Recently on Discord there's been requests for writing software that let you keep timelines. I don't really keep timelines myself, but I've thought about drawing rudimentary maps of the places where my scenes are set.

What other things (text/data/drawings) do you kick around when writing?

 

I add a lot of extra stuff during the editing process or when I'm stuck somewhere. In those cases I sometimes do character sheets and fall back to the old PoV/goal/setback/consequence scheme for every scene and some notes on mood and setting.

For the most part of the first draft, though, I've got one separate document where I make notes and think about the world and the characters, but it's rather chaotic and there are passages of free-flow association in there when I'm using a timer and just barf ink to get as many ideas as possible. It's barely legible but after some sifting there's usually a nice idea buried somewhere.

 

At the moment, just a chapter plan, which varies from just a brief list of the main points to including choice lines that I've already thought up, to fully written scenes.

 

If i'm writing fiction/Fanfiction, not much. I usually have key points plotted out, but I also remember them well enough I don't need it in front of me. If i'm doing fanfiction I might keep the books near me so I can reference depending on the fandom (HP I dont know the details as well so I reference books and wikis a lot. ASOIAF i'm more encyclopedic and don't need to refer to things often). But that's about it. My 'prep' tends to be more me pacing back and forth and mumbling to myself for an hour or longer running the chapter through my head and then sitting down and writing.

Non-Fiction writing is different though, and I'll usually have a mound of references with sticky notes many feet high. When I do need stuff, I think it is still more of a 'hands on' sense. If i'm writing say an article on the American Revolution, I find it easier to have a pile of books I can flip through than I do a pile of online articles (if I use articles i'll print them out). Mostly because with the internet, for me, it is still harder to scroll through to find a specific passage compared to the printer word.

 

I have a 'notes' chapter in my document library on ffn for my current projects. Other than that, it's just like three wikipedia articles at a time, though I'll look at about ten for each chapter.

 

When it’s fanfiction with minimal changes then it’s normally just a detailed plotting document from the top level concepts down to a scene by scene sentence. Then when I write I turn that sentence into a paragraph that I put at the top of the scene in the Gdoc.

Along the spectrum to original/massive AU: I use campfire. So I’ll have my gdoc plan open too, but I’ll use the timeline feature for the plot, the character tabs for character profiles with groups organised by faction. The encyclopaedia for stuff I don’t want to forget as I progress through and a world map if it’s the sort of thing where I need to orient myself.