What is a Big Book of Magical Secrets?
If you’re curious as to what I mean when I say ‘Big book of magical secrets’ , I’ll explain. A Big Book of Magical Secrets is my personal terminology for the journal that holds all of the details about the fantasy book I am working on. I’ll preface what I’m about to say, by telling you that the practice of a Big Magical Book of Secrets is most applicable to those working on large scale stories or worlds in the fantasy/sci fi genre. If you find yourself writing in those genres, you may find the Big Book of Magical Secrets method helpful.
When I began writing my novel, a high fantasy pirate story, I found that the characters, settings, lore, and world building quickly got out of my hands. With so many ideas, and so many images bouncing through my brain, I found it difficult to keep a bunch of digital documents organized around my thoughts; and thus, the Big Book of Magical secrets method was born.
This method is comprised of acquiring a big journal to document all of the information about your book that floats around in your mind. It’s easy, it’s helpful, and my goodness, is it fun! If you’re curious, I am going to share the benefits of this method and how I made my book, so that I might help someone embarking on their own fantastical literary adventures.
Why You Should Make a Big Book of Magical Secrets
When writing in the Fantasy/SciFi genre, there can be so many moving parts. And as a writer, it can become hard to juggle those moving parts. There are so many questions we ask ourselves. What do your characters look like? How old are they? Where are they in your world, and what does it look like? What do all the other parts of your world look like? How does magic work there? Or politics? What is your world’s history?
As an artist myself, I am a very visual person when it comes to my writing. Seeing things helps me write them better, and though I see them in my mind, I like to be able to see them all in one place at one time. A few months into writing the first draft of my book, I got sick of trying to pick out every image from my mind and arrange it with the perfect logical information. I needed a solution, and what I came up with has helped me so much; and I hope if you find yourself in a similar position, it can help you out too!
As I found myself questioning how I would keep all of this information in a place and format that would make sense, I decided there was only one thing to do. I went to the bookstore.
I bought one of those big thick leather journals from the stationary sections, the kind I had always eyed as a child thinking it looked like some kind of old wizards journal. This is my Big Book of Magical Secrets. But that’s just the start, because we all know the best part of a book is what’s inside.
How You Can Make Your Very Own Big Book of Magical Secrets
To make your own book, you need a few things.
Step 1. The Journal itself. It doesn’t need to look like the one above, just find one that has room for lots of information and pictures.
Step 2. Pinterest. Get pinning! There is so much great stuff on Pinterest, I recommend printing lots of images, quite small. If you don’t have access to a printer at home, I recommend going to Staples or your local library.
Step 3. Decide how to order and orient things. This is the step where you can create sections in your book, and begin to decide where to glue your images, and where to write your information. Some ideas for sections in your book are:
a) A Place Holder Book Cover
I used an old painting off of Pinterest and a simple photo text editing app to create the first page in my Big Book of Magical Secrets.
b) Your Maps!
Having your the geography of your story in front of you is a must when writing. This is a hand drawn map but I also love Inkarnate.com for a user friendly digital map making experience.
c) Everything Character Related, Ever!!!!!!
I like to give a visual reference to each character, as well as some basic facts or info.
I also like to do dedicated character profiles for each character. A full two page spread for main characters, one page for secondary characters, and a half page for the supporting cast members of my story. This way I never lose track of visuals or important facts about my characters!
Honestly, for good measure, just make a character map of how they all connect to one another.
d) More In Depth on Setting
You can use this section to breathe life into the specific locations in your story, so go crazy with it!
You can also use this section to expand on political regions in your world, and flesh out the different realms of your story.
e) Time to Get Nerdy About Your Magic System…
You’ll want to have things laid out simply for yourself, so combine your images with some facts about how magic works in your world.
Step 4. Get some scissors and liquid glue and go crazy with it! I advise being careful about overloading on glue though, you don’t want wet journal pages. When your glue dries, get writing your info beside its correlating image, and there you have it, your Big Book of Magical Secrets is complete. Add to it as you write and enjoy!
Go On And Get Imaginative
Now that you know how to ultimately nerd out over your next big Fantasy/SciFi project, I hope you feel inspired, creative, and ready to make yourself the perfect writing companion. Happy dreaming, imagining, and writing!
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