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My critique group is going to talk about how we all organize our writing in a coming meeting. So how do you organize all those materials for writing?
Mine: What I’ve adopted is a single steno pad. For my new novel, I’m doing broad research — which is just jotting down big picture information about the topics as I follow them. When I start writing, I will add story bible info and critique notes to it.
My submissions is also a steno pad. I lose the subs when they’re on a spreadsheet. When one comes back, I use a highlighter to mark it.
I’m probably weird in this, but I don’t like too much organization. Somehow, when everything is neat in its folder or file, my creativity just dies. I need a bit of chaos to work.
I do ‘organize’ in the sense that I am careful about using folders on my computer — every file has its proper place and it only goes into that folder. No long strings of unrelated files on my hd.
I also use a program that comes with MSOffice called OneNote. OneNote allows me to group things into folders, but inside each folder there is just one big white page. I can paste whatever I want on that page, wherever on the page I want it. This helps me still keep a bit of chaos to it all.
On things like the shared-world (our anthology series Children of the Vortex) I need to communicate the world to other writers, so I write a ‘worldbook’ that has chapters for each element of the world I feel needs explaining.
As for handwritten notes, they go anywhere — chaos again — I love having my scene notes going side-ways across an old grocery list, or a list of phone numbers. I tend to have at least 3 spiral notebooks nearby into which notes on pretty much everything in my life will find their way.
My level of organized chaos would probably drive a lot of people crazy. But, it’s comfortable for me. I can find what I need, and yet I don’t feel like I’m in boot camp.
–June
It’s odd because I answered this same question on a time management board. A writer asked what the organizational methods were, and there two of us answering. I had this really simple one, and the other writer had this enormously complicated one (tabs and binders). The writer who asked the question actually came across as disappointed with my lack of a complex system. I dunno — seems like the writing should be more important than any system.
I love Scrivener.
Why?
Because I can have folders for the overall projects (trilogies), subfolders for the projects (the individual books) and loads and gads of folders and subfolders and files for all the stuff I’ve only recently learned to put down. My worldbuilding notes get sorted into Continent/Country folders with subfolders for the different bits, and overall world notes go in their own separate folder. I love the organizational abilities of Scrivener and how easy to use the program is. I’ve learned recently I don’t use it precisely like everyone else does, but I like the way I have things set up. It’s workable for me.
One thing I especially like is the fact I don’t have to go thorugh a whole messy rigmarole of clicking on folder after subfolder to get to the notes I want if I need them. It’s a single click away, and opens in the same screen. I haven’t had to have two text files open yet, but I have the screen divided vertically, so I can have the notes or wip on the left and the plot cards (either creating plot cards or writing scenes outlined) on the right.
I’ve learned that having a bunch of notes scattered across my desk and apartment doens’t help me any. I invariably come across something I need and can’t find the notes to. Chaos is not my friend. LOL
Ashe Elton Parker
"Just love me, fear me, do as I say, and I will be your slave." ~ David Bowie as Jareth in Labyrinth
~*~
Member since 1998.
~*~I use a combination of programs. Currently the workflow includes Liquid Story Binder, yWriter5, Scrivener, and Yarny. I did not deliberately craft this system I just kind of stumbled into it. It works for me but I’m not sure it’ll do anyone ELSE any good.
When it comes to writing I use Liquid Story Binder, because it lets me be all over the place. If there’s a tool I need to hash out a snarled up scene and move on odds are good LSB’s got it. I use it for all re-writes as well.
Now, that’s the writing process. Once I get past complete rewrites the mess I leave in the program is rather terrifying and not useful when my brain clicks into analytical mode. From there I move things into yWriter5 (this is a new step, it used to get shuffled into scrivener and vain attempts to make myself organize in LSB were used.) I strip out the world-related information that isn’t needed and put it into Scrivener for consistency checks and other referencing and use yWriter5 to do the analysis and in depth revision. I’ll work back and forth between yWriter and LSB, rewriting sections in LSB and then switching back to yWriter. (I’m in this stage of the process right now with one story.) I can useually do a scene in yWriter, but not a complete section.
