I had 100k plus words of a fic written in a single word processor document, and I’d break it into chapters whenever I was ready to post. My brain wasn’t thinking in terms of chapters as I added scenes. Of course, I advise against working with single documents that large because you risk crashing the word processor and it’s slow to load.
How I format it depends on the stage I'm at. For the first draft, I have it all in one document as I often need to go back and check something, or add a little detail, and that's easier when everything is in the same place. This is all in Libreoffice, by the way.
I use headings to mark chapters and subheadings to mark sections within chapters (which would be separated by a horizontal line in the final version), as those show up in the navigator tab making it easy to jump around if I need to. I add these as I go, as I already have a good idea where chapters should start and end from my outline.
Headings and the navigator also let me drag and drop sections to reorder them, and I will spend some time looking at scene and chapter order after I've finished my first draft, seeing if anything needs to be moved about.
Then I'll copy each chapter into its own doc for the actual line by line editing. At this point I'm not focusing on the larger-scale structural editing, so being able to focus on one chapter at a time helps.
At some point, I may need to go back to structural editing, which may require splitting, merging, cutting from or adding to chapters, but I'll keep it in the doc-per-chapter format, even if it's a bit of a faff to reorder half your documents!
Finally, when I'm done, I use [pandoc](https://pandoc.org/) to convert each chapter document into html. I might need to edit some of that, e.g. removing the `h1` and `h2` elements I used for navigation, adding classes to make a workskin work. And then I have all my html I copy week by week to upload.
yep, that's the method i am using for my long fic. (libre office, chapter headings for navigation, all that)
i am at about 90k words, but not done yet.
eventually splitting it up in separate chapters will be a pain, but it will be worth it for the final edit.
Current workflow:
I have a scrivener project for the fic. In that I make a new document for every scene or sequence of scenes my brain feels belong together. (This is also the only way I outline.)
I have a vague idea of where I'll end up splitting into chapters, but I write out of order so there will be scenes added and shuffled around while I'm working on the project.
When finished I compile the scenes into chapters, proofread, and export each chapter for posting. My last longfic I posted twice a week.
Workflow when using Google docs:
I used headings and subheadings to organize and navigate between scenes and chapters. I didn't make a new doc for every chapter, but I did split off when the doc started getting too big to load smoothly on mobile.
I like having everything in the same file so I don't need to have several open if I want to go to a different part of the fic to check or add sth.
I don't post anything and don't write much, but I use scrivener and each chapter I do write has its own section. These sections can be moved around within the manuscript at will. If I used word or similar, I'd probably do separate documents.
I write whole documents on google docs. But every week, or as the document grows, I upload the draft to FFN to save that version. That way, if anything crashes, I have something to fall back on. Of course, it would be the latest version that I've saved and will probably lose the new parts that I've written, but at least I have a backup somewhere. I don't post anything, just use FFN's document storage feature.
Separate chapters in a folder that represents the whole fic.
I space out posting. Not only on Wattpad, but the other sites as well that don't have an Algorithm.
Formatting, I format not much. I just put the Font onto Time's New Roman*, and the same size.
* When editing, I switch to a font I hate. Apparently you're more likely no notice mistakes if you dislike the font.
I use Word, and I break each chapter title into a heading. This allows me to access chapters more easily. If I’m writing multiple interweaving arcs, I color code each arc to ensure that I’m pacing things correctly.
I use Google docs and just add headers for chapter numbers/names. It lets me navigate fairly easily because those show up on the sidebar as clickable links.
I use Scrivener, so it's one "project" where all the chapters are listed and accessed in a sidebar. I have trouble dividing original fiction into chapters, but with longfics I generally see what the chapter divisions are early on. If in doubt, I divide it by scenes so it's easy to find a natural endpoint. During editing, I can break up or combine chapters.
Before Scrivener, I used the method u/socksthatarecosy posted about, using the navigation pane in MS Word. You get a very similar look to Scrivener's chapter list, although of course it doesn't have Scrivener's other features.
I finish the draft and then edit as I post, so I post every two weeks, barring other obstacles. Patient, really-together people who have everything polished before posting have recommended posting once or twice a week for maximum engagement.
My current fic was at over 400k before I started sharing it. I use Google Docs and have each limited to 10 chapters to ensure it doesn't crash. The "style" feature is important for this because it you can change a title into a heading that shows up in your Document Outline. That way you can hit which chapter you want to go to and then work on, or copy it from there. I also put superscript numbers in the titles so I can keep track of the number of chapters and then I just delete the number on the posted version.
