Project organization

Hey everyone,

I want to know how all of you organize your writing projects? Do you use scene cards? If so, what's on them? Do you use certain formats in Word to organize the information you have?

I'm having trouble getting the organization right, which is sort of preventing me from writing. So if you know any good tips..please feel free to share them.

I started out using Yarny, because it is simple to use and the scenes can be easily shifted around. I had later tried to use Scriver, but I couldn't understand how to use it, so I reverted back to Yarny. I like Yarny in that it automatically saves any work I add in, but you can also go back to previous versions if you want.

But my scenes were becoming too many, and I was having trouble keeping track of what was supposed to happen when so that certain plot information wasn't revealed too early on. In the past I had always handwritten anything I had written (school essays), so I decided to write out brief summaries of the scenes on scene cards so that I could also add notations and reminders on them, of specific things I was to cover, and what to avoid. Using the scene cards, I was able to shuffle things around easily so that the timeline fit better overall. Shuffling it around on the computer wasn't working for me because it was too long, and I was overlooking things.

I then transferred the information to a blank page on Yarney, setting it up like an outline, which was easy to do since the scene cards only held brief information. I put it into outline form once I had things in order,so that I could have a linear page to check that the timeline was indeed advancing properly.

After I had the timeline figured out, I went back and rearranged the scenes on Yarny to match the scene cards/outline. So now I'm just writing out the complete scenes on Yarny.

I found that this system was really beneficial to me, because I've finally covered everything I wanted to, and had worked out plot holes and tied up loose ends. Before, something had felt missing, and now it doesn't because either I rearranged things better or I was able to see where I needed to add additional scenes. This probably won't work for everyone, but it did for me. Hope that helps.

Wow, that is thorough! Yarny, is that a programm you have to buy? If so.. Where can you get it? I'll google it later, as I am pressed for time now. But that helped a lot, thanks!

it's free online.
yarny.me/

I'll check it out. Thanks for the tip!

Moving to WRiting 101

I write in Scrivener using Dramatica Theory. My actual prose is organized into Chapter folders and Scene "cards". My research (character matrices, plot outlines, etc) is usually in paragraph form scattered around in a Word document.

I just read about Scrivener..seems very handy. I just discovered microsoft office onenote...which suits my needs perfectly!

Another one for Scrivener. I'm learning how to interlink all my notes and so forth and use keywords to organize characters, plots, subplots, and everything. I love how you can mix and match and tune everything exactly the way you want it. I'm using the Windows version, and some enterprising user decided to make a timeline plugin using java that allows you to timeline everything however you'd like (it's called Awrit), giving Scrivener more capabilities than any other program out there. Now the sooner they implement all the Mac features, the better. Can't wait for customizable meta-data, and all the tweaks to Scrivenings that are promised. There's also yWriter and that's a nice, free, and incredibly powerful little program that keeps your novel organized into chapters and scenes. Storybook is another fairly simple free program that's a little bit more of a visual organizer than the others mentioned, might want to look at the free version as a great visual organization tool. Anyways, there are others out there, but they all do more or less the same thing, just in different packaging (Except for Liquid Story Binder, that one you've just got to try to see if you like it or hate it).