wherein Liz considers file organization methods

[edenfalling]

Apropos of a meme that's going around, I am always surprised by people talking about their WIP folder.

Because that is not how I organize my files. Like, AT ALL.

I organize my writing by fandom, with one folder for each major fandom plus one master-level folder that acts as a catch-all for minor fandoms (some of which have their own sub-folders while others just get naked files within that catch-all folder), and then keep another folder for ficathons, prompt-fests, exchanges, etc. So if you want me to list all the stories I consider WIPs, it would require me to comb through... oh, at least a dozen folders, probably more. Scores if you add in all the unfinished original fiction snippets I have floating around.

I dunno, that's just how my mind works. To me, it's OBVIOUS that you sort stories by "world" and mark "this is unfinished" only in the file name, if at all. I add "(rough)" to a lot of files while they're in the WIP stage and whack that off once I finish -- or I make a separate file and call it "(final)" if it's long enough that I'm doing deep edits and/or have had it beta-read at some point, in which case there will usually be a third version with "(beta)" or "(for beta)" tacked onto the file name.

But apparently a lot of people keep a WIP folder! And I mean, I guess I can see how it would be useful if you're poking around wondering what to work on? But I keep having this knee-jerk reaction of "but why can't you just keep that part in your head?" and also "ew, gross, you're letting all the different worlds touch!" like they're bean casserole and cranberry sauce on a Thanksgiving plate and must be kept separate on pain of extremely unpleasant flavor combinations.

Which is also kind of funny since I have files that are just gigantic smears of blended worlds -- namely, every file that's a running tally of Three Sentence Ficathon fills, or a running tally of mini-ficlet prompt meme fills -- but eh.

Possibly it's related to only discovering fanfiction after years of writing unfinished original fiction? So I was used to organizing by world -- which is, of course, a lot more relevant for original fiction, where I also have lots and lots of background worldbuilding files and suchlike.

Or possibly it's just how my brain works. Brains are idiosyncratic and weird.

...

This has been your random thought of the day. :)

Comments

[sholio]

YUP, that's how mine is. I have a folder for each fandom, and then a "done" folder within each fandom folder (and a handful of other sub-folders as needed, e.g. "abandoned & unfinished" for starts to things I will almost certainly never finish). But again, it's fandom-specific - lumping everything together is just fundamentally weird to me. How would you ever find anything? Or remember what it was?

So yeah, I'd either have to pick the WIPs from just one folder, or go through and collate all of them, which would probably be a couple hundred files at least. My Iron Fist folder alone has 44 items ...

My original fiction is similarly arranged by world (and also genre/pen name). So yeah, I probably imported that organizational structure when I started writing fanfic. It just made sense to me.

[syrena_of_the_lake]

I’m the same way! I organize by fandom and sometimes get tripped up by how to categorize crossovers (usually by dominant fandom within said story). I don’t have a system for identifying finished or not, usually. I have tons of notes labeled “snippet,” though. And I am like 2 years behind on retrieving, organizing and posting 3-sentence fics! It’ll have to be a winter project. The only other type of organization I’ve ever had began with our first computer and my original filing system (age 11) of Story1, Story2, Story2a... and it didn’t work very well (surprise!)

[isis]

I also split my files by fandom, plus a catch-all for fandoms I don't write much in. I don't distinguish between WIP and finished work.

[alexseanchai]

I don't have a WIP folder; I have a master list of all the places on the internet (mostly but not entirely my Dreamwidth) where I have drafts and excerpts and pondering

[musesfool]

Heh. I don't even have a WIP folder. I used to have a finished works folder but I gave up on that several computers ago. Everything is just in my undifferentiated documents folder.

[edenfalling]

Oh, a "done" folder within each fandom would be so useful! *makes note*

[edenfalling]

I keep a specific folder for crossovers for precisely that "ack, how to categorize?!" problem. :)

One of my fall/winter projects is catching up on my master directory posts, which I have not updated since... January, I think. *headdesk* I couldn't face sorting and posting info for seventy-two 3-sentence fics and then my brain was like, "You cannot organize anything else until you complete that step first!" so... yeah, it just fell to the side.

