Note: I hope this is in the right place, if not please move it appropriately So, do you guys have different folders for every draft you have? Like, when you finish your work, and you do an edit, do you save each newly edited chapter in a separate folder then your first draft, or do you just edit over your current chapters?
When I used bbEdit, yep, I stored dated files before going in to make substantial changes. In Scrivener, I take snapshots.
I use good ol' Microsoft Word, so I just save each chapter as a separate Word Doc in a folder titled "Fantasy Novella Project"
I name things: Title 1.0, Title 1.1, etc., so they're never too hard to find. Every time I update a draft, I save it as a new version. When I get multiple versions of something, then I'll make a folder and throw em all in there. I'm not even sure it's necessary. It's not as though I edit things into worse versions. I'm just convinced that if I don't do it, something will go catastrophically wrong that could have been avoided or salvaged had I been keeping version records.
Actually I don't. I probably should, but I don't bother. I laugh in the face of danger. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, please don't strike me with lightning.
I don't have separate files for each chapter - just one file for the whole thing. And I don't save versions, not until after the editor is involved. One file per project - I feel like I'd get confused otherwise.
When I used to post a chapter at a time as a WIP I would save each chapter as it's own Word doc, but now I just have one file for the whole MS. If I have to reformat per publisher guidelines I'll save each version separately, and of course once edits start coming in I've got different versions saved as well.
No, not unless it's a revision requested by someone else (an editor, for example). Then I would edit a copy and rename it. For my own edits / revisions, I have a small collection of "spare parts" that have been removed and labeled. They're in one document, in the order in which they originally appeared. The collection is very small...currently about four paragraphs out of my WIP of 38K words. The rest have been deleted. It's probably living dangerously to do it this way, but this way I'm forced to make every edit better, because there's no previous version to fall back on.
Once I get past the first rough draft, I usually save each new version (after it has been edited more than just SPAG) with a new number - WIP, WIP2 .... When I'm all done, I get rid of the earlier versions.
I have one file for a project but save every version. Also, in that file, I keep reference material and anything used in that project. There's been time when I've referred to an earlier draft for wording or reference and its always handy to have.
If I make major changes I usually try to make a new file, though I don't always remember to. I've never made a new folder for each version though. If I have enough files of one story I might make a folder for all versi0ns of that story, but that's the furthest I'd go in the way of folders.
For my earlier projects I did have folders called "Old chapters" for some reason, but I usually don't re-write from scratch when I revise. Instead I edit over the current draft, that works best for me. If I cut larger chunks of text out of the first draft, they get pasted into a "Discarded Passages"-file though, because I often need them again, so that folder is really important for me during revision. But that's about it for draft-treatment folders.
I save each file, update, when I have edited and/or added new words. Such as Thunder Wells v 27, then Thunder Wells v 27 Then on second or subsequent Drafts: Thunder Wells 2D v 3 I do not separate chapters into separate files or anything like that. Makes searching and revision more difficult, at least for me. I also email a copy to myself after each revision/version, in addition to thumb drive and other regular backups.
I never throw anything away but I don't make separate folders, at least not for the primary writing. I have a folder in my dropbox for each project. I write the first draft as one single document, no cuts made, no substantial changes, just write from start to finish and save that. And when I come back to edit I don't actually edit that file, I take a copy of it and start cutting it down in it's own separate file where I can hack remorselessly with a razor and if I want something back I can just go find it again in the old file. Once the cut down is finished, I take another copy and proof the copy. And then is when I start making separate folders. So I'll have a folder called Beta, where I can make any formatting changes people need (if they use an e-reader say, or they want double spaced to write on it) on a separate version, and where I can save versions that come back with notes on or save chunks of feedback that came in e-mails or forum posts or whatever next to the version that they read. I make a new copy in the beta file to make amendments from feedback, and then I make a new Final Version folder, take another copy and proof that last one and call it finished. Then inside that folder will be a submissions folder with sub folders for double spaced, for 1.5 spaced, for letters, for synopses, for all the different things so I just have them there and ready. Is this the most organised way to work? No, not really. I often have to go searching for the version that I want to find something in and that's not perfect. But it works well for me because I kinda don't have to think at all about version control or anything. Just make a copy and then start working and that's it. As long as I know the version I'm working on today and the version that I was writing last then it's no big deal. And if I do go back in and look at least I have things of the same phase next to each other; so an unedited first draft in the same folder as the edited first draft and the proofed edited first draft. All my feedback is saved in a folder with the version the feedback applies to, and the version that it's changing to. And finished books are in their own folder along with the samples that derive from them. So yes, it can leave me scrabbling to find something from a while ago, but for day to day I'm only ever in one folder and it autosaves (and auto-backs up old versions too, because dropbox is useful) and means I pretty much don't have to think about anything.
