What writers say gets in the way.

I used to use scrivener, but my last pc fried and I lost everything. I should have had a backup but I didn’t.

I don’t wanna use word or whatever comes with my computer because I’ve lost things that way and pcs are delicates creatures.

I’d maybe eventually be able to rewrite the story but it would take me significantly longer than the first time.

I really need this since I'm someone who tends to write and rewrite and rewrite only to realize version 2 was way better than version 17, but I can't access it anymore outside of my (decaying) immediate memory.

I use Obsidian with Obsidian git. You can have it so it takes backups every few minutes, and you can browse the entire history.

As for versions, I simply "save as" with a new version number as part of the filename whenever I make major edits. You can do that with any software.

Sometimes I move rewritten scenes into a "deleted scenes" folder if I feel I might need to come back.

I use Word and save multiple versions as I go along.

I save drafts on my computer. They are always accessible.

I make a bajillion for every scene because I am a creative packrat and must preserve all variants of my creative process.

I have lost everything at one point, and it forced me to rewrite a book. Which turned out better than the first time

Not really crucial. I have notes and backups for that exact reason, it's practically impossible to be able to recall everything from memory.

I keep copies of my work on my PC, tablet, phone, and flash drive. I email the current WIP to myself regularly. Plus I have the original handwritten drafts.

I save to my laptop which syncs with Google drive and email a copy to myself. I've made a new Gmail specifically for my writing so it doesn't get lost. I do this once a week.

Sometimes I get lost, sometimes I create notes that I had already created, but it is the way that works the most for me.

I tried using the tagging system a while back but that didn't stick, so now I'm back to just throwing everything in a few main folders and hoping I never have to find something quickly.

I couldn't keep all the names and details straight without something to take notes in.

How do you organize all your worldbuilding stuff? Do you use a wiki, a notebook, spreadsheets, some app?

I have notes in categories for characters, beasts, magic, gods, races, geography and locations.

Well i simply have some docs for descriptions. Every important carackter gets a little backstory, physical description and a reference drawing.

I have a fairly good memory, but I keep a google doc for “archiving” stuff. I’ll check it quickly if I’m writing and need to remember something.

I have a card file and a binder. The binder has things like the Creation Liturgy so that I can look things up.

I create a spreadsheet that I title “Story Building” on Google Docs. Some people refer to it as a story bible.

I put down notes as soon as I write something new, and organize it into groups such as locations, species, characters and the like.

I have a huge word doc where I divide everything in titles and sub titles.

I honestly just have a file in the notes section in Scrivener called CONTINUITY and I'm religious about documenting anything I find myself looking up more than twice. Often the act of writing it in the file is enough to cement it.

I do my writing in Obsidian, so when I create a character, location, or thing, I create a page for it and each time it gets mentioned, it gets linked to their own page.

I just create a straightforward Word document, nothing fancy, a 'style sheet'. It includes a bunch of stuff but also character and location notes.

I have a handful of docs where I copy-paste information as I write it. When I introduce a new named character, I write the name down with the initial description and what chapter they appeared.

Now, I have a file in Obsidian where I'm keeping track of information about every character, location, and skill, with chapter files listing character appearances, skill increases, etc.

Then I can query for a town when I’m going to write about going to the town and I then have all the characters who have a story connected to the town.

I also have a compendium and several other documents I use to keep track of things, like a cast sheet as a quick reference.

The hardest part isn't creating ideas, it's remembering all the little details months later when you're 50k words in.

I find my head works fine up to about 30K words but somewhere past that things start slipping.

Like how do you make sure a character's eye color doesn't randomly change in chapter 15, or that your magic system doesn't contradict itself, or that the layout of a city stays the same throughout the whole book?

I used to keep probably around 150,000 words of notes, but I got bored of keeping them updated whenever I edited/changed something, so it's all in my head now.

I tried making ref sheets, but it’s mostly in my head and a problem for second draft me to deal with.

I also have a "current day" document which is essentially a short format synopsis of what is currently happening around the world. This links to A LOT of documents in obsidian.

My story bible for the series included character sketches for all noteworthy characters which included physical descriptions and personal details.

