How do you manage your text files during revision?

I dont break down my first draft by chapters. that would be way too much for me to keep track of. I have 1 document for my 1st draft. I will again have 1 document my 2nd draft and so on. If everything is broken down per chapter how do you go back and forth when you need to verify things or make changes to things? Also never touch my work until the 1st draft if complete. I dont revise while i write.

 

This question wasn't for me but i write similarly. No I don't have loading issues. Idk what size my file is right now but its about 45,000 word and I'm aiming for another 25,000 - 35,000

 

I do, but my current writing PC (a tablet) is crap, so that's not a surprise.
Things only crash when I try to scroll through dozens of pages right after opening the doc, or if I zoom right out and scroll through it at max speed.
Saving takes a few seconds, but I can keep writing whilst it chugs along, so I don't mind.

 

Old topic, sure, but one I didn't reply to the first go-'round, so here goes.

I use Word and keep the whole book in one file. No loading or saving issues at all. Lots of text isn't really a strain on the system. I have a much harder time saving business documents with loads of screen shots.

I have my own special formatting for the first draft--one I'm comfortable with visually which also helps me to gauge my progress and keep to my routine. Then at the end, my first step is to convert the document into manuscript format, which I save as a new file. Subsequent drafts use that file and are saved as "Draft 2," "Draft 3," "Draft 4," and so on.

So I have each draft of the manuscript, and additionally I have the very first draft unchanged.

 

Scrivener. Works great.

 

I basically never do this, but even I have, I just inserted a page break after chapter five, and write 17-19 after it. Then I just fill in the blank space afterwards.

 

I don't, and I don't think I ever would. For me, my characters grow linearly with the story. Jumping ahead to a scene in the future would disrupt that character growth.

Plus I doubt I'd be able to write a story piecemeal to begin with.

 

This is somewhat off-topic to the thread, but I think that it's wise to print the Whole Bleeping Thing once in a while (maybe, oh, four times in the life of working on a book, or every six months, whichever is more frequent?) and keep it stashed somewhere. Especially if you're using software that writes to something other than plain text files. If the worst worst happens, OCRing or even retyping the whole book is better than starting over.

 

I've been thinking about back-up options lately, after my laptop (sole repository of just about everything) nearly died last week. It seems to me you could just use Google Docs or something, or at worst pay for a service like MozyHome. Has anyone else done this, or had any issues with trying this? Even a novel-sized word doc shouldn't be that heavy, I would think. And while hardcopy is the ultimate backup, I would just feel so bad about using so much paper...

 

I did that with my first ms and I wrote each scene in a different document, then compiled when it was done and began revising it as a whole. (Which in fact involved a lot of moving around scenes). I haven' done that since, but If I would, I'd do as Niall Roach says.

 

My concern isn't just data loss, but data corruption, software versions, or my own failure as a curator.. The roleplaying adventures that I wrote in the floppy era are still available to me because floppies can't be trusted and I printed them and put them in a binder. The ones that I wrote a few years later might be on some ancient 20MB disk in some box, but what are the odds I'll ever find them or the software that can read the files?

 

I try not to do this because from past experience i end up never going back to finish what i skipped, but when I did I would just create a large break in the page or title the top of a new page Chapter 17 and just continue writing a future chapter then i could scroll back through to find where i left off before but yeah I try not to do this anymore.

 

Yes this applies to me as well. I for me to write chapter 17 when I am only at chapter 10 would require me to "tell the future" I only the know the present and I have goals of where I was to be but i still have to work towards it and they might change. you know?

 

I write all one document, start to finish. I keep a side document where I stash chunks of words that I cut from the main document, but that's it. Otherwise, no versions, no multiple files. I start with one document, do all my work on that document, and don't worry about versions.

I use Dropbox to save my files, so they're both on my hard drive and in the cloud somewhere.

And it only takes a couple months to write a book, so I don't worry too much about long-term storage - I keep print copies of finished books, but I've never printed out any of my work onto paper. I'm too cheap, and I don't want to worry about storing it.

 

I'd go with Dropbox and multiple PCs.

 

Sounds complicated!

 

Yes, exactly. That's why I keep a separate file for every chapter. That's the way I write, too.

It's easy enough to compile the chapters into a full book, once the first draft is finished. OR, you can do as I did, and not compile them until you're actually at the formatting-for-publication stage.

I find some chapters need a lot more editing than others, and it's easier just to zoom in to the chapter in question rather than scroll through the whole danged book. During my first few edits I've combined chapters, eliminated chapters, transposed a couple of chapters, and inserted new transitional chapters, so again, keeping them separate while working on them makes sense for me.

 

I do not feel bad about using paper. I've put a ton of work into my novel, and feel it deserves a paper copy. I also edit more effectively using paper. So I use it. (In addition to flash drives, a second hard drive, and email copies at various stages. Okay, I'm paranoid, but I have never 'lost' any of my work either. And that's after 19 years of working on the same long novel, which is now finished.)

Paper copies have saved my arse on two occasions, once when I accidentally deleted the wrong file—my mistake (on all my backups as well)–and once when a software glitch caused a chapter to be corrupted—before the days of email and the internet. Presto. Both times, I had the hard copy and was able to re-enter the chapter. A pain, but otherwise I'd have had to re-write them from scratch.

It's interesting that the former editor of MacFormat magazine, the UK's leading Mac publication, is an advocate of keeping a hard copy of any file you can't afford to lose. He recommends all sorts of other devices and methods of saving work, but then says that ultimately a paper copy is also a good idea. (And no, that's not why he's the 'former' editor! )

 

Do you guys print your hard copies at home or go to a place like staples or what not to print it? I figure I would print it at staples and while there just have then put it on a spiral thing too.

 

That would cost way too much for me.

 

While this is certainly a viable method, it's not the only method to work linearly. I definitely don't have a perfect page one before moving onto page two. The battle between editing as you go vs finishing a draft and then editing will likely be waged until the end of time, but there is definitely a range between them that I think most writers tend to fall on.

Yes, I start at page one and end at page 396 (or so...usually somewhere around there). But it's only afterward that I start trying to make things perfect. I don't just spew junk onto the page, of course--I take my time and try to get it right--but I also don't get hung up on it. I write what I think sounds good initially (or make a note to fix something passable) and continue onward, knowing that on draft two I have some specific things to address.

 

I used to love wordperfect. I didn't realize it's still available.

 

This is the way the majority of us go about it, I believe.

 

Plus, thumb drives are so cheap these days!

 

I lost an entire manuscript with a hard drive failure once. It sent me into a depression for months.