How many stories?

[TarnishedPenny]

How many do you have going at any one time? I find my attention (or focus, at least) shifts back and forth between three or four.

 

[Wkd_Macey]

How many do you have going at any one time? I find my attention (or focus, at least) shifts back and forth between three or four.

About the same (three is usually about my limit), but...
Do you mean reading, or writing? I mean writing.

I usually like to finish reading a story (or at least, one chapter) in one sitting.

 

[oggbashan]

Anywhere between 10 and 20.

Edited to expand further:

The part-written folders on my hard drive hold about 500 incomplete stories. The figure of between 10 and 20 are those on the recent Word documents and have been viewed, edited or have had added words in the past week.

 

[Bebop3]

Three or four.

 

[SimonDoom]

I have three that I am working on right now. One that I want to get done as soon as possible, another that I hope to submit for the Valentine's Day contest before the deadline, and another that will be the end of a multiple chapter story. I hope to submit that one by early February.

I have a backlog of about 4-5 stories that are partially written that I want to publish sometime in the next few months. Periodically I pull them up and add or edit something.

 

[KCWinter]

At this point, I only work on one at a time. But when I was having books published regularly, I worked on two or three at a time.

 

[ChloeTzang]

Around ten maybe but I tend to focus in on one when I have a hard deadline - and I have a few more started or half done and put aside. I do need to be more focused tho. If I was I'd get more finished and ElectricBlue would be Laughing at me coz my keyboard would be smoking.

 

[NotWise]

I work actively on one at a time and move on when it's done. I might have three other stories in the back of my mind.

 

[TxRad]

Like Ogg, I have many, many unfinished stories and float among them as they catch my eye. Occasionally, I finish one.

I'm resisting starting any new ones and have been successful for a while but.... There always seems to be a plot bunny humping my leg....

 

[RejectReality]

I typically have 3 or 4 in active production, probably a half a dozen more in outline/final preparation stage, and dozens at the muse stage ( which may or may not ever go anywhere )

Right now I'm actively writing on SOTM Ch. 21, editing Ch. 20, writing "Violet Valentine", ( though it's beginning to look as if it will end up in the "next year" folder yet again ) and writing on a short called "Late Comers".

Pretty much ready to move into production, I have "Jessica's Rabbit Hole", the retooling of "Queen of the Wood", "From the Hartwell", and "Gates of Enchantment".

That's the tip of the iceburgh. I still have "Jackin' Jill Pt. 2" that I could launch into at any moment, because the bulk of it only needs retooled from chapters I'd already written before I decided to cut the story in half when I hit a satisfying ending point. "Reel to Real" just needs a little musing to get past a sticky point. Further chapters of SOTM, "Something Familiar" which will follow "Gates of Enchantment". Another story in my Fey series. Another story in my new series that "Serpentine Destiny" started.

It all depends upon what's exciting me at any given moment. Putting all my effort into one thing ends up being counter-productive for me most of the time.

 

[ChloeTzang]

I'm resisting starting any new ones and have been successful for a while but.... There always seems to be a plot bunny humping my leg....

I seem to have families of plot bunnies swarming around my ankles.

 

[ElectricBlue]

One at the time. If another one pops up to be fast-track written, the big one gets put aside for the period. My current main project is now inevitable - it will get finished. But I give myself and break every now and then, when it stops writing itself, and the shorter ones get written.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

"Plot bunnies".

Lovely!

 

[Bramblethorn]

One is usually enough, though I have a bunch of unfinished ideas sitting dormant that I might resurrect down the road.

 

[CoffeeWithMonkeys]

I have at least 20 going right now. Some will never be finished, some will merge together into one story, and some may eventually get finished and submitted somewhere maybe.

 

[Kojak01]

Currently six.

One is being edited and will be published in a couple of weeks, depending on how much time both my editor and I can divert from real life and the other five are in different states, ranging from just begun to almost ready for editing.

Then I have maybe 10 to 15 ideas on how to start a story and 6 to 8 possible endings. I just have to find out which ending belongs to which beginning and what happens in between...

 

[SolarRay]

Three or four, but as I rule I won't write one more word unless I'm genuinely inspired. So I focus on only one at a time, but shift back and forth depending on where my mind's at.

 

[MelissaBaby]

So far, I have only worked within the context of long narratives. But, within those narratives, I jump from chapter to chapter, sometimes to the detriment of timely publication.

I caused a few authors a little angst in another thread by stating that in both long serials I have worked on, I wrote the first chapter, and then jumped straight to writing the ending. Now, I am filling in the between. It amounts to having at least a little bit of about a half dozen stories in progress at the moment.

 

[HisArpy]

Right now, two. With one in the planning stages.

Two is enough. I don't have enough extra time to actually devote enough attention to them both so the end result is that the most finished one - ISN'T! And I tend to miss even more mistakes in editing for grammar and content.

And, of course, the one that's currently being submitted on a query for publication is the one where I just caught a glaring mistake. On the second page no less.

*sigh*

 

[MelissaBaby]

Right now, two. With one in the planning stages.

