Hello ( ￣▽￣) , me again, but i was wondering if you use a writing program? and, if so, which one do you like/recommend? I've been using Google docs on my phone cuz I don't really have access to a computer/laptop, and it's a pian in the ass trying to organize that shit lol
Have a Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious~🎵 day❤️❤️❤️
I have tried a lot of writing programs, but I always go back to Google Docs. I have a computer, it's not a laptop but one of the big computers that rest at your desk, so I can't really bring it with me everywhere. Google Docs is just the most comfortable to me to write on my phone while I'm on the go, and then open the same doc on my computer to edit it properly. (I wrote on my phone a lot while using public transportation to and from work, so I get it. Though Docs starts struggling when you pass the 30k words mark on a single doc in the phone version. It's why I tend to split up my writing docs).
Also, it's what my beta finds easiest to use when working on the same doc as me (their edit mood and how they save editing history is really good for collaborating and knowing what changed, by who, and when). I wish there was a better app for it since I'm not a huge fan of docs, but all the ones I tried lacked features I consider essential or weren't as friendly to use.
As for organization? Well, I'm a fan of making a lot of folders and sub-folders. I have this crazy folder tree split into original writing and fanfic, then fanfic is split into fandoms and within the HP fandom folder it's divided into ships or central theme (I have a few Gen ones there) and within each ship there are ganere sub-folders (like "time travel" or "soul mate au" or anything else) It really depends on the folder what I use as the sorting system. In my nottpott folder, for example, almost all the fics are light canon divergence so I divide them by the year the story starts in ("3rd year", "4th year", "5th year", "AU")
That's my organization method for the writing itself, but I don't do most of the planning/organizing on Google Docs. Like, I have a few placeholders in the doc I'm writing in to give me a general direction while writing, but outlining, character docs, and worldbuilding I write in Notion.
I don't know if you're familiar, but the basic plan is free (both the phone and computer versions, and all edits are synced up across platforms), and it's so useful for organizing. You can make pages really pretty there, and the databases are really useful for searching information you already wrote for yourself. I never really needed anything outside the free version, as the free plan allows you to make plenty of workspaces with as many pages as you want as long as you don't share them.
Here are some examples of what's going on in my HP notion intended to help my fic writing (and meta, a bit). It's mostly lists of stuff I like to be able to find quickly and easily filterable & searchable databases:
I do outlining and plot planning on Notion too. It's just not pictured because of spoilers.
I also have a notion like the above for worldbuilding, character planning, and outlining for my original writing (Iridescent). It's really useful to have one place to go to that has everything organized like a wiki of sorts.
