How do you organize your draft?

[Kevlar]

I just wanted to get us all pooling ideas and tossing around different methods of organizing a draft (especially a first draft). I think it would be beneficial to all of us.

Personally I came out with a new system I'm trying out for my "Children of Winter" project. I have a folder for my developing first draft, and every chapter is contained within its own word document. This allows me to quickly find anything I decide I need to find, and it also allows me to keep myself from going back and editing a chapter after its completion. Hopefully this will allow me to turn off the internal editor and instead focus on actually writing and finishing.

What system do you use? Do you find it effective?

 

[wordwalker]

I keep my current chapter in its own file too, partly so I can always see its word count, and I also have the file with all my plans (full of tiny shorthand and fragmented notes) on the screen at the same time.

Also, I always have the line below the chapter say something about which mood or sensation (or both) the scene is always going back to, like "rage clench fist / look up hope it's not noticed."

 

[Mara Edgerton]

Oooh, good question.

For each story, I have one master folder of Word Docs with a number of sub folders:

1. My outline folder (character sheets, summary, chapter-by-chapter outline, notes on themes and plot points and such).
2. My chapter folder (each chapter of the book--this is my 'draft folder.' I don't usually save first drafts, second drafts, etc., but correct as I go).
3. My crits folder (this is where I put my writing group's crits--hmm. So, actually, I do have first drafts and such, since I have the earlier critiqued docs).
4. My master folder (the whole story in the format I like, and again in Kindle format. I keep updating as I correct my drafts).

 

[Butterfly]

The problem I found with individual chapters in Word is they're fine for chapters 1-9, after that the organisation goes wonky. It uses the Dewey system where they're organised in regards with the first number, so anything beginning in 1 is filled from 1, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 100, etc, 2, 20, 21, 22, etc. To solve it, I labelled the start of each as 01, 02, etc, to 10, 11... putting the 0 in before the single numbers solved it. (Just a tip for you). Because your chapter headings are unlikely to be in any sort of alphabetical order... you will need the numbers to keep them in order.

At the moment I am working with several POVs, that may or may not be together in one place. So for me, the first thing to do is to place them in groups, the primary and the secondary characters included, so I know who's where and who's friends with who. I might end with several groups, some in the north, others in the south, and the villains in another. It's a reference for me to look at if I forget who's meant to be where, and who is moving between them.

After that I outline, I put my ideas chronologically as events in a time line on excel, and also in one big word document (saved twice in case one becomes corrupted, as has happened). I try to split them into chapters.

Then I'm ready to start drafting it into a story...

I copy and paste the chapter I intend to work on in a separate folder, turn the whole thing into italics, and unitalicise it as I work through until the first draft of a chapter is complete. I save that and also copy and paste it into another document which will become the master script, a big one with every chapter in. If I lose one document, it means I have a backup in a separate document from the individual chapters.

keep backups... I've lost work in the past and have been rescued by them. Except on one occasion when I lost a chapter, I did have notes, so I had to rewrite it from them. It was a chapter I had spent a lot of time on... so it took me just as long to redo it.

There are a couple of similar threads...

http://mythicscribes.com/forums/brainstorming-planning/9133-how-do-you-organize-your-work.html

http://mythicscribes.com/forums/writing-questions/2695-keeping-track.html

 

[Motley]

One big long document file.

If I have world, character notes or rudimentary outlines I think up while working, I stick them in a Notepad file in the same folder as the story document.

 

[Mara Edgerton]

The problem I found with individual chapters in Word is they're fine for chapters 1-9, after that the organisation goes wonky. It uses the Dewey system where they're organised in regards with the first number, so anything beginning in 1 is filled from 1, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 100, etc, 2, 20, 21, 22, etc. To solve it, I labelled the start of each as 01, 02, etc, to 10, 11... putting the 0 in before the single numbers solved it. (Just a tip for you). Because your chapter headings are unlikely to be in any sort of alphabetical order... you will need the numbers to keep them in order.

Huh. I've never encountered such a problem. My chapters stay in the right order inside their folder, so not sure what the issue is?

*Mara double checks her folders.*

Yup, all in the correct order. The Docs are named with the initials of the title and then a number, so Death of a Diviner, Chapter One, would be called DOAD 1. Nothing wonky for me, even if there are 50 chapters.

. . . keep backups... I've lost work in the past and have been rescued by them. Except on one occasion when I lost a chapter, I did have notes, so I had to rewrite it from them. It was a chapter I had spent a lot of time on... so it took me just as long to redo it.

Agreed--I have numerous back up systems, from google docs to Penzu to hard copies to flash drives.