I find spreadsheets and documents difficult because you can't just track everything, and I don't find them user-friendly.

I think I’ve done a good job with continuity, but we’ll see. I’ve primarily used a plot grid and also just an insanely disorganized brain dump to keep track of things.

I've used series style guides for complicated space operas that span over 5+ books. They can easily grow to 50+ pages but they should be easy to search through.

I also keep a timeline in spreadsheets and a character/place/event dictionary, color coded. I go back frequently to make sure i am consistent with regards to ages, dates, and things characters said or did.

Linguistic quirks trip me up frequently. However with all the rereads, I spot the issues and fix them as I go.

There was one I ahd began that I ended up having to do a recalc on every other chapter to ensure what I was writing wasn't off, or thaat the initial rules weren't skewed/escaped.

So, yeah. I have a LOT of notes. But it's a pretty long series at this point (working on book 9), so it kind of needs that kind of backbone.

Before starting to draft Book 2, one of the cool things I did was to take a bunch of data from Book 1 and extrapolate rate of progression. I then used that as a super-nerdy input to my outlining.

I started making a personal tool that would automate a lot of things. It was based around a map and would basically let me move pins around based on a timeline.

I have documents with the character sheets, and make sure I save the start and end states of each book and where I am currently at.

Spreadsheets and a lot of re-reading what I wrote during editing because I inevitably mess one thing up somewhere along the line Lol

But turnover and doing everything on my phone has left me with a mess. There's documents on my Notes app; several generations of legacy folder collections on my Drive; a wikia I started; an obsidian I started.

Right now I have to remember to paste my work into Ellipsus, which is browser based so I can use it on any device, and copy back into Scrivener when I get back to iOS/PC.

I use the Scrivener spell check. Then I paste it into LibreOffice with different font and background color and use its spell check. Then I paste it into RR and use its spell check. Between those three I usually catch most of the typos.

I hate the idea of spending many months working on a document, but then having to spend a lot more time getting it "pretty" and publishable in a whole other platform.

I use SimpleMind for mind maps. Drafts for quick text capture. LibreOffice for word processing. I write mostly in LibreOffice.

Yeah I use a third party app and then copy+paste

I go Scrivener->Markdown->PDF via Pandoc and LaTeX, which may be overkill, but is definitely configurable.

I just use Microsoft word for everything. One document for the manuscript and one document for the worldbuilding/character stuff.

I use git for version control. And pandoc to compile the text files into a docx when needed. Each chapter is a separate file. Notes, timelines, character sheets are also their own, separate text files.

There are many spreadsheets, scattered books, note documents, potential rarrling about in my head, it's not organized per say, but it kinda is

Combination of Obsidian, a 32mb folder of all my short stories/lore documents, and a big orange binder

I’ve used it on iOS in the past, but don’t bother now. If I want to do any writing on the move, I use iA Writer and then transfer the work to Scrivener when I’m back at my desktop.

I also don’t like having to run an instance of Dropbox on my Mac just for one app (I already use Drive).

I use Obsidian and Writers Journal, obsidian for computer the Writers Journal for my phone :)

Ellipsus for writing, Dropbox for backing up documents. Trackbear for monitoring my word count.

I use Notion for organizing + MS Word for drafting.

It's scattered all over the place in multiple files so I can't tell you exactly how much.

Then I copy and paste them into a Scrivener file, so I can generate a single document if needed.

My documents outgrew Google docs and they were lagging really badly.

The Word doc started getting slow to load after 150k words, so I pulled the first 50k into a separate doc. I keep scene graveyards and notes at the end, so the word count really stacks.

The problem is that Notes works fine for random ideas, but I have no idea what people use once a story starts having chapters, characters, scenes, research and a proper structure.

I was going crazy trying to track everything in word documents. I’m a visual person so seeing everything laid out on a sheet helped my brain so much.

Then I just use post-its to separate notes about individual chapters. But I also have a habit of jamming loose scraps of paper in-between the pages.

For the actual story I have another folder with notes for all the planning (plot, ideas, scrapped ideas, scenes - snippets of writing, etc). From there I write either in obsidian or somewhere else.

