Share Your Draft Notes

[anthrodisiac]

I used to leave myself notes as I wrote all the time before I went on hiatus, usually in the rough draft when I didn't want to interrupt the flow of the writing by fixing something or thinking too hard about it. When I started writing again last year I dropped that habit and tried fixing things in situ before moving on, and it made writing more of a slog, more onerous, because I'd ruin my flow and it'd take a minute to get back into the headspace to write. So, starting a couple stories ago, I returned to leaving notes for myself so as to keep going while also reminding myself to do something, or verify a piece of information, or figure out if something I wrote was worth keeping.

Sometimes, these notes amuse me, and it got me curious about how many others do this, and what those notes look like. So, if you have any notes from existing or old WIPs, or from outlines, or anywhere else, feel free to share them here! Let's get a peek at the inner workings of the creative process before we push out a final product!

(Wow, this isn't even a PBP project. Who even am I?)

 

[anthrodisiac]

From my ch. 08 WIP for Once You Go Anthro:

• (TODO: Eh on that last bit, doesn’t add much)
• (TODO: a bit more of the flirt scene?)
• (TODO: fucking hell, this is so extra)
• (TODO: we’ve already touched on this, we just beating it with a hammer now?)
• (TODO: figure out good place for her to live, given her job, which is… um, definitely a job)
• (TODO: there’s gotta be other words for cock besides stiffy; just don’t feel right)

 

[TheLobster]

stiffy; just don’t feel right

A quick crotch adjustment when no one’s looking and you’ll feel right as rain!

 

[NotWise]

I do something very similar, but enclose my notes in square brackets. I usually satisfy comments on one part of the story before I go on to the next. I'll also bracket lines I want to reconsider/rewrite. One of my final edit steps is to search for the opening square bracket and make sure everything is handled and deleted before I go on. I missed one in my Summer Lovin' story last year. Oops.

I only have two left on my WIP, and they aren't very amusing:

[put this in the context of teaching]
[Include more of Lori's thoughts and intentions]

These things could also be handled with marginal notes, and those might be harder to overlook in the final clean up.

 

[ElectricBlue]

Haha, this will be short:











I never leave notes for myself. The one time I did, at the end of a story in progress, to outline the plot line to the ending... I didn't write for a week because well, if I knew the ending the story was done.

But the draft was good, so a week or two later I deleted the notes and kept writing. The ending, when I finally got to it, was nothing at all like the notes. I can't remember what story it was, but I think it was one of my better ones. Dumb idea for me, writing notes to myself. No-one reads them!

 

[millamomud]

About 2k words with outlines for chapters and scenes

 

[TheWritingGroup]

I often use comments (in LibreOffice Writer) to remind myself to go back and insert things I think of later in the writing process. From a current WIP:

Mention how short Renee is earlier.

Sometimes I drop in reminders to myself to do something in a later scene:

Have Ro very aware of Chris's beauty and attracted to her … and get called on it, and be embarrassed, then reassured.

Sometimes I actually leave little jokes for myself to read when I edit the draft:

Not that she fantasizes about doing that or anything.

 

[millamomud]

ALSO

something bigger I've been working on (and off) for about a year

 

[Writer61]

I used to leave myself notes as I wrote all the time before I went on hiatus, usually in the rough draft when I didn't want to interrupt the flow of the writing by fixing something or thinking too hard about it. When I started writing again last year I dropped that habit and tried fixing things in situ before moving on, and it made writing more of a slog, more onerous, because I'd ruin my flow and it'd take a minute to get back into the headspace to write. So, starting a couple stories ago, I returned to leaving notes for myself so as to keep going while also reminding myself to do something, or verify a piece of information, or figure out if something I wrote was worth keeping.

Sometimes, these notes amuse me, and it got me curious about how many others do this, and what those notes look like. So, if you have any notes from existing or old WIPs, or from outlines, or anywhere else, feel free to share them here! Let's get a peek at the inner workings of the creative process before we push out a final product!

(Wow, this isn't even a PBP project. Who even am I?)

I write in Word and leave notes for myself in two ways, using shortcut keys to mark them.

Heading 3 notes (in red) appear in the Table of Contents, which I use to track the story's structure.
Heading 4 notes (in orange) are words that I know I need to change.

Once all have been removed, along with headings 1 & 2, the story is ready for publication.

I doubt that any would amuse anybody.

