The problems writers keep running into, in their own words.

I used to use scrivener, but my last pc fried and I lost everything. I should have had a backup but I didn’t.

I don’t wanna use word or whatever comes with my computer because I’ve lost things that way and pcs are delicates creatures.

I’d maybe eventually be able to rewrite the story but it would take me significantly longer than the first time.

…version 2 was way better than version 17, but I can't access it anymore outside of my (decaying) immediate memory.

I use Obsidian with Obsidian git. You can have it so it takes backups every few minutes, and you can browse the entire history.

As for versions, I simply "save as" with a new version number as part of the filename whenever I make major edits.…

Sometimes I move rewritten scenes into a "deleted scenes" folder if I feel I might need to come back.

I use Word and save multiple versions as I go along.

I save drafts on my computer. They are always accessible.

I make a bajillion for every scene because I am a creative packrat and must preserve all variants of my creative process.

I have lost everything at one point, and it forced me to rewrite a book. Which turned out better than the first time

Not really crucial. I have notes and backups for that exact reason, it's practically impossible to be able to recall everything from memory.

I keep copies of my work on my PC, tablet, phone, and flash drive.…

I save to my laptop which syncs with Google drive and email a copy to myself.…

Sometimes I get lost, sometimes I create notes that I had already created, but it is the way that works the most for me.

…I'm back to just throwing everything in a few main folders and hoping I never have to find something quickly.

I couldn't keep all the names and details straight without something to take notes in.

How do you organize all your worldbuilding stuff? Do you use a wiki, a notebook, spreadsheets, some app?

I have notes in categories for characters, beasts, magic, gods, races, geography and locations.

Well i simply have some docs for descriptions. Every important carackter gets a little backstory, physical description and a reference drawing.

I have a fairly good memory, but I keep a google doc for “archiving” stuff.…

I have a card file and a binder. The binder has things like the Creation Liturgy so that I can look things up.

I create a spreadsheet that I title “Story Building” on Google Docs. Some people refer to it as a story bible.

I put down notes as soon as I write something new, and organize it into groups such as locations, species, characters and the like.

I have a huge word doc where I divide everything in titles and sub titles.

I honestly just have a file in the notes section in Scrivener called CONTINUITY…

…when I create a character, location, or thing, I create a page for it…

I just create a straightforward Word document, nothing fancy, a 'style sheet'. It includes a bunch of stuff but also character and location notes.

I have a handful of docs where I copy-paste information as I write it.…

…I have a file in Obsidian where I'm keeping track of information about every character, location, and skill,…

…I then have all the characters who have a story connected to the town.

I also have a compendium and several other documents I use to keep track of things, like a cast sheet as a quick reference.

The hardest part isn't creating ideas, it's remembering all the little details months later when you're 50k words in.

I find my head works fine up to about 30K words but somewhere past that things start slipping.

…how do you make sure a character's eye color doesn't randomly change in chapter 15,…

…I got bored of keeping them updated whenever I edited/changed something, so it's all in my head now.

I find spreadsheets and documents difficult because you can't just track everything, and I don't find them user-friendly.

I tried making ref sheets, but it’s mostly in my head and a problem for second draft me to deal with.

I also have a "current day" document which is essentially a short format synopsis of what is currently happening around the world.…

My story bible for the series included character sketches for all noteworthy characters which included physical descriptions and personal details.

…I’ve primarily used a plot grid and also just an insanely disorganized brain dump to keep track of things.

I've used series style guides for complicated space operas that span over 5+ books.…

I also keep a timeline in spreadsheets and a character/place/event dictionary, color coded.…

Linguistic quirks trip me up frequently. However with all the rereads, I spot the issues and fix them as I go.

…I ended up having to do a recalc on every other chapter to ensure what I was writing wasn't off,…

…But it's a pretty long series at this point (working on book 9), so it kind of needs that kind of backbone.