When I'm writing a novel, I use it's folder/document system within the project binder to create a folder for each chapter, and then I have documents '1st draft' '2nd draft' '3rd draft' etc. within the folders, because I edit chapter by chapter.

And then before I get done, I decide on a new plotting system idea and I start over.

I separate folders on my drive for each new novel I am working on. Inside each folder there are several different files, named accordingly, some for character development and structure, novel overall idea and plots, written chapters, re-written chapters, researching , plots etc etc...

I don’t think I could write anything of significant length just in a single word doc.

I don’t often write chronologically either, so it’s helpful to move scenes around.

I have a discbound notebook where I keep everything and have it all seperated out into sections. I’ve got the general chapter outline, scene breakdown for each chapter, characters + their arcs, etc.

I avoid length issues by creating each chapter in separate Word files.

Does anyone have any software they recommend that AI won't be sifting through?

Creative work should always and forever be human only.

If I just use a simple google doc, could that be used to train ai?

I am a little worried at intrusive AI apps generally, so good creative things that won’t steal or manipulate my data very much appreciated.

It should stay far, far away from creative writing. AI's voice is terrible.

I don’t want my work put into ai.

I don’t like the thought of it giving me any suggestions. This is coming from me. Not that.

Why then would I be interested in finding a shortcut to enriching myself? The joy of creating and engaging with our creations comes with time and effort. Removing time and effort removes the heart and soul of art.

Tbh the only reason I didn’t mention my distaste for AI was because a warning showed up, that’s the main reason I don’t want to use doc’s anymore.

I'm just happy the old versions don't shove AI down my throat at this point!

The only thing I dislike with NovelCrafter so far is the fact that it seems like it really wants you to use AI in the writing process, whereas I don't really want to use AI in the writing process whatsoever.

I used to use ProWritingAid but more and more it's felt like they've been focusing on their AI suite while the rest of their tools kinda just flounder.

The AI is turned off though, it's so annoying and I don't like it for you know, all the reasons

I seldom accept their suggestions because, as it tries to make the text sound like anodyne office-document boiler copy, it kills the characters' voices.

The AI does fix any grammar mistakes, but it also fixes the actions and expressions in between the dialogue by making it more in depth than what I wrote.

I'm a little leery of using AI for anything more than proofing though. I would hate to have it affect my style or what my readers have come to expect.

Though I would NOT trust AI to make corrections. It's handy for spotting errors but you're the best judge of what is correct for your novel.

I use AI like a noisy copyeditor, not a ghostwriter. Research questions, clarity passes, “does this paragraph say what I think it says.” If it starts inventing plot for me I stop.

So... I'm not wanting AI to write the story but I do use it to talk through some things.

Take it all with a grain of salt, and do NOT let it suggest alternatives!

Now when you have the AI proof read, does it make changes and you copy paste, or does it recommend changes and you decide which advice to follow?

I used to use Grammarly, but it couldn't accurately detect misspellings, and kept wanting to flatten my work to an obscene degree, so I removed it nearly a year ago. My work has not suffered at all for the loss.

However, Scrivener doesn't work easily on Android and I like writing from my phone, so I'm thinking of migrating back to Word.

If I want to work elsewhere, I email myself. But that doesn't give me access to the full project.

End result for me is that I don’t use the mobile version. Had I known about this quirk I wouldn’t have bought it.

I just use google docs, but I work a nighttime deskjob, so I write a lot at work and don't have a laptop, so being able to access all my stuff through a browser is a must.

I really want to be a Scrivener person but I write my novel on my home pc and my work pc so I don't think it would work for me.

There's no Android version, so I gotta deal with the notes app/google drive and copy pasting

I built the backlog by writing on my phone during the commute.

One last thing that I do personally is I have a LONG running “to do” list. Any idea I get when I’m out, any edit I need to make, or any “question” I have while writing goes in this list.

I like a writing app that’s quick to load offline accessible. If I get an idea I like to put it on paper, even if I don’t have time to work through it fully.