[edenfalling]

Organizing by fandom just makes sense! :)

[edenfalling]

Ooh. I don't keep stuff like that on Dreamwidth precisely because I'd need that master list to track it and I know myself -- I would not update the list, and then I'd never be able to find anything. I am very impressed that you can make that work!

[edenfalling]

Genuine question: how do you find things within that undifferentiated folder, and how do you remember what each document is?

[musesfool]

I'm really good at remembering what I've named the files - usually either with the working (likely final but not always) title, by character or ship, or fest with the year. So my yuletide story this year will likely have a file name of "[ship or character name] yuletide2020" and if I do treats, they will probably be "Kanej yuletide treat 2020" or something like that.

I admit I occasionally forget what something is, especially if the title of the story changes and the file is named for the original title (though I do try to rename the file as well), but most of the time I don't have trouble knowing what's what. I think having a title at the start 95% of the time and using that as the file name helps.

[marmota_b]

I only divide mine into fan-fiction and not-fan-fiction. The latter has not been touched in years now I'm afraid (although there have been ideas, they did not get beyond paper in the Real Life mess of the past couple of years), and it's an inaccurate division anyway because non-fanfiction includes what's actually my first fan-fiction - only it only used/uses the worldbuilding and none of the characters, and at fifteen or how old I was when I started writing it, I did not even know fan-fiction was a Thing...
And then I have a separate folder for Sources, and that one's partially divided by fandom / universe / story (the slashes used not in a folder system way but in the "or" way ;-) ). I also have secret Pinterest boards for sources and inspiration, because I find Pinterest a good way to save disk space for that sort of thing.

With the way my "universes" are expanding, and how my fanfiction folder is expanding, I may have to soon divide it further; while I still had only two series/WIPs, more or less, and then individual stories, it was workable just with filenames; but now the Choruk'la Kajir universe of my latest NFE entry invaded, too, and the folder is becoming fuller and things are becoming... unwieldy.

I've never given it any thought, but yeah, I've never had a WIP folder, either. Maybe that's because we both write by developing worldbuilding and then applying it on consecutive fics? So it makes far more sense to have worlds together, rather than stages of writing?

[marmota_b]

Same here. :-) And files where I just throw ideas at the page with no particular story yet will have something like "shards" in the title (that probably makes more sense in Czech).

[musesfool]

I do save bits and pieces I've cut out of stories with titles like, "SteveBucky AU unused snippets" or "deleted opening of Jason Returns" or whatever.

[marmota_b]

Mine are usually more like, bits and pieces that came to me unbidden and have no story to fit into yet. :D

[rosaxx50]

Haha, I have folders for major WIPs so that each chapter is separate, but generally not by fandom. Instead, all my WIP files are usually in one folder, and have a "[fandom] - working title" format so that they're grouped by fandom. If I don't see them, I don't remember them. Mind you, I haven't had a full WIP folder on my computer for years. Everything I write is a oneshot and then finished.

And then all my complete works go into a single folder.

[edenfalling]

Interesting! I used to keep some paper files of inspiring photos and such, but I didn't really continue that past my teens. I'm not sure why, in retrospect, but I just don't really feel urges in that direction much anymore. Brains are weird!

Yeah, if you have a "world" (for some definition of that word), it makes sense to keep all files related to that world in one place, and files related to other worlds in a different location. That has always been how I sort things.

[edenfalling]

Oh, chaptered stories absolutely have their own folders to keep everything together! I could never organize anything otherwise.

Your WIP folder arrangement sounds more useful than some others I've heard described, particularly with the "[fandom]" header for internal sorting.

[marmota_b]

Pinterest saves links, so I genuinely do use it to save sources. Thinking about it, I realise that a good chunk of my "inspiration" images are often actually, far more, images that capture the essence of something I have already imagined - so it's far less "inspiration" and far more a sort of visual outline or note to self, saying both "don't forget to include this episode" and "don't forget to describe these places and things you've imagined"...