When I was still in college,I brought a special notebook to class everyday where I would constantly write outlines, and sometimes draw maps. This was for classes that didn't have computers.

Now,all my outlines are done in the actual story file. The outlines are usually at the top or bottom of the story. When I'm actually writing the story, I'll put ideas I want to cover, or sometimes just random thoughts in parentheses. As I write, I delete the idea in the parenthesis with parts of the actual story. Some stuff always remains though, background information that the readers don't know yet, so I know where I'm taking each of the characters, and plot ideas I want to try, or remind myself to try later on once the story is developed.

Needless to say, it's not very organized. I essentially write all of one idea in one large word file. Then, as I get enough words to fill up a chapter, I move that section to it's own file named Chapter 1, etc, and do the actual editing there. So the original file can end up quite large, even if half of it is just random thoughts and ideas which I may not cover for a long time, but it's a lot of the ideas that propelled me to write in the first place.

 

I tend to do what you've done there. Except I use Dan Well's Seven Point Structure to describe the journey for each of my major characters. I just stick it in a word document or whatever.

Once I've got the rough outline for every character, I'll break each one apart and weave them together into a somewhat cohesive narrative. Then I'll look at pacing and see where I need to jam in characterisation, extraneous plot or filler. It'll generally end up looking something like this:

 

Honestly, I just keep a lot of ideas jumbled up in my head and try to write down the least important ones that I will most likely forget in a separate Word doc. The big scenes I also write down, except I just write specific ideas. An example would like how the smell of blood was too much or something or other. You get what I'm saying? You get what I'm saying.

I'm not sure it is the best method, but you gotta go with what works.

As for your software troubles, there are some templates in word that you might like. Search outline.

If not, some messing around with tables got me this

Editing? I think.

 

I've been experimented with a few things because of how delayed I can get if I don't do anything.

My latest process goes like this:

1) Overarching high level story arc at a bare level
2) Minimalized plot point outlines, including subplots and character arcs
3) scene breakdown

So for example, I'd have something like:

HARRY EATS TIME TURNER
HARRY MESSES WITH TIME ACCIDENTALLY
HARRY MEETS MERLIN
MORE NONSENSE
HARRY MEETS MERLIN THE OTHER WAY AROUND

Which becomes
Harry meets Merlin, who tells him the secret of time travel, sends him back
Harry sees time, understands it
Harry gets help from Hermione to start the ball rolling

Which becomes more written out like:

HARRY presents his idea of banging many broads to HERMIONE, who slaps him. She offers an alternative, which HARRY accepts. He heads back to BOOK ONE and asks RON about finding NEVILLE (who is there) and LUNA (who RON knows slightly).

But I'm always open to new ideas.

 

Eh, my outlines aren't so much an outline as a jumbled mess. None of it is in order, except in my head, but all the key points are there.

I really should come up with a better system, but what I got going on works for now, as my stories tend to develop as I write them and a lot of what I write is character driven.

 

I pretty much have a word document for each of my stories where I jot down what I definitely want in each arc out to however many arcs--usually three ahead--which amounts to the skeleton of the story, which I then fill in. I then jot down a bunch of half-written scenes and conversations as I think about them and put them in there to later look over and put in if they fit. Sometimes I write important scenes and conversations ahead of time; in a few stories, I wrote the entire ending first thing.

It's kind of a messy way to do things, though. Several of my word docs are over 100k.

 

I actually use QuickTopics for my outlines so I have different posts for different things. Right now I'm using it for a piece of original fiction and it's got several posts in the QT, one is a plot stream with the over arching plot for the piece, another is a character page which is essentially a character list, their relations and what chapters they appear in, another post is literally just the geography of the setting since I suck at drawing maps and suchs. Every category gets a new post that I then edit to update. Each subplot will also eventually get its own post in the QT thread.

 

I use AutoCad. Yes, probably not the ideal tool, but I first needed some sort of tool to keep track on when the fixed points in my story would happen (school holidays, OWL exams, birthdays, full moons, and various canon events) and how much time there was between those points, so I draw a calendar with a couple of years worth of days straight on top of each other. And with that in place it was only natural to write the planned events in the story on top of that, which made it easy to see when there was too big time skips and where there was unrealistic amount of action packed in too little time.