 

[EmilyMiller]

Share Your Draft Notes​

Part of my extensive ideas file for Nix - some I incorporated, some I discarded, some I deleted - after doing one of the last two things, so this is far from exhaustive (many of these are struck through in my GD, but the formating wasn’t preserved:

1. Tug Hill have supply of tanks, and synthesize nutrients - but Nix’s formula is different - doesn’t want to risk harming the baby
2. Formaldehyde, WTF?
3. Check the subtitles
4. Rumors of escaped gynoid communities
5. Mysterious how Chatham Technologies became so successful so fast
6. Mention previous localized gynoid rebellions
7. Revise Part I to change order of events with rebellion to line up with Ardorart bio
8. Gynoid human parts don’t age - teleomereas
9. Why does Owen have the hiding place in the cellar
10. If I want to set other stuff up for the ending, consider ways to add it to Conduit Crest
11. Get Nix to check about the two dead troopers in later parts - suggest it blows over / Bobby is blamed
12. More about pregnancy in Part VI
13. Consider extending fight scene in cell block
14. look at scene with Estelle again to make consistent with what Estelle already knows about Cleo.
15. What about the data that Nix downloaded from Bobby?
16. Reference Alice in Part V?
17. Communicator battery runs out in Part IV

And so on…

 

[SmilingLez]

I used to leave myself notes as I wrote all the time before I went on hiatus, usually in the rough draft when I didn't want to interrupt the flow of the writing by fixing something or thinking too hard about it. When I started writing again last year I dropped that habit and tried fixing things in situ before moving on, and it made writing more of a slog, more onerous, because I'd ruin my flow and it'd take a minute to get back into the headspace to write. So, starting a couple stories ago, I returned to leaving notes for myself so as to keep going while also reminding myself to do something, or verify a piece of information, or figure out if something I wrote was worth keeping.

Sometimes, these notes amuse me, and it got me curious about how many others do this, and what those notes look like. So, if you have any notes from existing or old WIPs, or from outlines, or anywhere else, feel free to share them here! Let's get a peek at the inner workings of the creative process before we push out a final product!

(Wow, this isn't even a PBP project. Who even am I?)

If I have a sentence or a phrase that I have not used that I really like, I write it on a Post-It note, and put it in a manila envelope. Every month I randomly select about a dozen of the posted notes and spread them on the pool table. I then turn these orphans into a family.

 

[EmilyMiller]

I do something very similar, but enclose my notes in square brackets.

I do that for most of my stories, both in-line and at the end. But Nix had so many moving parts I needed an external master list.

 

[JohnBJohn]

[@#$%#& Finish Scene]

I often get stuck when writing the sex scenes, so I'll skip them and hit them again during the editing process. It really helps keep the writing flow going. So I'll continue writing a few paragraphs, then inadvertently start another sex scene, resulting in the mental kicking of my own rear.

 

[anthrodisiac]

[@#$%#& Finish Scene]

I swear I've seen this exact note in my WIPs before

 

[MrPixel]

I kinda do this, too, square brackets, coloring, and all. But this one...

[Late lunch and evening banter here.]​

...was not caught in final proofreading and consequently published that way earlier this year. This has made me a little shy of the practice of in-line notes. Didn't get any comments about it, but it's on my own to-do list for uploading edits, if only to make sure that the full series is archived in its corrected state.

 

[JohnBJohn]

I kinda do this, too, square brackets, coloring, and all. But this one...

[Late lunch and evening banter here.]​

...was not caught in final proofreading and consequently published that way earlier this year. This has made me a little shy of the practice of in-line notes. Didn't get any comments about it, but it's on my own to-do list for uploading edits, if only to make sure that the full series is archived in its corrected state.

I've seen authors do this! It actually sort of fit the story which was light on sex anyways.

 

[PennameWombat]

Well, I left this one in a story I published (A Christmas Miracle on Dewdrop)... Fortunately, I guess, it fell precisely on a Lit page boundary so was split across two pages and wasn't too obtrusive. Submitted an edit which only took a week to remove it. Didn't seem to distract, didn't place in the Winter Holiday top three, but still one of my more popular stories (despite an almost total lack of explicit sex.)

[Science leads - technically civilians but listed as Lieutenants to allow them to lead Warrant Officer techs.

• Geology: Devesh Lohani (male)
• Astrophysics: Qiao Hanying (female)
• Biology: Renee Taylor (female)
• Climatologist: Lucia Ferrero (female)
• Meteorologist: Daniel Auvray (male)
• Engineering: Abigail Gibson (female)]

 

[MrPixel]

Almost forgot about this one from two years ago, which makes me laugh in its avoiding finishing a sex scene:

[Girl-girl stuff here. Then another fuck. Steve cums in Sandra. Jess eats Sandra out.]​

NO, this one did NOT get published! This is in a concluding series that is still a WIP.