 

[C Hollis]

I have an excel spreadsheet that stores all things of my world, along with links to outside documents and websites.

From the genesis of an idea I populate a "Brainstorming" tab. Whatever ideas pop into my head get thrown on it, usually in one quasi-sentence blurb. "Show Tarimot's struggle in working for the other side."

When I feel I am ready to begin, I will organize those ideas into scenes and chapters. The chapters are then laid out on my "outline" tab.

From there, I begin the brain purge. As the rough draft carries on, the chapters on the outline tab get modified/deleted/moved, whatever. This helps me track where I've been and where I'm going at a glance.

My manuscript remains a single document during the entire process. I have 6 folders dedicated to my writing:

01 Rough Draft - the brain purge document
02 Rough Short - brain purge for my shorts
03 Checklist Edit - I save the document here when I begin my checklist edit (a checklist of things to look for in the manuscript)
04 Software Edit - The doc goes here when I begin the software edit.
05 Edit - The document goes here when I begin the edits from my editors.
06 Final Edit - this is where it lands when I start the last run through.

So, at any point in the process I can go back to the original if I feel the need (though I haven't yet).

All of my work is backed up to a ridiculous extent.
I have a hard copy from every step in the process.
My files are on both PC's, my laptop, and two flash drives. One of those flash drives is in my pocket, and the other in my desk at work.

 

[psychotick]

Hi,

What's a draft? I just write the damned book, and if I need to keep notes on characters, places etc I open another word document with the same name and "facts" on the end of it. I don't want to be jumping between chapters in different files all the time when I can do the same thing by scrolling down the page.

Once I've done the first draft I send it away for editing and bring it back as a new file with the same name with "Edit1" added. Then as the process continues I might have edit 2, 3 and 4. (I think 6 is the highest I've gone to.) That way I can always check the changes later if I need to. Then after the books finished I take all the relelvant files, story, blurb, graphics etc, and create a new folder and dump the whole lot in that.

Cheers, Greg.

 

[skip.knox]

I use Scrivener, which essentially provides the Draft 1, Draft 2 structure for me. I maintain a separate Scrivener project for world building notes, general research, etc. Since each Scrivener project opens as a separate instance of the program, it's easy to Alt-Tab between them, if necessary.

Within a draft I keep a folder for Characters, Places, and Plot (that's where outlines live). And Research.

The real trick isn't so much in creating Draft 1, it's moving gracefully to Draft 2. I like Mara's use of a crits folder. That's a good idea.

In fact, in general there are a bunch of good ideas on this thread. Kudos to Kevlar for kicking this off!

 

[Ophiucha]

I just use one long word document with a header for each new chapter so I can navigate to wherever from the sidebar. I tend to look back at what I've written from time to time, so I'd find it irritating to have to open up another document just to read something. Besides, if I want to know the word count is of a certain chapter, I can just highlight it - most versions of Word will have a word count for both the whole document and the 'selected section'. Makes it easier to figure out both your total and your by-the-chapter word count.

 

[A. E. Lowan]

We work with Word, Excel, and OneNote to keep track of everything, because we're just that kind of crazy - but our world is so farking detailed it's the best way to wrangle all the bits and pieces.

The books themselves have their own folders under their titles - Faerie Rising, Ties of Blood and Bone, etc. Within each of these folders are subfolders containing each chapter pre-formatted (because I DESPISE formatting), the title page, older materials and old character vignettes. I don't mind flitting from folder to folder making changes because I know exactly where everything is, and that way I can ensure consistency.

We use 2 Excel files to keep track of lists of potential names that I run across and collect, and to track the relative ages of our core cast of characters within the extended family, which is roughly 80 individuals. We realized as we worked deeper into the story arc of the series that continuity issues were cropping up more and more often - our timeline was turning into a slinky! So, the relative ages chart was made so characters would be born, age, and die at the right times.

OneNote is the real workhorse of the whole operation. We couldn't live without the organizational capabilities of this program. Within OneNote we maintain several individual small notebooks, one for each book containing a page for plot notes (the seeds that eventually grow into our monstrous outlines) and book specific passages (a scene or a line or a small dialogue exchange to be stored for future use). There is also one HUGE notebook that is the Seahaven Series Overview, containing pages for Character Listing which we use to keep track of all the little details for all our named series characters (this one has over 300 tabs all on its own); Setting, which contains information on not only the various locations where the stories occurs but full details and histories of all the preternatural creatures in our world; the Passages section in this notebook contains material from very far into the series. OneNote also lets me insert pictures into the text field and copy and paste research articles from the internet while retaining the original site links for reference! *happy wiggle*