I was reading somewhere, maybe Twitter, about methods of revising first drafts.
I'm a OneNote junkie for my series bibles and character/world building notes, but I don't plot there. (I don't plot at all, really.) I have gotten into the habit of outlining. It makes writing so much faster and cleaner for me if I have a vague idea of where I'm going and what I'm doing. Even if I deviate (a lot) from my notes before it's all said and done.
Now that I'm thinking about it, outlining is kind of like a security blanket for me. Hmm.
Anyway. Let's flash forward. We've plotted/outlined/or neither and we've finished a book.
Now what?
Where do you go from here?
I don't know about you, but I make notes as I write. On Post-Its. I love those things.
I just wrapped up the first draft for Eversworn and I have a stack of Post-Its I'm weeding through, adding in thoughts or objects I'd forgotten about but didn't want to stop my train of thought to correct at the time. I just bulldozed through and left the tiny things until the end.
I'm finding that method works best for me. That way, most of the loose ends are tied up before I begin my first read-through. So I have more uninterrupted time to read and think about character and plot development instead of, in this book for instance, where the model horse went while the h/h were getting frisky. ;)
So, plotter or pantser? Note cards, notebooks, OneNote? What do you use to cross the finish line?
2 comments:
I'm a spreadsheet queen! I keep a full Excel workbook keeping track of character details, chapter page counts, and a timeline, and I'll make notes there about what kind of revisions I'll want to do later.
After I'm done with the book, lately I'll print it out and read through, making notes on the page, slapping notecard-tab stickies on the binder for reminders for later, and starring places for longer passages I type on my Neo. But this is a different procedure than I've used in the past, so I'm sure it will change again. :)
Oh, I so need to be more organized. I need one of thoses spread sheets with an assistant to fill them out for me.
I spent twenty minutes yesterday researching my own darn books trying to figure out a certain character's eye color. LOL I never found it.
I'm an outliner but as I get deeper into the story I plot like heck then don't follow any of it. Something in the process works.
I tried OneNote and like it but don't have the time to use it like I should.
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