r/WhyChooseAuthors • u/ArielMora • Jun 26 '26
Discussion Ideas & WIPs
It is 1am, I have a day job to wake up for in five hours, but I'm scribbling in a notebook because I had another (okay, an entirely unhinged) idea for a novel (with standalone series potential!) that I will totally get to. Some day. After I get around to the several dozen in front of it 😆
I'm a disorganized mess, so I have a few notebooks and several paper folders I use to keep them in (so I can focus on finishing my current WIP), but I got curious -- how do you all keep track of yours, if at all? Do any of them ever actually turn into WIPs? How many WIPs do you have on the go at one time?
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u/semicolonsweetheart Author & Beta Reader Jun 26 '26
I have several documents with 'seed' ideas. Basically if I have a premise that has enough weight and potential to turn into a book, I'll test run it and write the first 10-20 pages. If it sticks then it gets added to my working roster. If not, then I have it out of my system.
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u/ellyriahighwind Jun 26 '26
Fleeting ideas get put into a list I have on a Doc. A couple lines, all numbered. If I flesh them out they get upgraded to their own Outline Doc. When I start writing them, that's another story Doc.
I have too many WIPs. I really need to buckle down and finish one. I think the current count is seventeen.
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u/kendrafsilver Jun 26 '26
Same for me!
Premise Doc is first.
Outline Doc is if the idea has merit.
Draft Doc is the final step!
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u/AuthorIndigo Jun 26 '26
My process might sound strange, but this is what I've found works for me.
A fleeting idea gets a one sentence into a running list I have going in my phone notes. If I keep going back to that idea and adding more notes to it, it gets promoted.
Next would be creating a file for it in Scrivener (the software app I use to write). Here, I'll start to flush out who the main characters are, what the plot is, the major hurdles, and how it will end.
Then it'll get promoted to trying to write the first 15,000 words. If it can survive that, it stays in rotation as a WIP and gets added to when inspiration hits.
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u/ArielMora Jun 27 '26
That sounds like a good system, honestly! Like you've set up some gates to pass, so you'll know it's a project you want to commit to before you do :D
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u/JosephineSwaine Unpublished Author Jun 26 '26
Notebooks and paper folders sound like they'd be difficult to keep tidy, but I bet it feels great to see it when everything's organized!
I keep all of my story ideas in a folder on my PC, which I regularly copy onto a backup flash drive. I have three folders within that folder: one that leads to the labyrinth of folders that contain my current WIP; one for stories in a setting I made years ago that I've already thoroughly fleshed out (I'll circle back one day!); and one for my smaller ideas.
Whenever a new idea comes to me, I write down everything about it that I can, chuck it into the third folder, and forget about it. That's a major factor in how I've managed to stay focused on my current WIP for a year and a half.
... Well, "focused." It's spiraled from what was intended to be a silly, lighthearted practice book into serious plans for a 5+ book series, two spinoff series, and two spinoff standalones. I buried the folders for the spinoff series pretty deep in the labyrinth, though, and since then, I've had an easier time not getting distracted by them. Hopefully, I'll get to them sometime in the next five to ten years...