes from the research and inspiration you collect for your story.Themes database – keep track of and house your notes on the various themes you want to use in your story.Motifs database – keep track of the various motifs you want to use in your story.Symbols/Details database – house all your individual story notes and symbols you use in your story. Also referred to as "Details database".Database properties Database properties in Notion are high-level bits of information that all records in a specific database contain. Each database in the Storyteller OS has its own unique set of properties that can be used to see information in different linked views.
This is an example of the a Books database for a project called "Harry Potter". Currently showing one of its records, "The Sorcerer's Stone" with its filled properties. For instance, the Books database in the Storyteller OS has:
A selection property that designates the order placement of the book in its series A status property of the book A date property for the completion goal date of the book A formula property that calculates the time remaining until that goal date Another formula property to calculate the percentage of the book that is complete Relation properties that connect databases together A relation in Notion is a database property that can connect two databases together. Relation properties are used heavily with all the databases in the Storyteller OS and are what create the connectivity within it.
For instance, the Characters database in the Storyteller OS has these relation properties:
Affiliations – relevant groups from the Groups/Races database that the character is a part of.Related Locations – relevant locations from the Location database that the character has a connection to.Events – relevant historical events from the Events database that the character experienced.Enneagram – the personality Enneagram from the Enneagram database that you choose for the character when building out their personality.Children – a relation property related back to the Characters database itself that can connect other characters together based on if they are their children.Plus a lot more relation properties to the various character building databases mentioned above. Pages for every element in a database Whenever you create a new record in a Notion database, that record automatically gets its own designated page to store whatever you like in it. With the Storyteller OS's databases, you essentially create a new document for every new character, scene, location, etc.; using the databases above you're creating a file directory for every story element type.
Clicking into multiple character pages from the Characters database. Linked views of databases The great thing about Notion's database capabilities is you can display a particular database in a certain format on one page in your workspace, and on another page, you can display the same database in a different format with different layouts and filtering/sorting based on their properties.
Those two instances are still the same database and you can make changes to the data in one of those instances and the changes will be reflected in other instances. These instances of databases are called "linked views" or "views". You can label each linked view with its own name to distinguish them by their purpose.
For instance, in the main page of a Storyteller OS project, there are 5 different linked views displaying the books of your project:
Currently Working On – a linked view of the Books database filtered to only show books with their Status property set to "In progress". Displayed as a gallery layout. Backlog – a linked view of the Books database filtered to only show books with their Status property set to "Not started". Displayed as a gallery layout. Completed – a linked view of the Books database filtered to only show books with their Status property set to "Completed". Displayed as a gallery layout. Reorder Books – a linked view of the Books database showing all the books in the project sorted by their Order in Series property. Displayed as a board layout to allow you to drag-n-drop scenes to their respective place easily. All Books – a linked view of the Books database showing all the books in the project sorted by their Order in Series property. Displayed as a gallery layout. A Storyteller OS project features a multitude of interconnected database views integrated into its templates, dashboards, and pages. With just 23 databases per project, there are over 100 linked views of these databases distributed throughout to help you tackle your story in different ways.
Details database that connects individual notes to different elements The Details database of a Storyteller OS project is really what I think makes the Storyteller OS unique.
As I mentioned earlier in my story organization journey, I had a hard time keeping track of individual notes that pertained to multiple characters, locations, historical events, etc., that were siloed in separate documents where I would lose track of where they were. Discovering Notion's database capabilities allowed me to break that note-silo problem and allow different story elements to share the same notes. The Details database is that solution.
The Details database is used to house individual bite-sized notes about your story, each with its own record in the database, and connect each of those note records to various elements of your story.
The Details database is connected via relation properties to the following databases:
Characters database Events database Groups/Races database Location database World Elements database Scenes database Motif database Research Library database With these relations to other elements of your story, you can display the same note in different places without having to dig through documents to find something.
Below you can see linked views of the Details database displayed in different story element pages. All these story elements share the same detail about the Dumbledore founding the Order of the Phoenix.
