Mechanics: Retrieving (and keeping) older versions

[msstice]

After extremely helpful feedback from another Chronner I'm going to rework the opening of my WIP. After their comments I realized I should bring back elements of a previous version I had of these chapters.

I think the best way (for me) is a rewrite from scratch, because I flow better that way, I don't want to get hung up on the existing text, and I don't want to get lost trying to splice together the rewrite with the older and newer versions. I would however like the existing and that old version available for quick review to help the rewrite along because my memory isn't perfect.

I'm having the devil of a time finding the exact place and time where I had this older version.

Going forward, how do I best mark out earlier versions for quick retrieval?

Is this the universe telling me that I should not use these crutches and really write afresh, with my memory of the earlier version subtly guiding the rewrite?

I want to do this, but that's the bit of me that just wants to write, not the part of me that says, "Buddy, you need to finish the project before we both die."

 

[HareBrain]

Going forward, how do I best mark out earlier versions for quick retrieval?

What I do is, if I'm making wholesale changes I'll save a copy of the file under a helpful name (eg "Book but James doesn't hallucinate camels"). For changes to a smaller section I paste a copy of the chapter or scene to the back end of the file. This can get a bit messy but it seems to work fine.

 

[Astro Pen]

I always save each day as a new file, working title plus the date and maybe a note as does @HareBrain . So they are all to hand. Even novels take up very little space' maybe 750k as a word document.
I tried 'reworking' to change things once, it was a dogs breakfast of crossed wires and downstream adjustments.
(When looking back for sections I sped things up by searching an odd word in that section, like umbrella or Jaguar.)
However it is quicker by far to start again rewrite completely. IMHO
As you say, flow is important.
The other thing that can happen is that, since you first started, the world has changed to a degree and your perspective, with it.
You are an experience writer so hopefully have the speed. If you start again you can just get on with it, you don't have to remember anything beyond what you wrote on this 'pass'.

 

[Biskit]

I don't have a simple, single answer, other than to say that whatever you do it will probably be a bit of a grind.

If I'm doing a re-write, my approach depends on how big a job.

I don't "save as" as often as @Astro Pen, but I do keep versioned files names "Brilliant Novel v99.45.odt" and up the version number any time I think I've added a significant chunk. I also run regular backups so I've got a history there as well, which is handy when I come to a paragraph that makes no sense and I want to know if it was always rubbish or something I've carelessly scrambled recently due to the overly sensitive touchpad on the laptop.

I've recently re-written an opening on a novella, probably no more than a few hundred words, and mostly to correct a sense of tone/style which hadn't settled down. For that, I took a copy, re-read what needed fixing, re-wrote from scratch at the top of the document and kept deleting old paragraphs until the new and old lined up.

If it's something more major, I just start fresh, with an empty file, and start typing. I did that with a flash fiction for a live reading event a few years ago, wrote the story, read it, decided it was awful and totally unsuited for live reading, then just started again now that I knew what the story was. I've done the same thing a few times since then, but only with flash and short fiction.

My current major WIP is a bit of a mess at the start because it got written in bits and pieces with not even my usual pantser sense of where it might be going or what the themes really were. The kindest that can be said for it was that I was exploring, thinking with my fingers on the keyboard. To fix that I've done the uncomfortable thing of writing a plan. This is not in my nature, but there was a real sense of it being a collection of unconnected vignettes, rather than a story, and I needed to take a step back and at least be able to say what the story ought to be, where it ought to have started, and what bits needed to go.
For a long while that has felt like @Astro Pen 's dog's breakfast, moving things around, trying to keep plot detail aligned etc, but there were big chunks that were right, or at least OK, and after a lot of perseverance, swearing and flow-charts, I think I know what's going on, the writing is progressing, and I am forcing myself to keep updating the plan with what I've written, just in case I need to take a step back again. It looks messy to the eye now because every chapter has a fixed, manually entered "number" which often isn't sequential in the document, but it does tie into those flow-charts, one box per chapter. (If only LibreOffice had something like that built in to give me a pretty story plan and keep the chapter numbers automatically aligned and updated...)

 

[tinkerdan]

I agree that it probably is what works best for you.