I use the default Notes app on my phone to create and organise pages of worldbuilding. I can even organise the notes by different categories.

My concern is synching and connectivity on my iPad should I decide to start writing on the Scrivener app on the same save while on the move.

I do like being able to pull up my draft and notes on any device however.

I do most of my writing in my Notes app on my iPhone. I used to use Word, and I use Scrivener for editing and big sessions.

For NaNo I'm planning to use GDocs, because I'll sometimes be writing on my main computer (desktop), sometimes on my laptop for online write-ins because it has a camera, and sometimes on my tablet for in-person write-ins.

They have all the shiny bells and whistles and charts and graphs that allow you to do everything but write, but feel like you've accomplished something even when you're nowhere nearer to putting words on a page.

I always end up getting stuck right at the learning curve, which usually puts me off.

Wasn't worth it for me. I tried it a few times and as impressive as those bells and whistles were, trying to learn how to use them all ate up too much of my actual writing time.

I've never liked stuff like Scrivener, Google docs, Obsidian etc. They are way to technical and such a pain to learn.

Viele Programme sind mir zu kompliziert und aufgeblasen, andere können Seitenzahlen nicht korrekt ausgeben oder ignorieren Leerseiten.

Honestly I find it so overwhelming, I just need bullet points and some sticky notes for my world building.

I just wrote my last book in Scrivener. Although it's preferred by a lot of writers, it's too much for me.

I use Obsidian and I just can't really seem to get organizing my stuff right.

As far as we’re concerned, writing a book doesn’t require all those thousands of cool, complex features piled into Word. After years of writing software and dealing with Windows etc., we like simplicity.

I always feel like they’re doing too much. Personally, mapping out every worldbuilding detail, creating in-depth character sheets, mood boards, outlines detailed to the nth degree, etc. takes the fun out of the process.

I've tried that sort of app and couldn't get more than a few words onto the screen because it felt needlessly complicated and difficult to make anything useful with.

But when I'm drafting all the features those apps offer are just distractions.

I usually use MS Word. But I have bought Scrivener thinking it would be a moderate adjustment. Oops. It’s a pretty substantial learning curve from what I can tell. So, is it worth the time investment?

I use Scrivener. It took me a while to figure out writing on there to the point I'm comfortable, so I'm not going to mess with other software.

I'm fine swapping to Word or Scrivener if the consensus is that ones easiest to work with, and I'd like to get used to one of them as soon as possible.

The constant switching back and forth to try and figure it out between project settings and compile and the page design has pushed me to the brink. it took me three hours to get it out of scrivener.

The question is how do you get it out of scrivener to even get it to another program. All the compilations I’ve made still need so much post formatting.

Used to use Scrivener, but it's lack of portability and the struggle of exporting made me sadly abandon it. Now I use Word.

My biggest complaint is that the compiling/exporting function on longform wasn't too great. I had to keep pulling levers until it worked properly.

When you write in scrivener, do you export the manuscript to word to send it to your editor?

A bit annoying that I have to scrap all of that and do a PDF completely differently.

Print, the pdf is okay, but lacks some final polish for widows, rivers, orphans, etc. Not formatting from scratch: just fixing a few ugly spots.

Seems a shame to have to go back and create chapter breaks, decide again on small caps and how many words, so I can get to where I decide if a river or an uneven page length bugs me more.

It is also very hard to achieve this level of customization without jumping through hoops to do so, and it simply isn’t convenient for me to keep repositioning images and or borders every time I type on the document.

The one thing we miss is justification with hyphenation for self-pub. That can be a tricky mess in most any system that has it. Doesn’t exist at all in Pages.

I used to use Google Docs, but publishers generally want Word files, and I got used to it.

I wrote my entire novel on the notes app on my tablet. Finally the fifth draft consisted of me emailing the chapters one at a time to be properly formatted in Word.

If I could directly keep my formatting for easy copy pasting I'd probably use it more tbh.

As such, the idea of writing one set of content, and from that one set, producing one or more sets of published output in various formats appeals to me. ePub, PDF, HTML, Word, whatever--that kind of easy versatility would be fantastic.

