For those who want to use Obsidian in a local-first writing environment, specifically for writing fiction, here’s some steps you can take to do just that:

  1. Download Obsidian

  2. Open Obsidian for the first time

  3. Select “Create” on the first menu that pops up (this is done during first-time setup)

  4. Name your vault under “Vault name”

  • I have it set as “Novel Work”
  1. Pick a location where you’ll place this Obsidian vault
  • I have a dedicated place for Obsidian vaults, of which I share with Neigsendoig (my producer)

  1. Click “Create”

  2. Do everything to make it local-first

  • Turn off the “Sync” plugin, as that’s unnecessary
  1. Install a theme that allows for pure left-to-right reading (if a language uses that system, like English)
  • Neigsendoig and I like to use the Zen theme, which is really nice for our needs
  1. Enable the Community plugins, and install the following:
  • Dictionary
  • File Info Panel
  • Harper (spell checker that’s like LanguageTool, but local-only)
  • Highlightr
  • Longform (this is how you can write novels, plus you have word count goals if ever you wanted to utilize them)
  • Quiet Outline
  • Style Settings (This is required for changing up the Zen theme)
  1. Create the following folder-bases structure (this is crucial for finding things)
  • Exercises
    • This is where I put my FediWriMo project, Foxing Society
  • Fanfics
    • If you write fanfiction, I’d recommend placing it in a separate folder so you can easily access it away from your main stuff
  • Ghost Writing
    • This is desired if you have a ghost writing career, and you want to keep things different
      • That depends on what type of work, so make folders according to that
  • Ideas
    • This is where you store your ideas
  • On Hold
    • This is for projects where you just can’t work on them for the time being
  • Original Projects
    • This is for stuff you work on outside of a WriMo deal, the one where you don’t need to write something with 50k words in 30 days
  • z_Dictionary
    • This is where you store a local dictionary, though I don’t have that, as I use Wordbook both as a dictionary and thesaurus

Now, to make a Longform project:

  1. Choose the folder you want to do something in

  2. Right click from inside the folder

  3. Select “Create Longform Project”

  4. Choose either a Multi-scene project (ordered notes combined together in the manuscript, with an index and YAML frontmatter)

  • An enclosing folder will be created for the project and scenes thereof, though it can be renamed, both folder and/or index file

  • Else, you can choose a Single-scene projct, which entails a short story or essay, including its YAML frontmatter used by Longform to track the project locally

  1. Name the project

  2. Select “Create” once it’s named

  3. Once inside the project, you should have the icon with an open book selected. This is your Longform sidebar

  4. Write the title of a scene

  • I used N - “Chapter title”, where N is the number of a chapter, and “Chapter title” is the title of the chapter
    • Example from Foxing Society: 1 - Turning the Tides on Corruption
  1. You can just write, like that, once this is done

In the settings, under Settings > Community Plugins > Longform > Word Counts & Sessions, you can turn on “Show word counts in status bar”, which shows the note’s project, “Start new writing sessions each day”, which allows you to automatically start a new writing session, “Notify on goal reached”, which is self-explanatory, and “Count deletions against goal”, wherein deleting words counts as negative words written.

Your “Session word count goal” option is where you input the amount of words you want to write in a given session. It can be 1,667 per day, or more (for a FediWriMo exercise).

If you have any questions, feel free to DM me privately, or respond here, and I can see what I can do to answer in a timely manner (If I see it, that is).