And as there is for all intents and purposes an infinite zoom over infinite area, it sort of grew up from there: I can get an overview of the whole thing in one glance, but there's a lot of notes and ideas all around the now 100x100 meters model space.

Then of course for larger snippets and individual scenes there's a lot of individual text documents, but that's not really outline.

Probably a bit technical way of doing things and wouldn't work with all types of stories, but it has worked for me.

 

I'll also throw in here that whilst actually writing I usually have at least two monitors so I can throw the outline and notes I've gathered on one side and the story draft on the other. It lets me flip between the two without losing my train of thought.

That combined with the ingrained typing skills that comes with using computers now-a-days has led me to the point where I can be finishing a sentence/paragraph in the draft while also looking at my notes and plotlines to keep up and make sure I'm both sticking to the story I've got and lets me know what's coming up next so I can mentally prepare while finishing the previous bit.

I can't tell you how satisfying it is to be able to look at the plot line while still writing the previous bit. It gives me motivation because I can look at it and be all "Hey, that's gonna happen next? After what I just wrote I know how to make it happen and make it awesome. This is sweet." Repeat this over the course of an hour or two and that's my writing process for the most part.

 

I tend to just write the story down, which sounds like a cop-out, but there it is.

I prefer pencil and paper to typing, but I'll take what's available. I jot down the story as it comes to me, each paragraph usually equaling a scene. It'll lay out what's happening and how each character is acting during the events.

I'll also make notes on what each character is thinking, or what their ultimate motivation is, even if it's something I won't actually add to the story at that point.

I try to leave space between each paragraph to go back and add, switch, replace or remove ideas.

If the pages start looking ridiculously messy, I re-write the whole thing.

As I type the draft, I'll keep notes that occur to me as I'm going in a separate paragraph at the bottom of the screen, and delete the appropriate parts of that paragraph as they are added to the story proper, but the original, hand-written tale will be at my elbow so that I don't forget anything.

At this stage, the organic process takes over, and I just start typing while the info and direction I'm going is bouncing around in my head. Some of the best moments I've ever written were honestly just filler while I was waiting for the story to get on the track I wanted it to follow.

Once it's done, I'll take a day or two and simply not look at it. Then, I'll go back for a read through with the original notes on hand to make sure everything makes sense and does what I wanted it to.

 

Here's a question: How many times do you re-read what you've written? Do you re-read as you write the draft or do you just power through and re-read it at the end?

I try not to re-read until I'm done a draft, otherwise I get bored or I lose all thought on where it was going. That's why I keep a notestream that I can refer to so I don't have to search however much writing I've done for a single moment. Any thoughts or better ways to go about this?

 

I have trouble with consistence, as my writing is constantly changing. I'm still working on nailing down a writing style and all that jazz. I usually have to reread my chapters from the top before I starting writing again, so that I can follow what I've written.

Editing wise, I read the entire thing again a few times before I post it.

 

I use pen & paper aside from just word files. I have one that's basically a long notes list for WaS for example, which includes quotes and relevant bits for all the major characters, as well as a sort of redux plot for what the villains are up to, which is crudely written and mostly just there for reference. Also this pad has a ton of little things from the comics so that I can slip some in when the opportunity presents itself, which is where about half of that comes from. (the other half is just due to my bottomless familiarity with a ton of ye olde comics...)

The overall plot of all my stories (except for DSHND, actually) was written out before I started, though not in great detail. About four pages of text for the entire thing as a very basic summary. Most of my plots start out really insane and are whittled down to something that works: I find that if I do it the other way around, I forget to add actual stakes anywhere. (Sigh)

Actually, I've tried a bunch of software options, but I only really use a spelling/grammar checker that lists my repetitive phrases and the like, since I'm prone to indulging in random word-overuse. It's rarely the same ones, either - a quirk of English as a secondary language, I suppose.

 

So.....have you written more WaS?

 

Outlining is where I have the most trouble, I think.

I usually have a gel-pen and notepad -a pocket one- to write random shit down in.

On the computer? Either Notepad or GoogleDocs for when I'm doing shit (like alt-tabbing from a waiting SCII lobby), and when I'm not? Scrivener.

That program is awesome.

 

Which checker is this? I'm assuming it's not the generic MSWord checker but if it is, is it a special setting that needs to be switched on or something?