Writing this up in case it saves someone else the pain I went through. It took eleven rounds for my paperback cover to be accepted, and every single time the previewer said it was fine.

I queried another professional artist for a cover of a different book (I knew it would cost more because of her portfolio) but they hit me with around 8k. I had sticker shock! I had to decline.

I’m working on a book (self-published) and trying to figure out what’s actually reasonable to spend on a cover. I’ve seen everything from $20 premade covers to $1,000plus custom designs and I’m not sure where the 'worth it' line is.

Always Check the Print-Preview! I had it several times that what looked ok in the Cover Creator didn't fit in the Print Preview

I've been struggling for a while to find out how to get an affordable book cover that will be acceptable to publish on Ingram and Amazon KDP.

When you say pre-made, is this like a ton of covers you buy from, then it gets taken off the site? Or could there possibly be a few books out there that end up having the same cover?

I may pursue less expensive options for my next book since my royalties on this book are still pretty low .

I drew mine. I used GIMP to generate the artwork but kept it very simple. All of the art I use is black and white line art so the style matched the cover and vice versa.

I hired a graphic designer. He made and signed a contract basically saying it was a work for hire project and that I own all rights to the custom illustration and the cover design.

I will say one of those quotes involved a contract saying I’d have to pay more if I hit 5,000 sales and I backed out of that one. Once I pay, I want it to be mine forever

I would never spend $1000 on just the design, that seems excessive. $500 is about my max. But if you’re also buying custom imagery then I’ve spent $1600 altogether before.

I’m fine with ai, it’s whatever, but I kind of expected her to draw or edit the ai so it looked better? I don’t know, should I not be picky about it looking like ai???

I’m only really highlighting this as I was shocked with the results from the free lancers being lower quality and simply unable to provide what I was looking for.

My problem with scrivener is that it doesn't allow for partnered editing like comments and track changes of you share the document, and not everyone uses scrivener, so the files are usually incompatible

I know google docs isn’t ideal but I coauthor and it’s the only thing we can find right now that meets our needs for live updating and commenting between us and our beta readers.

Going through an entire manuscript of notations made in word in other documents has never worked well for me.

How easy is it to export a single chapter for someone to review and then import the changes if they don't have it? Or would they also need Scrivener?

I’m very nervous about getting to beta-reading/editor part of my manuscript because I’ve seen so many stories of editors/readers running it through an AI and just spitting the feedback at the person.

I've been writing for over seven years and for the first time I send my work to an editor. Today she told me she put my book on AI and there're a lot of syntax mistakes.

When it comes to editing, my co-writer and I both do a pass, then we hand it to beta readers. Once it comes back, we do one more pass ourselves, and we schedule it for publication.

It’s priceless to be able to have my drafts available to select readers and editors that allows them to leave notes and highlight sections, or even comment on each others notes.

I don't need it for publishing, I need it to get it to editors and readers and my agent-- in basic word or pdf files.

Microsoft word is my go-to unless I’m doing a beta write - then Google docs for easier commenting.

I asked some of my most diligent readers of they would like to help me edit. Theyre amazing!

I write LitRPG and post on RoyalRoad, and honestly the worst feeling isn’t low views — it’s when a reader points out a stat inconsistency from 10 chapters ago 😅

It got me through book1, but I feel like this spreadsheet is going to fall apart somewhere in book3-4 and I'll be hopelessly lost in my own stew.

Spreadsheet with lots of tabs. Lots. Even then I keep finding mistakes.

Yeah, going back and fixing stat blocks was a staple of my writing process until I create my little database thingy.

For stats I have easy solution: no stats, just milestones when Attributes get ranked up. Easy to track, and fix wheb I inevidably make (or have made) a mistake.

I've only had one point where it created a plot hole/major inconsistency that needed a lot of work fixing, but once is bad enough.

Oh yeah, I've had that happen. Even with a stat tracking spreadsheet I still get some numbers wrong. My series has become progressively less stat heavy over the last few books 😂

I currently keep track of everything in a simple doc, and I added a change log and a strict routine of checking and mathing stuff out anytime I change stuff.