…take a bunch of data from Book 1 and extrapolate rate of progression.…

I started making a personal tool that would automate a lot of things.…

…make sure I save the start and end states of each book and where I am currently at.

Spreadsheets and a lot of re-reading what I wrote during editing because I inevitably mess one thing up somewhere along the line Lol

But turnover and doing everything on my phone has left me with a mess.…

…I have to remember to paste my work into Ellipsus,…

…Then I paste it into LibreOffice with different font and background color and use its spell check.…

…having to spend a lot more time getting it "pretty" and publishable in a whole other platform.

It's scattered all over the place in multiple files so I can't tell you exactly how much.

Ellipsus for writing, Dropbox for backing up documents. Trackbear for monitoring my word count.

I use SimpleMind for mind maps. Drafts for quick text capture. LibreOffice for word processing. I write mostly in LibreOffice.

Yeah I use a third party app and then copy+paste

I go Scrivener->Markdown->PDF via Pandoc and LaTeX, which may be overkill, but is definitely configurable.

I just use Microsoft word for everything. One document for the manuscript and one document for the worldbuilding/character stuff.

…And pandoc to compile the text files into a docx when needed.…

There are many spreadsheets, scattered books, note documents, potential rarrling about in my head, it's not organized per say, but it kinda is

Combination of Obsidian, a 32mb folder of all my short stories/lore documents, and a big orange binder

…I use iA Writer and then transfer the work to Scrivener when I’m back at my desktop.

I also don’t like having to run an instance of Dropbox on my Mac just for one app (I already use Drive).

I use Obsidian and Writers Journal, obsidian for computer the Writers Journal for my phone :)

I use Notion for organizing + MS Word for drafting.

Then I copy and paste them into a Scrivener file, so I can generate a single document if needed.

My documents outgrew Google docs and they were lagging really badly.

The Word doc started getting slow to load after 150k words, so I pulled the first 50k into a separate doc.…

…I have no idea what people use once a story starts having chapters, characters, scenes, research and a proper structure.

I was going crazy trying to track everything in word documents.…

I don’t think I could write anything of significant length just in a single word doc.

And then before I get done, I decide on a new plotting system idea and I start over.

Then I just use post-its to separate notes about individual chapters.…

For the actual story I have another folder with notes for all the planning (plot, ideas, scrapped ideas, scenes - snippets of writing, etc).…

…I use it's folder/document system within the project binder to create a folder for each chapter,…

I separate folders on my drive for each new novel I am working on.…

I don’t often write chronologically either, so it’s helpful to move scenes around.

I have a discbound notebook where I keep everything and have it all seperated out into sections.…

I avoid length issues by creating each chapter in separate Word files.

Does anyone have any software they recommend that AI won't be sifting through?

Creative work should always and forever be human only.

If I just use a simple google doc, could that be used to train ai?

I am a little worried at intrusive AI apps generally, so good creative things that won’t steal or manipulate my data very much appreciated.

I don’t want my work put into ai.

It should stay far, far away from creative writing. AI's voice is terrible.

I don’t like the thought of it giving me any suggestions. This is coming from me. Not that.

Why then would I be interested in finding a shortcut to enriching myself?…

Tbh the only reason I didn’t mention my distaste for AI was because a warning showed up,…

I'm just happy the old versions don't shove AI down my throat at this point!

…it seems like it really wants you to use AI in the writing process,…

…it's felt like they've been focusing on their AI suite while the rest of their tools kinda just flounder.

The AI is turned off though, it's so annoying and I don't like it for you know, all the reasons

I seldom accept their suggestions because, as it tries to make the text sound like anodyne office-document boiler copy, it kills the characters' voices.

…but it also fixes the actions and expressions in between the dialogue by making it more in depth than what I wrote.

I'm a little leery of using AI for anything more than proofing though.…

Though I would NOT trust AI to make corrections.…

Take it all with a grain of salt, and do NOT let it suggest alternatives!

