How do you organise your writing?

[Brian G Turner]

This has come up indirectly on threads about Scrivener, so thought I'd start a thread where everyone can state how they organise their writing...

I use Word and Excel for everything:

Word - notes on everything in the WIP to start. Usually broken down/organised by Act 1/2/3/4 where possible.

Word - for the MS itself, with a new numerical version saved to Google Drive everytime I make a significant change (writing, rewriting, or a spurt of editing)

Word - Editing masterfile on existing MS - lists all Chapters by name, with space for any notes to insert when rewriting

Excel - spreadsheet split into four sections, one for each act, and listing: Chapter number, name, POV character, and word count

Excel - for world building. Mainly lists of possible names to use for secondary characters and places, listed by cultural location, plus miscellaneous cultural notes

 

[thaddeus6th]

OpenOffice documents [Word compatible, as that's what I used to use].

It varies a bit according to type of project. For serious fantasy, I'll have at least one info-document (there are a few for my WIP, which is a trilogy). It's useful to have a reference point so I keep things consistent, particularly as I'm fairly absent-minded.

For Sir Edric's Temple, which was perhaps the least efficient but most fun thing to write so far, I knew the start and the end (literally, the last scene which is about half a page) and made up just about everything in between. That led to some days of rapid progress (Ch3 was almost entirely done in an afternoon) and some periods of horrendously slow progress (Ch4 took weeks). Since then, I've taken to outlining chapters, which worked well for Treasure and for Sir Edric's Kingdom.

I don't keep background information in a reference document for Sir Edric, but I'm thinking of making a vague map at some point, simply to keep the world coherent.

Currently trying to put together some short stories for my own collection. Oddly, been struggling with a story for a few days [trying to write a short story with one of the Sir Edric recurring characters as the protagonist]. So, perhaps I need a more structured approach for the collection as a whole...

 

[goldhawk]

How do I organize my writing? The same way I organize my life: the best of intentions, followed by a wild scramble to get it all to work.

 

[Montero]

I'm another one using Open Office equivalent of Word and Excel for all the detail
Plus I build a folder structure for each book - so research folder with sub folders for individual topics.

And having seen the next post, come back to say I find notes/comments very useful - put in place holders for myself to remember something for later in the book, check a fact or whatever.
Also use a lot on editing drafts.

 

[J Riff]

Word 2003, everything turned off, no notes, no nuttin. I think about the story as I'm going to sleep, like playing a movie in me head. Do this enough nights and the story runs off and gets far far ahead of my lousy typing skills.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Notepad++ (free and works on WINE) until ready to build a first draft, then Libre Office or MS Office. Notepad++ allows each snippet in a separate file, and a file of files (via plugin, highlight text and Ctrl O to open file) with summaries of sections as well as tabbed documents and very powerful search / replace on open files, all in a folder or all included subfolders and by regex or file wildcards.
Events, Places, People, Tech, Politics in separate plain text and pasted into Wiki
A Wiki using Mediawiki (on my own server here and a password protected one on Internet on my own hosting as backup)
A Spreadsheet for timelines etc
No need for expensive MS Word. Libre just as good for this application.
Backups to server (every evening of work), other laptops, USB stick etc and offsite. I'd NEVER EVER use 3rd pary cloud except for collaboration. I set up industry standard security on my own hosting account for private wiki and backups.
Complete drafts exported to HTML and then ePub and Mobi for reading/review
Every new edit after an HTML export is a new revision number / file, or if any deletion/re-ordering.

ALL SW works on Windows, Linux and documents are either "mediawiki", Word 97-2003 format, Excel 97-2003 format or plain text
I use a plain text editor on Android and read via USB storage.

My Editor gets access to Wiki and a separate document store with Mobi and MS Word 97-2003 format of everything, you can't even see the web site to read without username and password. KNOWN security, unlike 3rd party cloud providers.
Wiki, Phone, Email and QQ messenger (text usually, but video, files, whiteboard, audio chat all built in) for collaboration.
Mediawiki is simple to set up and no worries about patches etc when only you and colleagues can even see it.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

I used to use Open Office, but all the original contributors are on Libre Office. I'm gradually moving off Windows to Linux Mint (Mate Desktop) + WINE.
But I do stick with MS Office 97-2003 format on Libre office for backward compatibility.

 

[Juliana]

Word and excel. Word for notes, world building, ms, and excel for tracking chapters, timeline and POV.