While doing the above I’m also building my references in Scrivener. I can’t compose readily in Scrivener, something about it slows me up too much, and I haven’t isolated what I’m tripping over enough to elaborate on it. I have found the program priceless for world building and even more for world TRACKING. My worlds tend to be very detailed and my inner consistency nut is rather mean and aggressive, so having these details readily accessible once I get out of the mad drafting rush is critical. I haven’t found anything to beat Scrivener for actually FINDING my information again.
Yarny is my go to ‘I need to jot something down and am away’ location.
@Linda Adams: Many of the people I have encountered who ask about organizational things are at the point where they’re using something similar to your steno pads and it’s not working for them. They’re ready for that to be a part of the answer not the complete answer, so when they encounter that as a complete answer the response, emotionally, is ‘I do that already and it’s not working’. Most of the ones I’ve met haven’t really made the leap to the fact they need to cobble together their own bits and pieces to work for them.
Linda Adams wrote:The writer who asked the question actually came across as disappointed with my lack of a complex system. I dunno — seems like the writing should be more important than any system.Maybe they were hoping to pick up some useful ideas…
Seriously, mine is complicated – and I confess to peering into the innards of other complex systems just to see if I can tweak a bit of extra utility out of my own using something I pick up – but, to me, the whole point is what works for you. I’d lose days flipping through steno pads – but if that works for you, why would you want to lose days setting up a system like mine?I take the same attitude to writing advice. Yeah, I like to look around and see if I can learn anything. But the only thing that matters is what I can use. It doesn’t matter if fifteen out of ten best selling writers all use the same method, if I can’t make it work, then it’s no good to me. The goal is writing the story you want to write. Whatever gets you there is good. Whatever leads you down a useless path is bad. And those answers will be at least a bit different for all of us.
What I’m trying to say is, yes, it can be useful to talk about these things, and when you do find a flash of insight that helps you to refine your own methods so they work better, that’s great. But at the end of the day, when I read, I don’t care what method the writer used, to write the story or organise the material for it. All I care about is how much I enjoy the story, learn something from it, or whatever it is I’m hoping to gain from reading that story.
To answer your actual question
without writing a lengthy treatise, I use FocusWriter, RoughDraft, Scrivener, LiquidStoryBinder XE, two notes programs, NoteFrog and RightNote, QuattroPro spreadsheets I’ve designed myself, WordPerfect to run macros to do ‘grunt work’ on manuscript files, BarBeCue to track my progress on “active” stories, and a collection of plain HTML files to back everything up – that also allows me to quickly look up tidbits I need to check. Although it’s growing so large now, I’m going to have to rework the index system I use for the HTML files. It wasn’t that I set out to use such a complex system; it grew up because those things worked for me better than whatever I was doing previously. Yes, I could probably simplify it, and as I think of ways to do that, I will. But it would take me forever to sit down and figure out how to streamline it and get used to the new method, so it’s easier – for me – to stick with what I have and tweak bits here and there as new ideas occur to me. (And if someone else volunteered to come up with the “perfect” system for me, unless they also volunteered to migrate over all the stuff I have in my system now, I still don’t think it would be worth the effort to adopt that “better” system. Heck, I’m still harmonising a few remaining files with this system I’m using. If only I had known everything I know now when I started using computers to write…)Ambermoore wrote:@Linda Adams: Many of the people I have encountered who ask about organizational things are at the point where they’re using something similar to your steno pads and it’s not working for them. They’re ready for that to be a part of the answer not the complete answer, so when they encounter that as a complete answer the response, emotionally, is ‘I do that already and it’s not working’. Most of the ones I’ve met haven’t really made the leap to the fact they need to cobble together their own bits and pieces to work for them.I posted the question because we needed some other posts besides goals and this is a common writing question I’ve seen elsewhere recently.
Steno pads are actually working better for me than the other systems (such as they were). As someone who is right-brained, I need a little structure, but not a lot. I want to run and hide when I hear about 3 ring binders with tabs because it is wwwwaaayyyy too structured for me. I don’t details really well either (that’s an understatement), so a complicated system would end up paralyzing me because I would have trouble deciding what to put in it. Most of the time, I’ve end up relying on what’s in the story, so this actually a step up from the way I gravitated to.
