Category: Scrapbooking Tutorials

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.

Give each entry in your solo murder mystery journal two short headings: What I found and What I think it means. Write the clue under the first heading and your guess under the second. Keep any suspect sheet supplied by your game beside the journal, and update it when the rules tell you to.

Here is a page you can try before you buy a game. You need a notebook and a pen. The example is a made-up writing exercise for this guide; it is not a scene or clue from The Crimson Parlour.

To see The Crimson Parlour next to our other games, browse the solo journaling RPGs.

Try a clue and a guess on one page

Use this fictional starting point: someone has left a wet coat beside the study door. A guest says they have spent the whole evening by the fire.

Write these headings on a blank page, then add your own answers. Leave space beneath the guess for a later note.

Entry: The coat by the study.

What I found: A wet coat lay on the chair by the study door. One sleeve had been tucked out of sight.

What I was told: The guest said they had stayed by the fire all evening.

What I think it means: Perhaps the guest went outside. I do not yet know who owns the coat.

Still to ask: Whose coat is it?

Stop when you have written one guess and one open question. That is the end of this exercise. The coat alone does not establish who left it there, when it got wet or whether its owner committed a crime.

If you want to add to the scene, invent a reply from the guest. Keep it under “What I was told” so you can still see which details came from the scene and which came from a character.

Let the game decide who is cleared

When you use this page layout with a published game, follow that game’s rules for clues and suspects. A suspicious detail you add while writing should not change a card result.

The Crimson Parlour shows why this matters. Its rules count a person as innocent when you find one of their cards. The murderer’s cards are sealed in an envelope at setup, so those cards cannot turn up during the search.

A character can still have a secret after they have been cleared. Keep that secret in your story, but leave the cleared result on the game’s suspect sheet. In The Crimson Parlour, that sheet is called the Register.

There is an exception to watch for: an ace ends the night without clearing anyone. Follow the ace’s instructions in the game book. Do not cross out a face merely because you turned a card.

Make your notes easy to find again

Number each journal page as you use it. When a person appears again, add a note such as “Earlier entry: page 4.” This works in a bound notebook; you can leave the pages where they are.

Keep the game’s required records in their stated places. Use your journal’s extra notes for details you want to return to: a name, a remark, a room or an unanswered question.

If a new clue changes your guess, date a new note beneath the old one. For the coat exercise, you might write: “I now know the coat belongs to the gardener. My first guess about the guest needs another reason.” This is an invented continuation, not a game result.

To add paper scraps, leave the headings and page numbers uncovered. Put a small scrap beside the entry, or draw a border around the clue. Read the words once more before you glue anything down.

Read your notes before the ending

When your game asks for a final choice, turn back to your notes. Which details came from the game? Which were statements by characters? Which were your own guesses?

Write your choice using the game’s ending instructions. In The Crimson Parlour, you write the accusation before you look through the unused cards or choose to open the sealed envelope. Your journal records why you chose that name.

Choose a mystery to put in your journal

The Crimson Parlour standalone game is a solo journaling murder mystery set in a snowed-in Victorian house. It uses playing cards and a journal, with thirteen nights in its story.

The standalone purchase is a digital download of the game and printable components. Bring a printer, a deck of playing cards, a journal, a pen, scissors, glue and your own paper scraps. The matching decorative papers and ephemera are sold in a separate bundle.

For the paper side, see our guide to making a junk journal for a solo game. You can also start with the notebook you used for the coat exercise.