Okay so I’m not totally unorganized. I don’t use a fancy program like Silke though. I have a notebook for each story and a folder file on the computer which contains at least 20 Word files. I’ve tried notecards, storyboarding, and finally outlining for my plot. For me the outline has worked best and has refocused my work thanks to Morgan Hawke’s website. Her articles on writing are really straight forward and good. I’m a plotter. My notebook is for my original ideas to slap them down on paper in an unfocused manner. This includes scenes, characters, snippets of dialogue, and anything else that strikes my fancy. I also put any research in that notebook as well, making sure to reference where it came from in case I need to go back to it. Then I structure them into the outline. I liked how Morgan Hawke described how the events went and also from Holly Lisle’s website learned a lot. I’ve taken classes and read articles and read books, all to arrive at this time when I feel confident that I can write an effective story. Or at least try to. My first novel, lovingly tucked into the hard drive for safe keeping, I began with a list of scenes which ran out only half way through the novel and then I pantsed the rest of the story. By the time I was finished, the story was definitely better toward the end as my writing skills improved. My current WIP is my second which received a hack and slash job after Nano. I went from 51,902 words down to 6180 words as I realized what would be the best thing for my novel. So sometimes even planning doesn’t help. A lot of times you have to rethink your strategy and painfully cut off the excess.
So what’s your plan of attack? How many novels are hiding under your mattress? What’s the most painful cut you’ve made to a MS?