Young Writers Society

So I had this conversation with a human, and it basically made me curious about whether writers out there have any favourite ways of writing when we look at it from a purely technical side.
Do you use font size 12, and write with 1.5 spacing like you're already preparing it for publishing? Do you use whatever standard font, or like to make it curly or creepy or handwriting-like-ish so you'd like it better when you look at it? Do you always write black on white, or sometimes play with colours? Do you use comments, footnotes and stuff alike to add thoughts or whatever, do you even care for all that stuff? Do you use different folders, or different documents for different scenes/characters/etc? Which parts do you prefer writing regularly, and which in italic/bold/small caps/whatever?

Or, if you prefer writing in hand, do you have a favourite pen and notebook for it, or does neither of it matter? Do you prefer lines, or squares, or empty paper, or perhaps some with a weird design of some sort? Do you have separate notebooks for separate stories, or write them all in one big one as the ideas come to you? Do you prefer a pen or a pencil, or maybe something completely else? Do you use colours and/or add drawings or diagrams or something..? How do you mark a part that'll once be in italic/bold/etc when you type it to computer, if you mark it anyhow?

Do you ever delete stuff, or mark them too somehow? There are so many questions on these topics, so tell me how you write :3 Oh, and if anyone has invented some neat new method of organising stuff or using colours for something or creating mementoes they can use as bookmarks or anything alike, do share your tips with the rest of us :3

Personally, I prefer writing in hand, and I keep a big notebook with different compartments of sorts, so I can separate the stories. However, I usually write the actual story on computer, while using the notebook and pen(s) for random scenes only. I also prefer thin ink-like pens (honestly no idea how to call them in English lol), they're even waterproof and can stay very readable when I make notes on my hand/arm/available piece of skin in case the notebook is out of my reach Sometimes I write them on random papers too, in those cases I tape them somehow to the notebook or make pockets to put them in. *artsy*
When I want to mark italics, /I write the text like this/. I don't use bold, and I rarely if ever use caps, so slashes are my best friends for emphasizing stuff. I always draw in the middle of my writing, and write around/over those drawings... Rarely use colours, but when I don't have my favourite kind of pen or want to make something noticeably different for some reason, I'll write with a pencil/different colour just as easily.
On computer, it's usually Helvetica 10, single spaced. Which makes it much bigger when I change it to Times 12, spacing 1.5, but that's just too huge for me, I don't like my own words screaming at me like that xD It's usually black or white, though I sometimes divide different POVs by colours, or mark important scenes that way..

But, I've rambled enough now xD I'm curious about how other people see these things - if you think about your own ways, I'm sure you'll figure you do have a favourite, even if you never thought of it

So I had this conversation with a human

You are wonderful.

I much prefer writing on a computer to writing by hand because I type twice as fast as I handwrite and when it comes to getting ideas out of my head and onto the page, speed helps XD


Fonts and spacing and smush

I am a huge fan of the formal, squarish fonts like Lucida Console. Originally I chose them because I find them easier to read, but every font carries a bit of character and I associate those types of font with something simple and undefined.

Line spacing is normal, but I like to extend the text area to about three millimetres from the edge of the page. I did it once to save money on printing but I really like the way it looks so now I use that even if I have to change it back when printing.

I tend to switch between two styles. One of them is the one in which everything goes into one big document and if I'm feeling particularly indulgent I might use the occasional page break.

The other tends to be a splice up of different things so formatting is needed. Like one chapter might be plain text, and the next might be a newspaper report to bring an alternate perspective on an event, then a few plain chapters, then a scripted part when I want to do something through dialogue only. Once or twice I've even done a [CUT HERE AND BURN EVIDENCE] and then [CUT HERE AND BURN EVIDENCE] on either side of a scene where my character has intended on deleting it but hasn't, like if they get drunk or admit to having a crush or something.

Generally though I won't use italics or bold in-text. If I need to emphasise something with italics then I need to rethink the sentence. I'll use it in sub-headings though.

Also, punctuation abuse is beautiful and I will practice it often. Like using ~ at the beginning of a sentence instead of speech marks, if it's a whispered or telepathic conversation, or something of the likes.

Doodle book

My notebook is a mess of doodles and scraps, random phrases and misaligned pictures that blend together and cross over each other even if they have no relevance. Things I like get scribbled in there and the random scribbles turn into people and worlds and plots that get translated into letters on a screen at some point.

As for keeping a notebook for a project... I've bought notebooks for projects but I never actually use them except for things like brainstorming and more doodling. If I feel the need to keep notes on really big projects then I'll do it in a word document with an index leading to different lists of things.

What you said though about drawing in the middle of the page and writing around it, I used to do that! I still do on occasion, there's something really stimulating about it, but I can't do that on a computer screen.

~Edit~

Oh, for pens used in art that are really thin and inky we call them Fineliners, usually you buy them in packs of colours. Otherwise we have ballpoints, but they're not inky, and fountain pens, but it's hard to find thin ones and the ink dribbles everywhere.

- I prefer Century Gothic, 14-16pt font (I make my fonts bigger everywhere, in editing and on the Internet, to read easier). I prefer a pale yellow text colour and black background colour (like this, except not code) for being easier on the eyes at night without another light source.

- Lately I have been writing by hand. Perfectionism makes me like the "Backspace" key a little too much. No backspacing when you write.

- I never delete anything I write from my computer. I will go back to a work years later to polish, edit, and finish it. Even the crappiest story has a good word or a good turn of phrase or a good dialogue in it; sometimes, that can be salvaged into a more deserving story.

It depends on the project and type of writing.

Computer:
My fantasy works are Book Antiqua, 12p 1.25 margins, single spacing with tabs in to mark new paragraphs. Black text on white paper.

My school projects, on the other hand, are 1 inch margins, Times New Roman 12p double spaced, again tabs to tell paragraphs. Sometimes this goes to light grey paper with dark grey text, when I cannot focus at all on black and white.

My RPs/random story snippets tend to be in Calibri single space with an extra return to tell new paragraphs/scenes.

As for organization this depends on how big the project is. I have one giant writing folder which I tend to organize projects by type (novels, short stories, things that are nothing more than plot bunnies, colabs, instructional, ect), unless you're talking my really big novel project that has a little bit of everything associated with it so it gets its own folder outside of the system. Everything else I'm working on is sorted into its proper sub folder.

By hand:
Poems. I have one scribble notebook (it's unbleached scrap paper) and one particular black pen that has a terribly inconsistent line that I write the vast majority of my poems in, mostly because it feels imperfect and that's exactly how I feel when I write poetry. The messy space lets me actually not worry about what I'm writing and simply get it out. Whenever I write poems elsewhere, the environment trips me up so I stop.

Pretty much everything I've ever written is saved somewhere or other, never to be deleted.