I agree this is a worthwhile and potentially interesting discussion. It’s a question a lot of writers have. But anyone who reads this thread hoping to find “The Answer” is going to be disappointed.
Sure, I wish someone else would invent the One Method To Rule Them All, a system so perfect I’d have to immediately adopt it and it would change my life. I used to believe that might happen some day. But I’ve learned my only hope is to keep looking at ideas, making use of the ones that will work for me, and continually bringing my own system closer to what I need it to be.
I’d add that I don’t think precisely the same system is always best for every work. If you try to write a very different sort of book from anything you’re written, you may well need to adopt a different system when organising your notes. And you can get ideas – not complete, perfected systems, from any number of sources. Discussing what other writers do is a good way to go, although I’ve also picked up a few useful thoughts from “productivity porn” and from discussions of how genealogists can organise their work. (I was a pro for a while.) The amusing thing about that is, just about every serious genealogist has a system which they had to adapt to work for them. They might start out using someone else’s method, but if they don’t quit, they’ll find themselves adjusting it to their needs.
Oddly enough, anyone who reads the ‘thumbnail sketch’ of my system in my earlier post probably has the impression it’s a very precise system. Actually, it isn’t.
It’s a mess of methods and techniques cobbled together to meet various needs. I really wish I could use steno notebooks – but the way I work, I’d have to shuffle through a stack of at least a dozen of the things at any one time, flipping frantically, to locate anything. Even digitally, when in theory I ought to be able to search for anything I need, I have multiple solutions in place to help me cope with the chaotic interface between my mind and all the stuff I’m working on. I don’t think anyone else could possibly remain sane and use my system. 😆 Sometimes I wonder what it’s doing to my own sanity… I don’t think there’s any one right method. In the past few years, I ended up getting a planner, which I had never used before (it wasn’t an arbitrary decision). I’m right brained, so I’ve had to dig out bits and pieces I could use. I’ve been amazed how much advice is exactly the same. Do X, Y, Z and you’ll be organized. Only that’s not true for me.
It’s one of the reasons I was scared off fantasy for years. I’d hear writers talking about building the world and it started with tabs and binders and lots of pieces of paper (and usually never talked about the parts I needed to see). When I do see organization topics discussed, it’s usually the same tabs and binders. Having a story bible on a computer in separate folders is actually too much structure for me! Tabs and binders is a black hole.
I gather things in notes — paper, Nook, even in my brain.
I organize them in Scrivener, which is an easy way to move, change, group and add information, including links to important pages and pictures.
It’s never exactly the same for two books. I don’t think it should be. Research, like writing, needs to be fluid.
Whereas I do better with a set, predictable, structured approach where I do things pretty much the same way every time with little deviation, and then only when I come across something I think which may help (I’ll try anything once or twice). Then again, I’m apparently someone who thrives in structure (as I learned in boot camp–can’t get much more structured than that!).
With that, I’m learning to take babbling done in chat, notes in notebooks kept in my purse, and odds and ends I have scribbled on small index cards and put them into Scrivener. And this is all so new to me I’m getting to the different notes as I work on projects, because I don’t have the initiative to find everything at once and do it that way, which would probably be more efficient.
Ashe Elton Parker
"Just love me, fear me, do as I say, and I will be your slave." ~ David Bowie as Jareth in Labyrinth
~*~
Member since 1998.
~*~I find that changing things up helps me to also change the plot so that I’m not retelling stories. Since I have certain types of characters that I like, I have to be careful to get them into different situations. I have to approach them differently from the start.
I don’t organize ahead of time. I write in StoryBox, and I add characters to the character folder and places to the locations folder, and that’s about it. I don’t outline, I don’t plan. I only add those items to those places so I can find them later when I’m writing the next book.
I probably should do more organizing – I’ve found more than a few issues in my latest book because I forgot where a couple people spent the night, or that one character had not met another character in the past (this one caused me no end of trouble). However, I have no idea how to organize that stuff because I don’t know what I’m going to need to remember until I start writing the next book.
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