To return to a solo journaling game after a break, open your last entry and find the last step you finished. Check the game’s rules before you draw a new card or roll again. If you stopped partway through a prompt, start with the unfinished step.
Try the bookmark below to save your place. You need your game, your journal and a pen. Write the note on a loose scrap, or on the next blank page in a bound notebook. It is a suggested way to keep notes, not a new rule for your game.
Find where you stopped
Read your last entry with the game open beside it. Look for the prompt you used. Check its steps against what you wrote or made. Mark the next step that still needs doing.
Separate the story from the game record. The story is what your character saw, said or did. The game record is any card, roll, score or choice the rules ask you to keep. Check both before you move on.
For example, a page may have all its writing but still need the paper piece the prompt asks for. Or you may have drawn a card and stopped before answering its question. Note that point instead of treating the whole entry as finished.
If the entry is complete, use the rules to find the next step. Keep your cards and other pieces as the game directs. Do not mix used cards back into the deck just because you have been away.
Copy a pause bookmark
Write these labels on your scrap or blank page. Fill in each line from your journal and game. Use “none” where there is nothing left to do and “not sure” where the record is missing.
- Last entry: the page number or title, plus the card or prompt if there is one.
- Finished: the last step you completed.
- Still to do: any writing, making or rule step left in that entry.
- Game record: where to find any scores, used cards or choices you must keep.
- Next action: the first thing to do when you open the game again.
Keep “Next action” small and clear. “Answer the last question on page 8” tells you where to begin. “Get back into the story” leaves you with another choice to make.
Put a loose bookmark beside the entry. If you wrote the note in a bound journal, mark that page with a scrap of paper. You do not need to cut out or move any journal pages.
A filled-in example
This is an invented example for this guide, not a player’s journal or an excerpt from a game. Imagine a prompt that asks you to write about a lost key, then add a paper tag to the page.
Last entry: page 8, “The key by the gate.”
Finished: wrote where I found the key and who I think lost it.
Still to do: add the paper tag the prompt asks for.
Game record: no score or card to track in this made-up example.
Next action: open page 8 and add the tag.
On returning, you would add the tag, then check the game for what comes next. You would not need to rewrite the entry before doing that step.
For your own bookmark, use the task your prompt gives you. If the writing is unfinished, name the question you still need to answer. If only extra decoration is left, label it “optional” so you can tell it apart from a rule step.
If you cannot remember what happened
Look back for the missing detail in earlier entries, on the game sheet or among the pieces you kept. Write down what you can confirm.
For a missing rule detail, such as a score or a used card, check whether the game gives a way to recover it. If it does not, ask the game’s creator before guessing. This bookmark cannot recover a deck order or score that was never saved.
For a story detail that the rules leave to you, such as a name you invented, you can choose a name now. Add a short note beside the old entry so both pages agree.
If you would rather start a new story, keep the old pages and mark where it ends. Follow the game’s setup rules for the new start. Give the new journal section a title so the two stories stay separate.
Pausing Folklore Forest
Folklore Forest is our solo journaling game about a wood that is forgetting itself. It uses ordinary playing cards across 52 game nights. You draw a card, write an entry and make the page.
Those nights do not have to be consecutive dates. The product’s “What if I miss a night?” answer states that there is no streak or schedule. Keep your place in the game rather than adding entries for each date you were away.
Use the bookmark to note which entry you reached and which step comes next. Follow your copy of the rules for the deck and anything you need to track. The bookmark is an optional note, not an extra game component.
If you are choosing a game, see Folklore Forest’s game and kit options. These are digital downloads for you to print, not a physical journal. The game-only option lets you use your own papers; the bundle adds the matching printable papers and cut-outs.
For now, open your last entry and write one line: “Next time, I will…” Finish it with the next action you can point to on the page.