Young Writers Society

For my novel-in-progress, I have saved every chapters as a separate file on the computer. It makes it easier to find exactly what I am looking for and to save multiple drafts of the same chapter so that I have a portfolio of progress. It uses up a bit of computer space, but for me, it is worth it. Breaking t into chunks makes it easier to give each part special attention.

Is there anyone else out there who does this? Or does EVERYONE do it and I was just behind the times during my early writing days where I'd have all twenty chapters in the same document and have to scroll for hours to find the right paragraph?

~GryphonFledgling

I do it too. I didn't used to, but I now that I am getting to write longer stories seriously I realize how important it is to have the files separate. I also put a short sumary of the plot of each chapter at the top. ^_^

Though, for people who put it all in one file: if you just make sure to name the chapters (and maybe put that little plot summary of everything in eahc chapter on the first page) then you could always find them using the 'find' function. OH! Or if you have a mac you could use the word notebook, I'd use it all the time except that windows doesn't have a compatible document style so I just end up with one big word file where I have to scroll down.

^_^ Keek!

That's not a bad idea, espcially since my first draft was lost in the Black Hole (a.k.a our ancient computer.) It would be a good way to save backup copies without worrying about losing your entire novel because it's on one disk.

I don't do that, and I don't think I would be inclined to. I'm not saying that it can't work for you, but I don't think it would work for me because I like to do a lot of copy-editing in which I move events/descriptions (big chunks of text, in other words) from one chapter to another. I also like to look at the whole story to see how the events flow.

Then there is the problem of having a huge file to work with, so it might be a good idea...

Sorry if this was a completely useless post.

~Azila~