I built an extremely simple system that I think ties up all its loose ends, but I give it a day before someone finds a game breaking hole in the logic that I totally missed.

I was just looking for the best way to handle this a few nights ago. I couldn't really find anything better than just a spreadsheet with a separate tab for every character.

I could technically explain away my stat issues as in-story glitches. But I don't think I will, much prefer to fix them.

Usually, while writing a litrpg, I have a seperate document with exactly what his current stats are, and update it as things happen. Then when I need to paste in a character sheet, its ready to go.

Honestly, converting it to a spreadsheet would likely be the best, though that's a bit harder to transfer fully to my manuscript when I want to put in the full sheet.

As many of you know, formatting can be a big deal in LitRPG. It's important that I have certain words bolded or italicized correctly. Tables, too, are important, but I only have one every few chapters, so it's a bit less of a concern.

I have a single excel spreadsheet that I track levels and stats on. Then a word doc for all the written bits. Just enough to keep it all straight.

I wish I could use sheets in scrivener, but it is what it is.

Before writing a word of the first draft, even, I built myself a number of Excel-based calculators. These spit out things like what stats items could feasibly have or how much XP the characters should get based on a few inputs.

I spent 4 weeks working out Bk 7 to 8 for the math so I could write it without it making my head fall off.

And my current book has a single Notepad page, a Word page, and a spreadsheet that tracks numbers, skills, and spells.

For the character stats I've written my own little character tracker in Python that gives me a block of text I can copy into my novel whenever I update it.

One tab is basically a character sheet, inventory, and achievement tracker for my MC.

Every time I write the stats I go back to the previous chapter where it showed up and compare it to that. Mine is not crunchy though!

I think it might help folk who (like me) get 50-80% of the way through something and abandon it. Surely I can get 100% of the way through something TINY.

My 'planning' has basically become procrastination at this point.

plotting has always been my biggest hurdle in writing. i have always loved the writing part of writing, but i'm afraid i've fallen into an MFA writing style that favours prose over actual substance.

I'm good at writing dialogue, but I need more work on writing the character's actions or expressions in between.

At first, I wasn't using anything beyond Word's spell check. Then, I started getting thousands of comments, and a lot of those were, "Correct this typo."

Journaling has always helped me a lot. It gets me to write consistently in a way that feels low-stakes since no one will read it other than me.

Not invalidating your response, but I went through a long time thinking the HJ was the One True Path and writing really crappy short stories because of that.

What worked for me once is deciding on one "element", and branching out from there. This is similar to how some writers write the ending first.

For me, I studied the Save the Cat framework and took notes on it to try to wrap my head around it.

One thing that helped me was starting with a character want instead of trying to build plot in a vacuum.

At some point I really should look into Grammarly, but I definitely feel like I would have missed out on a lot of growth if I didn't do it myself at least to begin with.

I have found that I have learned more from writing 600 x 3 words of microfics than I have learned from writing, say, 4000 words of a novel WIP.

I love reading this type of story, really struggle with writing in that length.

It’s hard to be succinct and still feel like the story and characters are fleshed out. I’m hoping that the practice will indeed make me better when I circle back around to my full length novels

I've had a story I've struggled with writing for the past few years, mostly because I get daunted by the thought of writing so many words.

Even with a one-time purchase, I rather not spend money on something that might terminate or might not work after purchase.

I used to use Scrivener, I got it when it first came out but I'm bitter that others get free upgrades and I have to pay all over again for new versions.

I'm trying to make Google less central to my life in general, and I want direct ownership of my files without them being hosted on someone else's server, so I'm willing to tolerate a little inconvenience if I can accomplish that.

I use Scrivener, mainly because I liked the idea of being to actually buy a product and actually own it. But I’m having more than just teething issues.

I'm not going to buy anything until I can prove to myself that I'm serious about finishing a first draft.

Is there any trial version? It's not expensive, but even though I'd like to try it first before buying something which I may not use in the end.

The sub ran out and I'm looking for an alternative to it that isn't google docs. Bonus points if it allows comments and track changes and such for shared use.

