Research for a book is organized by relevance to scene, not by topic. Most working authors keep a single research folder with sub-folders per chapter or per theme, plus a tagged source list (book, article, interview) where each source links to the scenes it supports. The structure scales from a 50-source memoir to a 500-source history.
Chapter i·Why it matters
Disorganized research becomes a research problem rather than a writing tool. Authors who cannot find a source they read three months ago either re-research (wasting weeks) or skip the detail (weakening the book). A simple system, set up on day one of research, prevents both failure modes.
Chapter ii·What to include
- A central source list: title, author, date, format, location (URL or shelf).
- Per-source notes: key quotes with page numbers, your own commentary.
- A tagging system: themes, characters, places, time periods.
- A scene-to-source map: which sources support which scenes.
- A "verify before publication" list: claims that need fact-checking before final.
- A backup: cloud sync plus a quarterly offline copy.
Chapter iii·Example
A historical novelist researches a 70,000-word novel set in 1920s Shanghai. She maintains a 60-source spreadsheet with columns for source title, format, key themes, and chapter references. Before writing chapter eight she filters to sources tagged "Shanghai trams" and "1923 weather" and pulls direct quotes into the chapter’s notes.
WriteLoom attaches research notes to specific scenes, so the source you found three months ago surfaces when you reach the chapter that needs it.
See the Plan studio