Question for Writers

[Travis]

I am probably horrible about organization, but the way I do it works for me.

I outline my book, roughly, with character profiles.

Then I start writing in MS word loosely based on that outline.

If I have material that just hits me, and its farther down the timeline, I start writing notes either in MS word or notepad, depending on how much material it is.

And I go by drafts, naming each draft a different file name as it morphs (just in case I want to look at a previous version).

I have, at times, when editing, created a file of nothing but cut material, things removed (only when its an entire paragraph or more).

As far as navigating the document when it gets rather large, I just scroll really fast. That's probably very old-school in today's world of advanced writing tools, but it works for me.

The biggest pain in the ass is editing. I open two documents and position them one over the top of the other, and scroll back and forth between the two of them line by line to look over my editor/critique partner's suggestions and comments.

I never use, as a manuscript, a document that has been emailed to me by another person. I never know what might be in that document in the way of formatting quirks. I stick with my uncorrupted original document, but compare it to all the other versions that were sent out for edits/critique.