Fancy-Schmancy Writing Tools, or Not
I purchased the WriteWay program a while back and began using it for the novel I was working on at the time, Soul Stone. It was an improvement over the yWriter program (at least, the version that was circulating at the time) and overall, I liked it. It was a good way to organize things and move them around if necessary. You could search for specific items, run numerous reports on anything you may (or may not) want to keep track of, color code scenes, make automatic outlines etc., etc. But both programs had their share of glitches. WriteWay's glitches were mostly minor, but some of them were bothersome enough that I chose not to use the program for my main writing interface. I wrote it in MSWord or LibreOffice, then copied the text into the program to take advantage of all the gadgets. But to really take advantage of them, it seemed like I was spending a lot of time filling out forms with tedious tags, details and summaries that I may or may not use. It took up a lot of my time.
So, before I began this novel (I haven't even thought about the title yet), I had to decide whether I wanted to start a new file for WriteWay or just open up a new .doc file. I started thinking about the advantages of using WriteWay, and while I did find a few, let's just say I couldn't think of any that were significant enough to make it worth the extra effort.
You see, way back in the Stone Age, or maybe it was only about eight or nine years ago, when I was only working on my second novel attempt, I had a folder called "Horror Story." Inside, I had everything separated into its own file. Each chapter was its own file for easy shuffling, renaming, and printing. Notes were separate files where ideas could easily be copied and pasted in and out of them. Any images I had were right there with my reasearch articles and other miscellany. And I even had an ongoing outline with chapter and page numbers so I could keep track of the story and find things when I needed to. If I was looking for a certain scene, I could look it up in the outline and know exactly which file to find it in. Because I was still making the crossover from a hardcopy mentality to a digital one, I printed these things and kept them in a large three-ring binder with tabbed sections such as "Setting," "Plot," "Characters," "Research," "Misc." and behind that, the outline and the actual printed story.
It worked so well, I continued this format with Familiar Footsteps and Changing the Seasons. I transferred Changing the Seasons to yWriter, which is when I discovered how time consuming it was. Then I started Soul Stone on WriteWay from the beginning, which still took a lot of extra time. (I also have a binder of printed material for Soul Stone. I guess I still have an affinity for paper.)
So, I've made a decision. I'm not using the organization tools on WriteWay. I'm going to go hybrid-style. I made a folder for this novel on my computer just like the other novels, but I'm going to organize it more. Inside, there is a folder for "Chapters," where I can place all my individual chapter files for ease of use and manipulation. And I also have a "Character" folder for all of my individual character files, which will only be as detailed as I feel necessary and won't need to be linked to chapters, settings or other characters. There is a "Notes" folder with any plotting or other random notes I want to include. And finally, I will have a "Research" folder with files and links. If any of these folders start getting a collection of files that appears to create a subcategory of its own, I'll just make another folder inside the larger one to house them in. In the main folder, I'm going to put my outline file and update it as I write. And yes, I will probably still print a lot of these things and put them in a physical binder, because... I just want to, okay?!
Then, when everything is written and prettied up for publication (Hahahahaha! *deep breath* Hahahaha! *wipe tear* Heehee...) all I'll have to do is copy and paste the chapters into a single file and send it on its way. I don't really see the need for any special programs for organization and publication. Sometimes low-tech is the way to go. (Or semi-low-tech. It's not like I'm using a typewriter.)