 

[TheWritingGroup]

Are we doing idea files? Mine is now almost 90 pages (although a small fraction of that is ideas that I've already turned into stories and published). Here's a "seed" entry:

V-Con 2113: supervillains who have time machines convene in the future, where the heroes can't reach them, to plan a Huge Complicated Plot. Supervillains are dysfunctional, it breaks down into infighting, obsessive sexual relationships, superweapons based on sex obsessions ….

• Leave out the time travel (maybe just subplot?) and just have them get together and be unable to form a functioning society. One viewpoint character realizes that this was inevitable and reforms at the end (and in the stinger, is kidnapped by Gorgonia to be her sex slave, since he gave up all his superweapons).
  • Sequel is short. He turns out to be impossible to mind control. He gave up superweapons, not his superbrain. He does the obvious thing: fake obedience until she's off guard (and post-coital) and then just hack together a communications device and call the League of Protectors.

Here's a simpler one:

Erotic horror: do a bimbification story as it really would be, a terrifying process involving drugs, brain surgery, and involuntary cosmetic surgery. And it doesn't work and the bimbo is discarded.

Sometimes they ramify and grow. I have two pages of ideas for Andrea and four pages for Avidia right now. Most of the time, I don't write exactly what's in the outline, but ideas from it end up in the finished version. As I've mentioned elsewhere, I'm more of a pantser than I ever expected to be.

 

[BeechLeaf]

[new readers need to get some of their personalities - esp the nondescript Ph's - play up a bit more of that in the decorating stage]

[put in CLEAR STAGE DIRECTIONS of when they have WINE, when there is MUSIC on, and when she becomes NAKED]

[awkward wording in sentence 2]

[important: have they kissed before this, and if so how? when does the change from cheek to lips happen?]

[don't like this much, but let's get on with it]

[ooh, can I play with that pun? lampshade?]

[he's a bit slow, isn't he?]

 

[anthrodisiac]

Some of my Big Book of Anthro entries are a paragraph of more, then there's stuff like this:

Kosh: arboreal salamander, incredibly aggressive and protective of her adopted “sister” salamanders that she saves from humans, who she butchers and collects their ears. Earth-pink top, dull white-pink underside; mouth of nightmares

Pine Marten: adorable troublemaker

Lyrebird: Beatboxer, obviously. Kinda cocky showoff.

Pink Fairy Armadillo: TOO CUTE!

Short-eared dog: rare amazonian peru canid with webbed paws. nifty!

Greater Prairie Chicken: curvy, big ear feathers, sassy queen

Secretary bird: Regal af, don’t take no shit, might be a secretary and mentally file away everybody she needs to disembowel when she leaves the company; also the person keeping the company together

Ostrich: austro-goths > gothy ostrich

 

[KittyOfSteele]

This edit made me go watch Kurzgesagt and hit the books to fact check and I accidentally turned it into a TCM study mini session.

Yesterday. It was only one line, AH.

 

[JohnBJohn]

Whoops, here's some notes from my current story:

Mary2 threesome. Craziness comes out.

Mary1 sex. Tear costume

Downstairs on couch, Mary2 wants to be spitroasted. Presents ass to two men (vamp scene)

Superman (Tommy) with a masked Poison Ivy, a barbarian and a masked witch (Meredith), a policeman and a masked criminal

 

[TheWritingGroup]

Some of my Big Book of Anthro entries are a paragraph of more, then there's stuff like this:
[snip]

Really? This is for Literotica characters, and not a single penis worm?

 

[deathlynx]

I never leave notes for myself. The one time I did, at the end of a story in progress, to outline the plot line to the ending... I didn't write for a week because well, if I knew the ending the story was done.

But the draft was good, so a week or two later I deleted the notes and kept writing. The ending, when I finally got to it, was nothing at all like the notes. I can't remember what story it was, but I think it was one of my better ones. Dumb idea for me, writing notes to myself. No-one reads them!

This is the reason I used to have to pants all my writing. I tried outlining but then the muse felt satisfied and I couldn't return to the project. Over time more and more parts come at me piecemeal, so I'd put them in "help" files for different projects until these days the outlines are roughly a paragraph per chapter.

The notes in my drafts are said chaptergraphs as I reach each new chapter. Then, when the chapter is over I delete it and drop in the next one. Otherwise, I have pages of notes for each of my projects in a "help" file. That's where the outlines live. Otherwise, large chunks of it amount to a glossary/character index so I don't end up turning a werelynx into a werehyena in the next novel (thanks Southern Vampire).