Organizing Your Work

My friend Judy asked me this week if I had any tips for her as she organized her next non-fiction book. I thought about it and decided to share them with everyone here at Routines for Writers.

Writing Longhand
When I write longhand, I try to use a different notebook (with a different colored front cover) for each project. I used to just buy school notebooks by the dozen during back-to-school sales, but a few months ago a friend gave me a beautiful notebook with big, brilliant flowers all over it. I found myself wanting to write in that one more because it was so pretty. It made me happy. If you can afford them, buy a notebook with a cover that makes you smile. You might write in it more.

If the notebook has sections, I’ll use one section for each of the main things I expect to need in the near future. In the beginning of an idea, there are dozens of pages that are almost journaling, of me talking to myself about the idea. I’ll use another section – or start with the back page and work forward – to write out character sketches, ideas about the characters and their names, occupation possibilities, etc.

Since I’ve been in the process of moving lately, I only bought one new notebook when I got half-settled, but I bought the one that is pre-punched to put in binders. In this notebook, I can start a new page about any story idea, or any character, and then pull the pages out later to put in binders according to what book they belong to. In the top right corner of each page I write a few letters describing which book it is so I can file them in binders quicker. Right now I have pages with “H” – those are notes on my Hero books – and pages with “FF” for the romance “Down at the Fluff ‘N Fold.”

Binders
Nearly every writer I know who has written more than two books has a binder system. Everyone does it a bit differently because everyone’s mind works a bit differently. I buy blank tabbed dividers with erasable tabs so I can organize and re-organize any time. Right now the front section is a printed calendar of the month(s) during which the book takes place with a short note about what happens on each day (they meet, he saves her life, he proposes, real dad shows up, etc.). That keeps me on track.

The next section is the printed pages of the book as I write them. Next are any pages or notes written about the characters. Sometimes I’ll split this into two sections, main characters and secondary. I will often put a hole-punched envelope (or other nifty office supply – I love office supplies! LOL!) in the character section for pictures from magazines, etc. The following sections are plot – where I put most of my printouts from “First Draft in 30 Days,” then settings, and then whatever seems appropriate for that book and my current organizational mood. (Hence, the erasable tabs!)

Because everyone has a different system, I would love it if you all commented about how you organize your system. Then everyone can try out others’ ideas!

Computer software and files
This one is tricky for me because I am a fairly visual person. I’m good at creating a filing system, but then I forget that I made a file called “Job description of a tax accountant” for some character. So I’ll be writing away and thinking, I know I looked up this information and I’m sure I wrote it down somewhere, but where?!

If I’m working in Word, I create a file folder for the new book, then two more folders under it called Pages and Research. Each day that I work on the actual pages of the book, I “Save As” the book name with today’s date. It’s my way of a) not losing everything if one file gets corrupted, and b) feeling confident that I can erase a sentence or a scene that isn’t working without really losing it, because I can go find it again in an earlier file. (For scenes that I am in love with and really think I could use somewhere else, I’ll cut and paste them into a file called “Cut Scenes to Use Later.” I rarely use them, but I know they’re there, so it’s easier to cut them from where they aren’t working.) Sometimes, on a really organized day, I’ll remember to print out a list of all the files in each of those folders so that I don’t forget all the work I’ve already done! 

One other thing I really like doing with the computer files and the Internet is saving pictures and articles right to my computer (no need for scanning pictures from magazines). In one of the versions of Word (Mac only?), you can choose Notebook Layout from the View menu and have tabbed sections of your document right there in a computer file! I love this because it keeps everything together, though I do worry that sometime my file will become corrupted and I will have forgotten to back it up. In that document I’ll save pictures of my characters from the Internet and put little name captions under them. I’ll save pictures of houses and plants and animals. I’ll save snippets of conversations and ideas from friends’ emails. Etc., etc. It’s a great way to organize.

As a Mac user and a visual person, I have found Scrivener to be the best program for my writing, and for the way my brain works. (I wrote about it here; be sure to read the comments on that post to find the name of similar programs for Windows users.) The great thing about these programs is that all of your information and “files” show up in a column to the left. You can see everything at a glance. I don’t lose anything now if I remembered to put it in my Scrivener file. One file for each book, and innumerable “sub-files” (for lack of a better word) that include text documents, pdf files, audio files, pictures, etc. It’s awesome!

I hope this helps you get a little more organized. If you have another way of organizing your work, comment here and let us know. Hundreds of thousands of people are trying to figure out how to organize their thoughts this month in order to write a new novel next month for NaNoWriMo. Let’s help each other get ahead of the curve!