Filing stories

[oggbashan]

Since 2000 I have created a folder each year for my stories. Each one is subdivided into folders for each of the themed competitions and a general folder for non-contest stories.

There is another folder for 'Old Drafts' which fills up as I move from one version (or part draft) of a story to another.

When a story is submitted it is copied into that year's 'completed' folder and into an 'Index' folder for all years.

But this year I have added a new folder 'abandoned drafts' for stories that I had started but are not going anywhere. It has taken months to decide that a story should be in that folder because I hate giving up on any story idea. But having that folder has relieved the pressure from my Muses. I can put a draft in that folder and forget it, instead of having it nagging away in the back of my mind. It also means that I can start stories that I am not wholly sure about, knowing that I can always class them as 'abandoned' if the premise doesn't work.

Do you have a way of sorting draft and completed stories?

Edited for PS: I need a system because I have 395 published stories (and more as jeanne) and anything up to 100 projects at any one time...

 

[ElectricBlue]

I'm ruthless with my kittens. If something is abandoned, it will never have another life, so I'll delete it. I've got maybe four story fragments started (I pay them no heed if they're not being actively written, so don't even count them) and two or three "works in progress" with not much progress. I have no system at all.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

I have two folders for current stuff I work on... In Process Stories and In Process Chapters.

Once they are finished, they are moved to a published folder.

I also have a folder for each story as I make covers for each, even if no one but me sees them. These folders are under two different author names.

My In Process Story folder has about 50 current unfinished works in it.
The In Process Chapters have 10 chapters of unfinished stories rattling around in it.

These are all under a single folder called MyStories, which I back up every other day onto a USB drive and an encrypted SD card. Plus to another disk drive. And none of this resides on my C: drive.

Almost forgot about abandoned stories... I just put them in the Story Ideas thread on Lit. So far only one has made it there.

 

[yowser]

Sounds like Lit needs an orphanage.

 

[BarracudaSwordfish]

I have three folders:

Published
In Progress
Ideas/Outtakes

Nice and simple but then again I am not all that prolific in numbers - 44 in just short of 4 years. However they do tend to be rather long so my page count is probably above average!

 

[JuanSeiszFitzHall]

For my writings specifically for Literotica, the main folders are ‘Finished’ and ‘Unfinished.’ I don’t have enough entries to need subfolders by year, and I doubt that I ever will. There’s also a folder called ‘Detritus,’ which includes old notes, outlines, abandoned blind alleys, possible alternative versions from minor characters’ viewpoints, backstories that were useful for guiding character development, excessive expository passages, etc. I have enough storage that hoarding all of this is no problem. (They’re only text files, after all.) A couple times, poking around in Detritus has given me insights for other projects.

What I should do, but haven’t yet, is add separate files to the Finished folder for each story’s title, short description, and tags. I’ve only recently given serious consideration to making these metadata into click-bait. I’ve had to set aside some titles that I thought had the most meaning for the stories, and instead work out the ideal few words that can make a Lit surfer linger for more than a second. As a reader, I scroll past what doesn’t grab me, and I’m sure that’s true of most others.

Also, because I have an incurable ego, I take every finished story and add it to a separate file, “Literotica Stories,” a compendium in printed-book layout. It’s left- and right-justified, on numbered nine-inch-by-six-inch pages. This is what these stories would look like in trade paper or baseline hardcover. I don’t have plans to self-pub them on (eyes rolling) dead trees. (Paper is now pretty much sustainable, and becoming more so. Maybe the epithet ‘dead trees’ should be replaced with ‘recycled junk mail.’), This file, though, shows me what that would look like. It’s just over 500 pages, so this might be a good demarcation point: All of my 2019 and 2020 stories completing this file, and the next file starting with 2021.

Anyone who wants to do this, or to go as far as self-publishing of anything, might want to check out a certain site where many type fonts are available free for anyone’s money-making use. I don’t know if Lit will allow the site’s name to be given here, but you might be able to infer it from this: The first word is one that has a double meaning, one being a collection of type characters, and the other being a source of water. The second word is the name of a nut-gathering critter who thrives as a denizen of urban wildlife. At this site I found an excellent serif typeface that’s not only very readable at 12-point, but also has a name that is ideal of this kind of writing: Libertinus.

https://www.literotica.com/stories/memberpage.php?uid=5116173&page=submissions

 

[KeithD]

I have files by pen name. Under those, I have files by work name. Separately, I keep a master file of project status, which at any given time can include 30-40 entries, and one of works (with story or chapter titles under it if an anthology/chapter work) including where/when they have been published. With this, I've kept nearly 2,000 titles located and cataloged. I don't maintain a discard file; I discard practically nothing.

 

[SimonDoom]

I've never finally given up on a story. I have a folder for every story, finished or unfinished, and within that folder I have two Word documents -- one for the story draft, and one for the notes/outline.

I have a lot more folders than completed stories. The backlog has been getting distressingly long, of late.