I try to incorporate a date into the name of the file when I get to a place where I know there are serious changes that might require me to some time in the future look back at what I throw away.

I have printers a paper so I also have printed copies from various stages that are useful for this.

Lots of backup file on backup drives--I don't trust cloud but that's another option.

 

[The Judge]

I'm having the devil of a time finding the exact place and time where I had this older version.

Going forward, how do I best mark out earlier versions for quick retrieval?

Coming at it from a different angle, on all but the shortest projects I invariably have a file called something like "Deleted pieces" which usually starts with just a single Word document. If I cut anything remotely interesting from the scenes I'm working on which I might regret losing -- even just at the level of individual sentences or clauses -- it gets taken straight to the document which ends up full of disjointed phrases. Then later as I get into proper revising/pruning for word count, longer pieces get culled which go into the file separately with their own titles.

For example, both kinds can be seen here, and the "Short passages" folder is by far the biggest as it's got all the useless individual sentences.

​

I save to separate memory sticks (a) weekly and (b) monthly with an annual save as well, which means I can (in theory...) retrace every iteration of a scene if it's needed, but having this separate folder means that if I do ever want something I've previously removed it can be found far more quickly here. If I still need more, then I can use specific word searches to find the phrases/scenes within the saved chapters.

As for the re-writing, I can't do the start-from-scratch thing as I'm too invested in what I've already written. What I do is a version of Biskit's method of starting a separate document with the versions that need amalgamating and I take bits from both, deleting as I go, until I've got a single version that reads right.

 

[msstice]

These are all great thoughts as usual.

I use a versioning system that snapshots each day's work, but the day doesn't help as I now realize since I recall an approach of writing rather than the day I wrote it. I do keep a "Discards" file for each chapter, but I don't have a descriptive way of doing it, and I shuffle chapters around so I lose that landmark too.

I see from everyone's comments that my mistake is not to tag deleted things in a descriptive manner. I do make messages for each snapshot, but they represent what I added in, not necessarily what it was that was lost.

So collecting the wisdom from here, I need to be descriptive of my discards and perhaps even create a file for each one of them, rather than per chapter. This way I have another way of searching for them.

Thank you all!

 

[sknox]

I use Scrivener, so there's the Backup Now function, which captures the entire project (including notes and background not in the actual manuscript), plus there's something called Snapshots, which can be either a single document or a selection of documents. All alternatives have dates and a place for a title, but there's also a tip that might be more generally useful.

That tip is to include at the top of the file (or Backup or Snapshot) that describes the state of the document (whether single, collection, or entire MS). You can set this apart with typography or a divider bar or whatever. But since most programs let you peek at the top of a file, this is a way to create a reminder.

An alternative to that would be to create a separate versioning file. Just use date or numbers to sort the file names, and in the separate file you can attach a description to each. A little clumsier, but guaranteed to work across software.

None of this gets you out of every difficulty. I know I said my elf had gray eyes but now they're blue. When did I make that change? *sigh*

 

[clarissajaneen]

I create a copy of my last draft and edit the new copy. This way, I have been able to go back to older "drafts" to grab brief scenes, descriptions, etc, that were discarded along the way but that I ended up finding a new place for. I number all of my old drafts and the current one is titled CURRENT DRAFT so it's easy for me to spot.

 

[msstice]

I create a copy of my last draft and edit the new copy. This way, I have been able to go back to older "drafts" to grab brief scenes, descriptions, etc, that were discarded along the way but that I ended up finding a new place for. I number all of my old drafts and the current one is titled CURRENT DRAFT so it's easy for me to spot.

I use a versioning system which does that at a pretty fine level. I think my issue is that I'm not good about keeping track of what exactly changed. Most of the time the work is growing, things are being added. The trick is when things go away and I want them back later. There are ways to search for text in the older versions, but they are not as fast I want.

I'll try with the advice several people gave above which is to store these important passages in their own file with dates and descriptions.

 

[msstice]

1. I'm now following the advice here: When I delete a section that I like during a rewrite I'm keeping a dated file with a rather long descriptive name with it
2. I've also found a plugin for my editor that makes it much easier for me to search deleted text and pull up older revisions so I can read through them

Both these together should make it easier for me to reanimate dead text.

Thanks again!