Look at me writing a Blog about writing. Maybe I should get something properly published first huh?
Well too bad, because if there’s one thing I’m good at, it might not be writing, but it’s being organised.
You’ll hear (or read, or have the thought beamed into your head depending how far technology has come by the time you read this) that spreadsheets can be instrumental in helping you keep track when writing. And sadly, as someone who has made it a hobby to avoid using Excel as much as possible despite it being an intrinsic part of my day job, it’s true.
Spreadsheets however, aren’t the devil ( I say to myself as I use them), and can be filled with far more useful things than numbers. Although sometimes, rarely, numbers are important.
I use spreadsheets for a lot of things in my writing – I was just going to chuck it all down here nonsensically but sadly I believe I have some actual useful advice.
Prewriting:
Create your character profiles, timelines and record key plot points on different tabs of one spreadsheet. Eventually you may even list things like chapter titles and a brief synopsis for each one, which can help you remember exactly when something happened in your narrative (especially if you’re not following a normal timeline and are switching up the order of scenes).
Writing:
You’ve answered all your character questions, have a vague idea of how time works in this story and are ready to dive in. I like to use a punch list during writing and re-writing, writing down the amends or things to consider, but not yet tweaking anything. Write this down in Excel and you’ll have ease of access, as well as the ability to check if there’s anything re-occuring that you may need to spend more time on in editing. Research goes in one tab, insights and things to consider in another.
Re-writing:
Refer to that punch list and check things off as you amend them. Don’t delete – keep a history of what you’ve changed and why. You can refer back to this when someone says ‘Well why didn’t you do it this way?’
Use all your notes (organised in Excel) to refer to throughout re-writing. Make sure your characters are consistent with their outlines, the plot doesn’t dive into random tangents (unintentionally) and fact check yourself.
Study and research:
Now I’ll be the first to admit my level of organisation isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. For instance, I spent a few days over Christmas organising all my ‘Further Reading’ for my Masters degree into a spreadsheet that looks like this:
Here, I can easily copy out the reference from anything I’ve read for when I need to write a commentary for my course. It also includes a colour coded list of my ‘key’ topics, which are usually also bookmarked in the books or files, so I can easily filter directly to a topic I’m writing about.
The visual aspect of this – the colour coded post it notes in the books I can see – are helpful to get me kick-started when writing and researching. The organisational aspect means I never have to go searching for my notes on something, or wonder if X book features any information on Y. This also tells me where the original ‘mention’ came from – if it was from my course, or recommended through a workshop and so on. Essentially, I have everything I need in one easy spreadsheet!
Of course this is far from complete – I want to add in websites that are useful too, and would love to one day have a full contents list for everything I’ve read, which goes into more detail about exactly what a book specifies in. But for now, this is amazingly helpful.
If you use Spreadsheets for planning and keeping track of writing, let me know. Or if you use another method, or are interested in seeing more examples of the Spreadsheets I use whilst writing, drop me a note in the comments.
LF Mills - author 