Looking a piece of software or website I can write, keep my anonymity and has a decent Grammar and Spellcheck (As my budget is Zero)

Would it also be not too harsh to ask if it can be not too expensive on the subscription fees or a permanent one?

I use a text editor because I don't want a proprietary document format, but that's MY reason, not yours.

I mainly use Obsidian to write on my tablet, and syncthing to keep it all synced without paying the monthly fee.

Compare that to the story before: I ran out of backlog, started writing fast just to have something to post, steered the plot into a dead end, and stopped writing when it became clear I'd killed my story.

backlog usually, 30 to 50 chapters ahead. But even then you can still run out. I know. lol

I can barely make 1 a week with my job. I do my best though.

My chapters are about 5-8k words, and I've been worried one chapter a week was too infrequent, but I hate the thought of breaking them up into shorter chapters.

Any tricks to sustaining that rhythm? I’ve got a backlog of 60 edited and almost 20 unedited chapters.

I write a 3k word chapter a day M-F. That goes to Patreon.

In the meantime, I go through an earlier chapter - next in line - with a colored pen and update my doc.

That gets scheduled for RR.

I do a backlog and a clear expectation of when I'll slow down. I'm a slow writer and an even slower editor so having more than I think I need is the key

I have 30 chapters ahead of the Patreon to play with and revise as I write to keep everything consistent.

I edit and post daily. It's not perfect, and my chapters are short, so it's doable. This really depends on how long your chapters are and your editing speed.

Something I've found and been suggesting for a while, post 1-2 less a week then you can write. If you can write 3 chapters a week, only post 2.

I think consistency is the most important part after the first month chapter dump.

My question for readers and authors is straightforward: From week 8 onwards, is maintaining 3 chapters/week at this length (~10k words/week) considered too little for the platform, is it fine, or is it very good for retaining readers and maintaining visibility?

Currently, have a backlog of 220 chapters, still building more.

Some weeks I do a little more, some I do a little less, but it averages out that that. That's 4 chapters a week of production for me, so I release four chapters a week.

Considering how fast you need to get your chapters out there, especially at launch, what kind of editing software do you use to polish those chapters before publishing?

I let the chapter sit for a least 6-10 hours, then reread before posting, making edits at that time.

(Then I took some dubious beta reader advice and radically changed the opening scene, but forgot that the final image was a mirror of it, and multiple things broke to the point I had to put it back the way it was.)

For mysteries/thrillers I have a section where I note down each cookie crumb or piece of foreshadowing that happens (ordering it chronologically) so I can see how it all flows together, or not, and whether it needs tweaking.

And nothing will be revealed until the 3rd book. I also drop reminders of this foreshadow every 10 chapters or so, so my readers don't forget.

This happens to me a lot in my own writing in the first drafts. It's the subsequent drafts where I've always had a lot of fun dialing in the foreshadowing and making sure it feels right,

Always fun :) sometimes when I am stumped I look at what I wrote and realize it connects to Something I planned out years ago put put aside that would work perfect here

This happens to me, but I don't realize until I'm rereading

With my work I've been experimenting by obfuscating the foreshadowing in layers of metaphor and misdirection, but the hope is that it'll read as a brick to the teeth once the curtain's yanked free.

If I'm going for subtle, I like to put the foreshadowing in places with emotional importance so the reader will remember them and connect them more readily.

But in fantasy, I always get told to make my foreshadowing more obvious.

Some of my stories are basically tragedies, where you kind of know from the beginning that the inevitable is going to happen, and then you see it unfold. So in that case the foreshadowing can be bolder.

I hope the reader can go back to the first three chapters and discover the entire story was there for them.

Yep. Not just seed. I straight up introduce the primary antagonist and his goal while keeping the "why" a secret for later.

The last sentence in my first chapter is the same as the last sentence in the final chapter with wildly different context.

It pulls double duty as not only an allusion to one element of the story, but also the ending itself which will come in the third book.

For foreshadowing, that's for the 2nd draft. Only by finishing your story will you know what you need to hint at.

And what’s your best way to handle foreshadowing future events or characters, so it feels natural and not forced?