BellaOnline Forums Career Fiction Writing How do you organize your ideas?

How do you keep all your writing ideas organize3d? Check out my new article Keeping an Idea File and then let us know your particular organizational technique!

I keep it simple
what I'm working on is in "my writing" folder
which has several subfolders - Mastercopy, version #??, research, character sketches, etc
during re-write folders may include 'chapter in progress', critiques, etc

then there's 'my other writing' which has several sub folders
like for children, for adults, non-fic, etc.
then any idea that I get and start I pop in with it's working title even if just a paragraph.


I enjoy going thru it all now and then (or part of it) and may even add bits, or sometimes realize (like while walking the beach) that 2 isolated bits connect and go in and combine them via the new bit that has popped into the gray cells.

There's also a folder for info on writing tools.

It works for me and those folders may vary from a paragraph to a finished novel awaiting re-write and anything in between.

Melissa,

Great article! I always come up with ideas for the novels I write or want to write. Especially when I was working as a dishwasher. I would wash the dishes and sort of zone out and think about things like characters' names, where do I want my story to go next, things like that. Keeping a memo pad near you helps a great deal so you do not forget an idea you have.

I am working ona couple of different novels now and when I come up with the idea for them I think about how I want to start it and how to end it. The middle comes as I go along. I mean I have the general idea on the direction I want my story to go but I am always adding stuff, removing stuff and changing stuff. lol.

I enjoy writing the novels and coming up with ideas for future novels.

The creative part is the best part in my opinion.

I started making lists not too long ago (2014 or 2015) because I had way too many ideas in my head, before that it stayed in my head.

I write them out on the back of computer paper that is folded in half - this way it fits on my computer table above my keyboard. To begin a piece, I usually start with a title, then make an outline of points I want to cover.