Share Your Draft Notes

[MK_Whimsy]

Nope, too late it's canon from the author, horse boy gets Fridays off and goes to the bar

Oh, I guess so...

 

[TheWritingGroup]

(The anthropomorphic Clydesdale enters a bar.)
(Clydesdale orders a beer from a keg.)
(Clydesdale looks over at a poorly-sealed window, remarking about how cold the breeze is.)

Wait, that's what you wanted, right?

Shouldn't the horse be singing? Doesn't it have to generate ... notes?

 

[Areala-chan]

I don't use in-line notes. I might have an external text file where I plop down ideas for potential scenes, or lines I want to use later (I had about two dozen haiku I wrote for one story, for instance, that I then picked from at the appropriate times), but I'm fortunate in that I've never felt like I needed something there in the story document itself.

 

[anthrodisiac]

I don't use in-line notes. I might have an external text file where I plop down ideas for potential scenes, or lines I want to use later (I had about two dozen haiku I wrote for one story, for instance, that I then picked from at the appropriate times), but I'm fortunate in that I've never felt like I needed something there in the story document itself.

It's mostly laziness on my part, not wanting to bother highlighting the text, or going to a different document, and then just ranting at myself about how nobody needs a twelve-page dissertation on hammerhead shark claspers in the middle of a gay sex romp.

It's only five pages now!

 

[TheWritingGroup]

I don't use in-line notes. I might have an external text file where I plop down ideas for potential scenes, or lines I want to use later (I had about two dozen haiku I wrote for one story, for instance, that I then picked from at the appropriate times), but I'm fortunate in that I've never felt like I needed something there in the story document itself.

I'm curious why you consider it "fortunate" that your particular workflow keeps notes outside the actual document being edited?

 

[Areala-chan]

I'm curious why you consider it "fortunate" that your particular workflow keeps notes outside the actual document being edited?

I meant I felt lucky in that I can keep the entire story in my head. I don't need physical outlines, character biographies, story beat worksheets. I don't sketch out plot points or plan how many pages/words to devote to rising action, climax, falling action, and so forth. My brain's just a big-ass filing cabinet that can compartmentalize all of that, even if I'm working on multiple different projects.

I can sit in front of a work I haven't touched for years, and immediately be back in the flow, remembering what I was going for, what the theme is, who all the characters are, and so forth. Obviously if I let something go that long, there's time spent bringing old text up to my current standards, but I always remember where I was going with it. Any notes I make are along the lines of, "Ah, that's a good line I could use somewhere!" or "Potential sex scene while they're in the sauna?".

In school, I could never understand why teachers insisted on students handing in outlines and drafts along with their completed paper because I just...wrote the paper. Who needed a draft or an outline? Wasn't that just extra busy-work? Doesn't everybody have the whole thing outlined in their head before they start writing?

I was surprised to learn not everybody's brain worked like mine, and it genuinely felt like I had some cheat code others didn't have access to. I'm just fortunate in that regard, that's all I meant.

 

[StillStunned]

I already had to rewrite part of the description. The inn's door doesn't open onto the road, it opens onto the courtyard between the two wings.

I have Karen Wynn Fonstad's Atlas of Middle-Earth in the bookcase. I should probably check whether there's a map of the Pony.

And of course there is! I bet KWF would be thrilled that the Atlas has been sitting in my bookcase all these years just so I can use it for a sex story.

 

[sirhugs]

I meant I felt lucky in that I can keep the entire story in my head. I don't need physical outlines, character biographies, story beat worksheets. I don't sketch out plot points or plan how many pages/words to devote to rising action, climax, falling action, and so forth. My brain's just a big-ass filing cabinet that can compartmentalize all of that, even if I'm working on multiple different projects.

I can sit in front of a work I haven't touched for years, and immediately be back in the flow, remembering what I was going for, what the theme is, who all the characters are, and so forth. Obviously if I let something go that long, there's time spent bringing old text up to my current standards, but I always remember where I was going with it. Any notes I make are along the lines of, "Ah, that's a good line I could use somewhere!" or "Potential sex scene while they're in the sauna?".

In school, I could never understand why teachers insisted on students handing in outlines and drafts along with their completed paper because I just...wrote the paper. Who needed a draft or an outline? Wasn't that just extra busy-work? Doesn't everybody have the whole thing outlined in their head before they start writing?

I was surprised to learn not everybody's brain worked like mine, and it genuinely felt like I had some cheat code others didn't have access to. I'm just fortunate in that regard, that's all I meant.

The teachers requesting the outlines and drafts was a plagiarism detection tool.