McAnally's (The Community Pub) > Author Craft
One or many documents?
Kalshane:
I always read the previous days/night's work before I start on the next bit and then re-read the whole previous chapter before starting a new one. Never had a real problem with flow or continuity keeping things separate. (The only real problem I have is keeping track of days of the week within the story sometimes, so I keep a timeline in a separate doc.)
Richelle Mead:
I write each new chapter in its own file, then bundle them up into sets of five, and eventually make one complete manuscript in one file. As for Word's goofiness: the first book I ever wrote was a sprawling, crazy 800 page sci-fi epic. It's so long that Word pops up an error message and refuses to spellcheck it.
pathele:
I tried the one chapter- one file thing and it just didn't work for me. I found that I kept a better continuity if everything is in one file. Word does get more flaky than normal with a large file, but then I never trust Word's spell checker or grammer checker, too unreliable.
-paul
Benchleyfan:
So far I've been doing the separate file for each chapter, but they go into my "writing" folder. Inside the writing folder there are subfolders. Subfolder categories: Short stories, poems, novels in progress, etc. It may not be the right way to go for everyone, but I like it. ;)
resurrectedwarrior:
For the first draft of my novel, I used one big file.
For the second draft, I've started using separate files for each chapter. Not sure why. It might have something to do with taking little bits at a time, though. That way, I don't feel overwhelmed working on a huge manuscript. Baby steps=good. :)
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