 

[Maieius]

I'm on my fourth notepad in the space of about 6 months. It's an organised mess yet much more organised than my uni work, which is actually a bit worrying . I also have a box full of everything. Nothing goes onto the computer apart from the draft. I tend to write as I think and it's a lot easier for me to get my ideas down if I'm physically writing it. I love writing in my notepads, I find writing on the computer makes me think too much about the structure of my notes and it'd probably get lost. I'm free to draw, scribble and everything else with a notepad.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Folder with word docs. Notebooks for working notes. That's it....

 

[Rafellin]

Actually, this reminded me of a promise I'd made, so it's a blog post now:

https://thesilentjudge.wordpress.com/2015/08/26/how-i-write/

 

[MWagner]

Used to be a mess of word files in folders.

Then I got Scrivener and everything is nice and tidy now:

Folder for each chapter, named for POV character (ie Aretus 1, Aretus 2, etc.).

A file for each scene in chapter (Aretus 1-2, Aretus 1-2, etc.).​

Characters folder.

A folder for each of the major regions/peoples in the book (ie Ionians, Chardians, etc.)

A file containing a list of names for that region/people I haven't used yet.
A file for each of the major characters from that region/people.​

Plot folder.

A file for each of the POV plotlines. Outlines, major conflicts, key incidents.​

Setting folder.

A file for each of the cities or geographic regions, listing things I have established so far in the story.​

Plot Research folder.

A bunch of files containing of misc. notes about plot ideas, snippets of events, dialog, etc. Unused content.​

Setting Research folder.

A file for each of the historical regions or cultures I researched for the novel. Mostly notes cribbed from books.​

Back up to Google Drive once a week.

 

[HareBrain]

The main Word doc, with a load of notes for future scenes at the end.

At least two background docs, one of which I haven't looked at for so long I can't remember what it's called.

A handwritten notebook so illegible as to be useless.

A brain subject to frequent data loss.

At a book every four years or so, I think we can safely say I've hit on the magic formula.

 

[Wanderlog]

The master file of the novel is always MS Word (currently 2010 but I'm thinking about moving to 2013 due to some small but annoying glitches). No Open Office Writer, it doesn't allow for working properly with comments, corrections and macros.

Every novel has a number of supporting text files (I prefer to use Notepad++) stored in the same folder. Characters' lists (with their descriptions and relationships), the plan of the novel (a list of episodes, both finished and projected ones), etc. A separate folder for storing materials common for all novels in the series (geography, planetology, ways of life in described countries, laws of physics, units of measurements, languages, religions, other world details...). Another (sub)folder for storing big files like history chronicles, textbooks, statistical materials, real technology descriptions, and so on.

I make backup copies every weekend. One copy goes to another HDD in the same PC, one to a flash drive, one to Google drive. Storing up to ten previous weekly archives in case several of them suddenly turn out to be corrupted.

I really miss a software that would allow me to store character relationships in an obvious graphical form. Simply describing them in the text form is not enough. Too many characters, too many ties, too many words to describe them...

 

[Venusian Broon]

I don't organise my writing, the writing organises me.

- Staff Sergeant Lincoln Osiris

 

[Susan Boulton]

Folder with word docs. Notebooks for working notes. That's it....

More or less the same, but instead of a note book I have a lever arch file with print outs of information and notes. I also use a lot of yellow post it notes in ref books during the first draft stage, as I tend to like to refer back to any heavy research. If it is just a bit of internet research the stuff in printed off and put in the file. Now and then I use a board with information cards pined onto it, mostly when shuffling scenes and chapters round during the second and third edit.

Speaking of which I am in the porcess of sorting out my word docs, for old and half started projects. It is interesting what crap I have kept lol...

I have tried to use a number of writing programmes, but I seemed to spend more time messing about with them trying to get them to work, than actually writing, so I went back to just word docs.

 

[millymollymo]

I have a pin board in front of the writing desk, I pin each of the main events on a central line, these notecards include the key points and chapter titles. Subplots arch off of it. After a first draft and read-through I can then mark what didn't/did work and target it. Outlying areas are general notes and observations.

 

[Pwaa]

Word and Windows explorer for everything. I keep my stories, plot outlines, characters and world info all in separate Word docs in a file named after the story. Then I have WIP, Submitted, Ideas and Dead folders that I put them into, when I can be bothered, which isn't that often.

I did think of trying different methods of doing this, but truth be told I don't see the point.

 

[Locrian]

I just use word, a folder per project and then a document per chapter, with a document of notes thrown in. Thinking of moving to Google docs so I have backups.

 

[AnyaKimlin]

Umm.... organising my writing is a work in progress. There are scraps of paper about with notes (or note books everywhere) and I use LibreOffice to type it up.