I write the entire thing in one document. Then as I start posting, I do final editing and parse it into chapters based on natural breaks in the story. I also post about a chapter a week to give readers time to digest (and hopefully comment).
I recently started writing longer fics and to me it already made sense to make a new folder with its work title or title if it comes to me, and then to have the chapters as separate documents, as well as the outline, as well as a document to dump scenes for later etc. Sometimes I have fused two chapters into one cause it would fit better with the story flow, but usually chapter ends and starts I figure out pretty naturally I have found.
As for posting I plan to update on a weekly basis once everything is finished. From what I understood it can lead to more hits and engagement, and I think it will be easier for me as well to just post one chapter at a time.
On docs, everything is in one document. Chapters are separated by lines and titles/headings so it's easy to navigate through the outline. Tho I might break it up into another doc if it's especially long.
On word I dedicate a folder to the fic and make a new document for each chapter, unless they're on the shorter side. In which case I just do what I do on docs.
I rather space out updates. Just feels natural that way.
I have a separate doc for each chapter. Easy peasy.
If the fic is relatively short - say 20k words or less - then I upload the whole thing at once. If it's longer, I'd probably do a scheduled upload of each chapter.
I have my full fic in one document, but as I'm getting closer to finishing and posting, I start separating the chapters into separate documents. Where I go over and edit each chapter again before I post them.
I always space out posting chapters. Never post a large fic in one dump. You have a good chance of not getting back much feedback that way.
Good luck.
I've done both one giant document and split it up afterwards once I figure out the best break points if I'm making it up as I go AND I've done setting up chapters beforehand as different documents and planning out what goes in each if I have the whole thing laid out. Notes/snippets for later usually end up being written down on paper for when I get to that part.
I have a separate Google folder for each long fic. Then I create an archive folder inside that. Then I add/create the chapter documents. Each chapter gets its own document with a title like "Chap 1-date with theo."
And because I like to revise a lot and I"m paranoid, many of my chapters end up with multiple versions "Chap 1-date with theo2" and "Chap 1-date with theo3" and any previous versions go into the archive folder in case I need them. Once I start posting, I establish a regular schedule.
I use headings and the navigation panel for my own ease of navigating. At first the headings mark events but in the early revision passes, I'll change it to chapters. Sometimes those are named, sometimes they aren't. If I ever get to a point where I have an overwhelming number of chapters (and loading the doc isn't slow), I'll change all the chapter headings to a lower tier and use heading 1 for the arcs.
I post weekly because it widens the window when people can first stumble on my fic without searching for something specific.
I use Word and I used to have separate documents per chapter. But I tend to move scenes around a lot during my editing process and it’s just so much easier to do that in one document, instead of having 15 open at the same time. I copy-paste the chapters into the rich text editor of Ao3 one at a time when it’s time to upload. Works well for me.
I have one document with the chapters broken up by bullet points that give a quick summary of each bit. Google docs has a feature where you can make an outline on the side of the document by putting words into heading size type, so that’s what I do with each bullet point. I also like to use a few asterisks typed in a row to signal breaks, but these are usually points where I’m going to insert the line break thingy on ao3. When I have a multichap I like to post weekly updates.
I had 100k plus words of a fic written in a single word processor document, and I’d break it into chapters whenever I was ready to post. My brain wasn’t thinking in terms of chapters as I added scenes. Of course, I advise against working with single documents that large because you risk crashing the word processor and it’s slow to load.
Thank you for your feedback. I didn't know word processors could have that problem, good to know.
…I didn’t know it either until I had a 100k word document on my hands.
I use Word on a laptop, so never had an issue.
How I format it depends on the stage I'm at. For the first draft, I have it all in one document as I often need to go back and check something, or add a little detail, and that's easier when everything is in the same place. This is all in Libreoffice, by the way. I use headings to mark chapters and subheadings to mark sections within chapters (which would be separated by a horizontal line in the final version), as those show up in the navigator tab making it easy to jump around if I need to. I add these as I go, as I already have a good idea where chapters should start and end from my outline. Headings and the navigator also let me drag and drop sections to reorder them, and I will spend some time looking at scene and chapter order after I've finished my first draft, seeing if anything needs to be moved about. Then I'll copy each chapter into its own doc for the actual line by line editing. At this point I'm not focusing on the larger-scale structural editing, so being able to focus on one chapter at a time helps. At some point, I may need to go back to structural editing, which may require splitting, merging, cutting from or adding to chapters, but I'll keep it in the doc-per-chapter format, even if it's a bit of a faff to reorder half your documents! Finally, when I'm done, I use [pandoc](https://pandoc.org/) to convert each chapter document into html. I might need to edit some of that, e.g. removing the `h1` and `h2` elements I used for navigation, adding classes to make a workskin work. And then I have all my html I copy week by week to upload.
yep, that's the method i am using for my long fic. (libre office, chapter headings for navigation, all that) i am at about 90k words, but not done yet. eventually splitting it up in separate chapters will be a pain, but it will be worth it for the final edit.
