- Out-takes
Erm, yeah, I've got a lot of these. I was surprised to discover I had 17,789 words of deleted stuff for Book 1. Most of this amounts to over-explanation of certain things and telling instead of showing. In contrast, I've only taken one 250-word scene out of Book 2. But I'm yet to get into serious edits for that. I'm sure it'll grow exponentially.
- Timeline
I find these indispensable, as I always tend to lose track of what day it is. So far I've only got one for Book 1, which only takes place over a couple of weeks, but it's a busy couple of weeks. It's important to know what happens when.
- CP Notes
It's essential to keep all these in one folder so I can compare and contrast what different people thought of each thing. That helps me weigh up what changes to make.
- Book 2 Notes
Not CP notes, but a list of various things to be checked and verified, often in relation to Book 1. It's surprisingly easy to have things that contradict each other in a series so I need to make sure everything adds up seamlessly.
- Book 3 Plan
I don't normally do a lot of planning, but for the final book in the trilogy it seemed a pretty good idea, so I wouldn't veer off down an irrelevant track. In a lot of ways this is the most important book as it has to tie everything together. Everything's still open to change as the story develops, though.
- Book 1 Marketing Plan
I started this a while back, as I originally planned to release Book 1 earlier, but decided to have the rest of the series written first. It's a handy thing to keep a hold of, adding or amending certain items as trends change.
I'm sure lots of you have similar things for your books and probably much more - Pinterest boards, character profiles, storyboards, wall charts. (If I had my own office, the walls would be covered with WIP-related stuff!) I'd be interested to hear all about it.
10 comments:
Hi Nick- it's good to have one's own archive of eclectic notes, possible beginnings, tenuous or determined ends ... I just tend to have lots of unpublished blog posts or potentials ... but food for re-entry into the world at some stage. I can see pinterest boards, character profiles etc etc ... would be really handy - as well as room full of white boards with infographics on them! Cheers and here's to the A-Z - Hilary
That will be interesting stuff. My critique partners are funny and I've posted some of their comments before.
That's great that you are so organized. If you're writing a series and can plan it out like you have, I think it helps to not feel like you made a mistake in book 1 or 2 that doesn't work with how you want the series to end in book 3.
I love comparing CP notes - opinions can vary so much!
Looking forward to your posts in April :-)
You seem pretty organized. That's awesome!
A story bible is vital. Sounds like yours is organized well.
Using outtakes is a great idea. I cut so much from some of my books I could do a whole new side story with them.
My "System" is more like one massive pile of documents in a single folder (or maybe with a couple of subfolders, like 'revison 1', 'revision 2' etc.) It actually occurred to me just this week that a scene from my RiP that I dropped two drafts ago could be revised and adapted for the same project, but occurring between different characters than when I originally wrote it. Now, I've got to find it in the mess....
Those will be great things to take a closer look at!
You are a drastically more organized and prepared person then myself when it comes to writing...
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