I use AI like a noisy copyeditor, not a ghostwriter.…

So... I'm not wanting AI to write the story but I do use it to talk through some things.

…does it make changes and you copy paste, or does it recommend changes and you decide which advice to follow?

…it couldn't accurately detect misspellings, and kept wanting to flatten my work to an obscene degree,…

However, Scrivener doesn't work easily on Android and I like writing from my phone, so I'm thinking of migrating back to Word.

If I want to work elsewhere, I email myself. But that doesn't give me access to the full project.

End result for me is that I don’t use the mobile version. Had I known about this quirk I wouldn’t have bought it.

…being able to access all my stuff through a browser is a must.

There's no Android version, so I gotta deal with the notes app/google drive and copy pasting

I built the backlog by writing on my phone during the commute.

…I write my novel on my home pc and my work pc so I don't think it would work for me.

One last thing that I do personally is I have a LONG running “to do” list.…

I like a writing app that’s quick to load offline accessible.…

I use the default Notes app on my phone to create and organise pages of worldbuilding.…

My concern is synching and connectivity on my iPad…

I do like being able to pull up my draft and notes on any device however.

I do most of my writing in my Notes app on my iPhone.…

…I'll sometimes be writing on my main computer (desktop), sometimes on my laptop…

…feel like you've accomplished something even when you're nowhere nearer to putting words on a page.

I always end up getting stuck right at the learning curve, which usually puts me off.

…trying to learn how to use them all ate up too much of my actual writing time.

I've never liked stuff like Scrivener, Google docs, Obsidian etc. They are way to technical and such a pain to learn.

But when I'm drafting all the features those apps offer are just distractions.

I use Obsidian and I just can't really seem to get organizing my stuff right.

Honestly I find it so overwhelming, I just need bullet points and some sticky notes for my world building.

Viele Programme sind mir zu kompliziert und aufgeblasen, andere können Seitenzahlen nicht korrekt ausgeben oder ignorieren Leerseiten.

I just wrote my last book in Scrivener. Although it's preferred by a lot of writers, it's too much for me.

As far as we’re concerned, writing a book doesn’t require all those thousands of cool, complex features piled into Word.…

…creating in-depth character sheets, mood boards, outlines detailed to the nth degree, etc. takes the fun out of the process.

…it felt needlessly complicated and difficult to make anything useful with.

…It’s a pretty substantial learning curve from what I can tell.…

…It took me a while to figure out writing on there to the point I'm comfortable,…

I'm fine swapping to Word or Scrivener if the consensus is that ones easiest to work with,…

…it took me three hours to get it out of scrivener.

The question is how do you get it out of scrivener to even get it to another program.…

Used to use Scrivener, but it's lack of portability and the struggle of exporting made me sadly abandon it. Now I use Word.

My biggest complaint is that the compiling/exporting function on longform wasn't too great. I had to keep pulling levers until it worked properly.

A bit annoying that I have to scrap all of that and do a PDF completely differently.

I used to use Google Docs, but publishers generally want Word files, and I got used to it.

When you write in scrivener, do you export the manuscript to word to send it to your editor?

Print, the pdf is okay, but lacks some final polish for widows, rivers, orphans, etc.…

Seems a shame to have to go back and create chapter breaks, decide again on small caps and how many words,…

It is also very hard to achieve this level of customization without jumping through hoops to do so,…

The one thing we miss is justification with hyphenation for self-pub.…

I wrote my entire novel on the notes app on my tablet.…

If I could directly keep my formatting for easy copy pasting I'd probably use it more tbh.

…ePub, PDF, HTML, Word, whatever--that kind of easy versatility would be fantastic.

…It took eleven rounds for my paperback cover to be accepted, and every single time the previewer said it was fine.

…I had sticker shock! I had to decline.

I’m working on a book (self-published) and trying to figure out what’s actually reasonable to spend on a cover.…

Always Check the Print-Preview! I had it several times that what looked ok in the Cover Creator didn't fit in the Print Preview

…how to get an affordable book cover that will be acceptable to publish on Ingram and Amazon KDP.