Two is enough. I don't have enough extra time to actually devote enough attention to them both so the end result is that the most finished one - ISN'T! And I tend to miss even more mistakes in editing for grammar and content.

And, of course, the one that's currently being submitted on a query for publication is the one where I just caught a glaring mistake. On the second page no less.

*sigh*

Just writing one narrative, I drive myself crazy with keeping track of continuity. I will be in bed, almost asleep, and suddenly be wide awake, thinking, "Wait a minute, did they do that on Tuesday or Wednesday?" or "Did I actually give the neighbor a name?"

I don't know how I'd deal with trying to keep several narratives straight at once.

 

[NotWise]

Just writing one narrative, I drive myself crazy with keeping track of continuity. I will be in bed, almost asleep, and suddenly be wide awake, thinking, "Wait a minute, did they do that on Tuesday or Wednesday?" or "Did I actually give the neighbor a name?"

I'm right with you on that one. Wait! Where did that knife come from?

 

[HisArpy]

Just writing one narrative, I drive myself crazy with keeping track of continuity. I will be in bed, almost asleep, and suddenly be wide awake, thinking, "Wait a minute, did they do that on Tuesday or Wednesday?" or "Did I actually give the neighbor a name?"

I don't know how I'd deal with trying to keep several narratives straight at once.

Lol.

All my friends and family know I write. We'll be having a conversation on some random subject and I'll suddenly interject a thought or idea about the current work.

"You know where I'm having problems with showing Character A being so conflicted with Character B? What do you think if I..."

I'll then summarize the thought for them. Once done I flip back to the topic of the conversation as if nothing weird just happened. The looks I get...

Keeping track of details is why I use flow charts for each story. From the flow chart I make a chapter outline and then (generally) follow the outline as I write. I don't include specific details in the flow chart/outline because I can keep that in my head once I picture the scene or character.

The flowchart idea works well if you want to write to formula. Go reverse engineer any book to get the sequence of events and create a flow chart of them. Then, write your next story following that sequence of events.

Box #1 - introduction or forward (In a galaxy far far away...)
Box #2 - character intro and initial universe creation (there lived a reindeer with a nose that glowed on foggy nights)
Box #3 - first conflict (when suddenly, ALIENS landed on the planet and started abducting all the cute girl reindeers!)
Box #4 - angst (I'd help save the girl reindeers but nobody loves me. Oh look, I just made glowing snow with my nosebeam. But, no one cares. "I care rudy, SAVE ME!" The vixen cried as the ALIENS! took her into the spaceship)

And so on to the climax - (and the reindeer scientists turned the glowing snow into a power source for a new planetary defense laser that shot the invaders' ships from the sky. "Oh Randy, you are so bucked up." The vixen showed her appreciation for the heroics of the scientists at converting Rudy's awkward nose into something useful. The End.)

The flowchart system works. For me at least.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

I have about twenty going. I don't work on them all at one time. But over the last month I have finished about six or so. Then again, I started about six new ones. So, it's kind of never ending.

Can I keep them all straight in my mind...so far, but I do have to reread what I have done so far to refresh the mind.

There are several that I struggle to move to the next step. Sometimes I hit a wall with a plot line and just put it aside for awhile, going back to it at a later time.

 

[Requiax]

Until December last year I was writing two novels at once. I don’t recommend it. That said it was good to be able to switch between when one ran out of steam...

 

[Zeb_Carter]

Lol.

All my friends and family know I write. We'll be having a conversation on some random subject and I'll suddenly interject a thought or idea about the current work.

"You know where I'm having problems with showing Character A being so conflicted with Character B? What do you think if I..."

I'll then summarize the thought for them. Once done I flip back to the topic of the conversation as if nothing weird just happened. The looks I get...

Keeping track of details is why I use flow charts for each story. From the flow chart I make a chapter outline and then (generally) follow the outline as I write. I don't include specific details in the flow chart/outline because I can keep that in my head once I picture the scene or character.

The flowchart idea works well if you want to write to formula. Go reverse engineer any book to get the sequence of events and create a flow chart of them. Then, write your next story following that sequence of events.

Box #1 - introduction or forward (In a galaxy far far away...)
Box #2 - character intro and initial universe creation (there lived a reindeer with a nose that glowed on foggy nights)
Box #3 - first conflict (when suddenly, ALIENS landed on the planet and started abducting all the cute girl reindeers!)
Box #4 - angst (I'd help save the girl reindeers but nobody loves me. Oh look, I just made glowing snow with my nosebeam. But, no one cares.)

And so on to the climax - (and the reindeer scientists turned the glowing snow into a power source for a new planetary defense laser that shot the invaders' ships from the sky. "Oh Randy, you are so bucked up." The vixen showed her appreciation for the heroics of the scientists at converting Rudy's awkward nose into something useful. The End.)

The flowchart system works. For me at least.

With the big complex stories, I use a character sheets and notes on what's going on and what should happen later and ticklers to remind me of thoughts I might of had on an aspect of the story.

Nothing fancy like flow charts, although I have used them in the past for programming complex systems.