General note taking on story idea(s)

Benjamin Clayborne · Dec 17, 2011

Neurosis said: ↑

I write class definitions for all my characters. Divide all my chapters into procedures. Use doxygen to comment each paragraph. I deal with secondary characters using generics. I create all my setting descriptions using OpenGL, and all my audio descriptions with OpenAL. I use pure functional programming to simulate magic. I use a python scripting front end for dialogue. I write all my stories in vim on a unix shell. I use an O algorithm for world building (where n is the number of worlds). If I want everyone to be able to read my stories, I write them in Java to ensure portability, otherwise I use C++ for the sake of efficiency. I code the important scenes in assembly language. I use a hash table to organize chapters. I use a red-black binary tree to search for particular words. I save my stories with an efficient B-TREE index on Oracle DB.

Another programmer here.

I actually just use a small note-pad -- I keep it in my back pocket.
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I just about died laughing reading this.

Shadoe · Dec 17, 2011

Telcontar said: ↑

Also, does anyone else insert little reminders themselves in the actual story on read throughts? I forgot how often I did it until I opened up an older story and reading through it there were dozens of little bolded notes. Also, past me wasn't particularly helpful. One note read simply: "This sucks. Rewrite."
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I do this all the time. I like to keep going when I'm trying to complete a thought, and when the thoughts start piling up on me I have to put them somewhere. And yes, "This is crap, rewrite" appears more often than I'd like.

Shadoe · Dec 17, 2011

Masronyx said: ↑

Here's another thought, I wonder if anyone's used the Microsoft program Access...everything is organized into tables and databases...
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this is the one I use. All the time.

Masronyx · Dec 18, 2011

Update: I've started using Notebook like some of you do, and I like it, oddly...
I say oddly, because, like I've stated before, I'm used to writing everything longhand.
I'm not going to stop drafting longhand though....

ShortHair · Dec 19, 2011

Ravana said: ↑

I wouldn't even try to "break" the habit of handwritten notes. I find that my written and typed notes end up looking completely different… in particular, that when typing they end up being less "notes" and more "fragments." ...
As for how I keep notes for a given prose piece: I tend to have separate documents for the notes and the text, so that I can easily keep both open side-by-side. I find this easier than putting notes in a subroutine of the same document, since that way I don't have to decide where in the document the note needs to go.

Yes, I do put notes within the text as well, as reminders. I'm always careful to frame these out–I use doubled square brackets: [[ note ]]. That way, I can find them on a simple text search, so that I can be sure I've got them all cleared out before I send the thing off.
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Separated at birth....

My notes tend to go through cycles of growth and mitosis. If they retain my interest long enough to grow beyond a sentence or two, they get a separate piece of paper. If they get bigger than a handful of pages, they go in a file. If they outgrow the file, they split into several files. Eventually there's a file for old pages that got replaced by new pages.

Actual writing happens in a word processor. There used to be a program called FrameWork (late 80s), the best organizer I've ever seen, <googles it> and it's still around in a barely recognizable version.

Representing all that in programming terms is left as an exercise.

Masronyx · Dec 19, 2011

I'm still carrying a notebook around for ideas that pop up out of nowhere. I think OneNote will be used to get them all organized to a point.

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