When you say pre-made, is this like a ton of covers you buy from, then it gets taken off the site?…

I may pursue less expensive options for my next book since my royalties on this book are still pretty low .

…I used GIMP to generate the artwork but kept it very simple.…

…that I own all rights to the custom illustration and the cover design.

…Once I pay, I want it to be mine forever

I would never spend $1000 on just the design, that seems excessive. $500 is about my max.…

I’m fine with ai, it’s whatever, but I kind of expected her to draw or edit the ai so it looked better?…

…I was shocked with the results from the free lancers being lower quality and simply unable to provide what I was looking for.

My problem with scrivener is that it doesn't allow for partnered editing like comments and track changes…

…meets our needs for live updating and commenting between us and our beta readers.

Going through an entire manuscript of notations made in word in other documents has never worked well for me.

How easy is it to export a single chapter for someone to review and then import the changes if they don't have it?…

…I’ve seen so many stories of editors/readers running it through an AI and just spitting the feedback at the person.

…Today she told me she put my book on AI and there're a lot of syntax mistakes.

When it comes to editing, my co-writer and I both do a pass, then we hand it to beta readers.…

…to have my drafts available to select readers and editors that allows them to leave notes and highlight sections,…

…I need it to get it to editors and readers and my agent-- in basic word or pdf files.

Microsoft word is my go-to unless I’m doing a beta write - then Google docs for easier commenting.

I asked some of my most diligent readers of they would like to help me edit. Theyre amazing!

…it’s when a reader points out a stat inconsistency from 10 chapters ago 😅

…I feel like this spreadsheet is going to fall apart somewhere in book3-4 and I'll be hopelessly lost in my own stew.

Spreadsheet with lots of tabs. Lots. Even then I keep finding mistakes.

Yeah, going back and fixing stat blocks was a staple of my writing process until I create my little database thingy.

I wish I could use sheets in scrivener, but it is what it is.

For stats I have easy solution: no stats, just milestones when Attributes get ranked up.…

I've only had one point where it created a plot hole/major inconsistency that needed a lot of work fixing, but once is bad enough.

…Even with a stat tracking spreadsheet I still get some numbers wrong.…

…I added a change log and a strict routine of checking and mathing stuff out anytime I change stuff.

…someone finds a game breaking hole in the logic that I totally missed.

…I couldn't really find anything better than just a spreadsheet with a separate tab for every character.

I could technically explain away my stat issues as in-story glitches. But I don't think I will, much prefer to fix them.

Usually, while writing a litrpg, I have a seperate document with exactly what his current stats are, and update it as things happen.…

…that's a bit harder to transfer fully to my manuscript when I want to put in the full sheet.

…It's important that I have certain words bolded or italicized correctly.…

I have a single excel spreadsheet that I track levels and stats on.…

Before writing a word of the first draft, even, I built myself a number of Excel-based calculators.…

I spent 4 weeks working out Bk 7 to 8 for the math…

And my current book has a single Notepad page, a Word page, and a spreadsheet that tracks numbers, skills, and spells.

For the character stats I've written my own little character tracker in Python…

One tab is basically a character sheet, inventory, and achievement tracker for my MC.

Every time I write the stats I go back to the previous chapter where it showed up and compare it to that.…

I think it might help folk who (like me) get 50-80% of the way through something and abandon it.…

My 'planning' has basically become procrastination at this point.

plotting has always been my biggest hurdle in writing.…

I'm good at writing dialogue, but I need more work on writing the character's actions or expressions in between.

…Then, I started getting thousands of comments, and a lot of those were, "Correct this typo."

…It gets me to write consistently in a way that feels low-stakes since no one will read it other than me.

…I went through a long time thinking the HJ was the One True Path and writing really crappy short stories because of that.