These story elements have linked views of the Details database displayed in the body of their page. This linked view of the Details database is filtered to only show details that have a relation to that story element. (i.e. Albus Dumbledore's page has a linked view of the Details database that only shows details that have a relation to Albus Dumbledore) Using this Zettelkasten method with the Details database allows you to recollect individual ideas better when writing a scene with a character or exposition about certain world building so you can keep your story consistent and avoid retcons and plot holes.
How a Storyteller OS project is used: Dashboards The great thing about Notion's database capabilities is you can display a particular database in a certain format on one page in your workspace, and on another page, you can display it in a different format with different filtering, sorting, layout, and visible properties.
These 11 dashboards are generated for every project you create in the Storyteller OS Along with the 23 databases that are generated with every blank project, 11 dashboards are also generated to fit different workflows for working on your story.
Dashboards are pretty much pages that contain different linked views of the various databases within the project that are displayed in different ways for different mindsets.
Get Writing Done dashboard Like I mentioned earlier, keeping track of your progress is an important part of any story organization system.
The Get Writing Done dashboard is designed to provide a quick snapshot of where you are at in your story writing process and what needs to be done next. It allows you to filter through databases based on fields such as status, deadline, priority, etc., so you can see which tasks you need to focus on.
View the Get Writing Done dashboard in the Storyteller OS live demo.
Character Work dashboard VIDEO
The Character Work dashboard in Storyteller OS is a vital dashboard for creating dynamic characters. You can use it to create characters as well as discover insights into character relationships based on the groups they belong to and the shared values, strengths, weaknesses and Enneagrams they have.
View the Character Work dashboard in the Storyteller OS live demo.
World Building Bible dashboard The World Building Bible dashboard is your hub of all your characters, historical events, groups, races, world elements, and locations in one place. Whenever you're looking to build out or easily access parts of your story's world, this dashboard is your first stop.
View the World Building Bible dashboard in the Storyteller OS live demo.
Quick Capture dashboard Have an idea you need to jot down really quick? You can bookmark the Quick Capture dashboard to your workspace's sidebar for adding your ideas quickly. With the click of a button, you can add your ideas to your project's databases and organize them later.
View the Quick Capture dashboard in the Storyteller OS live demo.
Theme Builder dashboard VIDEO
The Theme Builder dashboard is where you make meaning for your story. It comes with a guide to help you build the themes, motifs, and symbolism you’ll use throughout your project.
View the Theme Builder dashboard in the Storyteller OS live demo.
More dashboards Series Plot Outline Historical Timeline Research Organizer Recently Worked On Templates and guides galore Plot line and scene templates When going through the built-in Book Outline guide in the Storyteller OS, you can easily load a plot line template with all the necessary scenes populated into your book with just the click of a button. You can choose to load:
Hero's Journey Freytag's Pyramid Fichtean Curve Dan Harmon's Story Circle 7-point plot structure Scene page template with scene roadmap buttons Also, on each individual scene page in your Scenes database, you can load a scene roadmap to help you write with just the click of a button. Choose from:
Proactive Scene Roadmap Reactive Scene Roadmap Goal, Motivation, Conflict Roadmap Three Story Method W Plot Method Page templates for every story element Every element you create in your project's databases comes with its own page to store notes and view connected details to other elements. A template is generated automatically that displays all the necessary linked views of related databases to that element so you don't have to build stuff from scratch.
Take a look at how your notes and ideas could be organized through the different types of page templates available:
Premise Builder With every book you create in your project's Books database, this 9-step guide is generated inside of the book to help you build a strong premise for that book.
Check out a free version of the Premise Builder .
Book Outline Guide VIDEO
With every book you create in a Storyteller OS Project, a step-by-step guide to building your book's outline is generated inside of the book's page. With it you'll be able to build out the chapters, scenes, and plot lines of said book and tie in other elements of your story like characters and details.
Ultimate Character Builder Every time you create a character in your project's Characters database, a built-in 9-step character-building guide is generated on the character's page. This guide helps you develop engaging characters while effectively utilizing the hundreds of character attributes available to you.
Learn more about the Ultimate Character Builder template .
How writers have benefitted from the Storyteller OS 
