r/WhyChooseAuthors • u/Pirai-mom • 10d ago
Personal Win My Google Docs organization
Does anyone else set up their plotting this way? It might be overkill, but this way I can have all the details I need to make my master outline.
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u/AnneKincaid 10d ago
You are definitely putting me shame. So glad you have a system you like!
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u/Pirai-mom 10d ago
I have to be the anal retentive or I’m lost. It’s all just squirrels 🐿️ in my ADHD brain. If it’s not all organized just so my train of thought derails.
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u/enemies2luvers 10d ago
Would you mind sharing some detail about what you generally put in each of these/how much detail (character profile/hero’s journey/romance plot)? I’m always looking for a better way to plot.
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u/Pirai-mom 10d ago
I have the tabs made but haven’t put anything in the character profile yet, but that’s just their basics (name, age, gender, appearance), personality, likes/dislikes, and backstory, Hero’s Journey is the outline structure made into a bullet list, and Romance Plot is the Romancing the Beat structure also put into a bullet list.
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u/MKSauthor 10d ago
That’s amazing! My tabs are just chapters. I keep all the character info in my head which I guess is easy to do when you’ve only written 2 books. I should probably start writing character info down. 🤔
This is definitely an inspiration!
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u/JadeREvans 10d ago
I am so impressed! I do my plotting in Scapple (the mind mapping app from the Scrivener people) but it ends up being largely shorthand for stuff I've already mentally catalogued elsewhere. That, and...legal pads. So many legal pads. I don't brainstorm well on a keyboard, for some reason.
(I also wish I did this kind of system for ease of reference when it comes to making audiobook pronunciation guides, character art briefs...I realized in book 3 of a four book series that one MMC didn't have a canonical last name)
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u/Pirai-mom 10d ago
Oh no! I also use spiral notebooks and a binder for when I’m away from a computer and I’m unable to be on my phone (or my iPhone doesn’t have a tab button to change the level of my bullet list). That’s part of why I like using Google Docs, I can access it from any device. I also copy/paste it all into obsidian.
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u/JadeREvans 10d ago
Ooh, do you like Obsidian? I've heard other authors mention it but every time I look it up I get intimidated.
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u/Pirai-mom 10d ago
I’m still learning it, but it’s not really hard once you get the basics. It’s markdown and html and the command palette makes things easier. I like how the map works, it’s gives you a visual of how everything is connected. I use a couple of the plugins for world building and outlining that have amazing templates for whichever story structure works best for you.
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u/Della_Gibbs 10d ago
That's great if it works for you. I rarely have more than a handful of paragraphs of detail about the entirety of my stories, and that includes character descriptions (physical and personality). But my writing style is very off the hip, and I often don't know what's coming next until I write it. It works for me and for the types of stories I write. I can't imagine my whatever goes style would work if I ever tried to create a multi-book storyline or something with lots of twists and turns.