What worked for me once is deciding on one "element", and branching out from there.…

For me, I studied the Save the Cat framework and took notes on it to try to wrap my head around it.

One thing that helped me was starting with a character want instead of trying to build plot in a vacuum.

…I would have missed out on a lot of growth if I didn't do it myself at least to begin with.

…I have learned more from writing 600 x 3 words of microfics than I have learned from writing, say, 4000 words…

I love reading this type of story, really struggle with writing in that length.

It’s hard to be succinct and still feel like the story and characters are fleshed out.…

…mostly because I get daunted by the thought of writing so many words.

Even with a one-time purchase, I rather not spend money on something that might terminate or might not work after purchase.

…I'm bitter that others get free upgrades and I have to pay all over again for new versions.

…I want direct ownership of my files without them being hosted on someone else's server,…

I use Scrivener, mainly because I liked the idea of being to actually buy a product and actually own it.…

I'm not going to buy anything until I can prove to myself that I'm serious about finishing a first draft.

…It's not expensive, but even though I'd like to try it first before buying something which I may not use in the end.

The sub ran out and I'm looking for an alternative to it that isn't google docs.…

Looking a piece of software or website I can write, keep my anonymity and has a decent Grammar and Spellcheck…

Would it also be not too harsh to ask if it can be not too expensive on the subscription fees or a permanent one?

I use a text editor because I don't want a proprietary document format, but that's MY reason, not yours.

I mainly use Obsidian to write on my tablet, and syncthing to keep it all synced without paying the monthly fee.

…I ran out of backlog, started writing fast just to have something to post, steered the plot into a dead end,…

backlog usually, 30 to 50 chapters ahead. But even then you can still run out. I know. lol

I can barely make 1 a week with my job. I do my best though.

…I've been worried one chapter a week was too infrequent, but I hate the thought of breaking them up into shorter chapters.

Currently, have a backlog of 220 chapters, still building more.

Any tricks to sustaining that rhythm? I’ve got a backlog of 60 edited and almost 20 unedited chapters.

I write a 3k word chapter a day M-F.…

I do a backlog and a clear expectation of when I'll slow down.…

I have 30 chapters ahead of the Patreon to play with and revise as I write to keep everything consistent.

…It's not perfect, and my chapters are short, so it's doable.…

Something I've found and been suggesting for a while, post 1-2 less a week then you can write.…

I think consistency is the most important part after the first month chapter dump.

…is maintaining 3 chapters/week at this length (~10k words/week) considered too little for the platform,…

Some weeks I do a little more, some I do a little less, but it averages out that that.…

…what kind of editing software do you use to polish those chapters before publishing?

I let the chapter sit for a least 6-10 hours, then reread before posting, making edits at that time.

…radically changed the opening scene, but forgot that the final image was a mirror of it,…

…I have a section where I note down each cookie crumb or piece of foreshadowing that happens…

And nothing will be revealed until the 3rd book.…

This happens to me, but I don't realize until I'm rereading

But in fantasy, I always get told to make my foreshadowing more obvious.

This happens to me a lot in my own writing in the first drafts.…

…realize it connects to Something I planned out years ago put put aside that would work perfect here

…I've been experimenting by obfuscating the foreshadowing in layers of metaphor and misdirection,…

…I like to put the foreshadowing in places with emotional importance so the reader will remember them and connect them more readily.

…So in that case the foreshadowing can be bolder.

I hope the reader can go back to the first three chapters and discover the entire story was there for them.

Yep. Not just seed. I straight up introduce the primary antagonist and his goal while keeping the "why" a secret for later.

The last sentence in my first chapter is the same as the last sentence in the final chapter with wildly different context.

It pulls double duty as not only an allusion to one element of the story, but also the ending itself…

For foreshadowing, that's for the 2nd draft. Only by finishing your story will you know what you need to hint at.

And what’s your best way to handle foreshadowing future events or characters, so it feels natural and not forced?