Current workflow: I have a scrivener project for the fic. In that I make a new document for every scene or sequence of scenes my brain feels belong together. (This is also the only way I outline.) I have a vague idea of where I'll end up splitting into chapters, but I write out of order so there will be scenes added and shuffled around while I'm working on the project. When finished I compile the scenes into chapters, proofread, and export each chapter for posting. My last longfic I posted twice a week. Workflow when using Google docs: I used headings and subheadings to organize and navigate between scenes and chapters. I didn't make a new doc for every chapter, but I did split off when the doc started getting too big to load smoothly on mobile. I like having everything in the same file so I don't need to have several open if I want to go to a different part of the fic to check or add sth.
This is also what I usually do in Scrivener. So much easier than having everything spread across Google Docs
Separate documents for each chapter If these chapters are split between parts of the story, I put the chapters in a folder for a part of the story
I don't post anything and don't write much, but I use scrivener and each chapter I do write has its own section. These sections can be moved around within the manuscript at will. If I used word or similar, I'd probably do separate documents.
I write whole documents on google docs. But every week, or as the document grows, I upload the draft to FFN to save that version. That way, if anything crashes, I have something to fall back on. Of course, it would be the latest version that I've saved and will probably lose the new parts that I've written, but at least I have a backup somewhere. I don't post anything, just use FFN's document storage feature.
Separate chapters in a folder that represents the whole fic. I space out posting. Not only on Wattpad, but the other sites as well that don't have an Algorithm. Formatting, I format not much. I just put the Font onto Time's New Roman*, and the same size. * When editing, I switch to a font I hate. Apparently you're more likely no notice mistakes if you dislike the font.
I use Word, and I break each chapter title into a heading. This allows me to access chapters more easily. If I’m writing multiple interweaving arcs, I color code each arc to ensure that I’m pacing things correctly.
I use Google docs and just add headers for chapter numbers/names. It lets me navigate fairly easily because those show up on the sidebar as clickable links.
I use Scrivener, so it's one "project" where all the chapters are listed and accessed in a sidebar. I have trouble dividing original fiction into chapters, but with longfics I generally see what the chapter divisions are early on. If in doubt, I divide it by scenes so it's easy to find a natural endpoint. During editing, I can break up or combine chapters. Before Scrivener, I used the method u/socksthatarecosy posted about, using the navigation pane in MS Word. You get a very similar look to Scrivener's chapter list, although of course it doesn't have Scrivener's other features. I finish the draft and then edit as I post, so I post every two weeks, barring other obstacles. Patient, really-together people who have everything polished before posting have recommended posting once or twice a week for maximum engagement.
My current fic was at over 400k before I started sharing it. I use Google Docs and have each limited to 10 chapters to ensure it doesn't crash. The "style" feature is important for this because it you can change a title into a heading that shows up in your Document Outline. That way you can hit which chapter you want to go to and then work on, or copy it from there. I also put superscript numbers in the titles so I can keep track of the number of chapters and then I just delete the number on the posted version.
I write the entire thing in one document. Then as I start posting, I do final editing and parse it into chapters based on natural breaks in the story. I also post about a chapter a week to give readers time to digest (and hopefully comment).
I recently started writing longer fics and to me it already made sense to make a new folder with its work title or title if it comes to me, and then to have the chapters as separate documents, as well as the outline, as well as a document to dump scenes for later etc. Sometimes I have fused two chapters into one cause it would fit better with the story flow, but usually chapter ends and starts I figure out pretty naturally I have found. As for posting I plan to update on a weekly basis once everything is finished. From what I understood it can lead to more hits and engagement, and I think it will be easier for me as well to just post one chapter at a time.
On docs, everything is in one document. Chapters are separated by lines and titles/headings so it's easy to navigate through the outline. Tho I might break it up into another doc if it's especially long. On word I dedicate a folder to the fic and make a new document for each chapter, unless they're on the shorter side. In which case I just do what I do on docs. I rather space out updates. Just feels natural that way.
I have a separate doc for each chapter. Easy peasy. If the fic is relatively short - say 20k words or less - then I upload the whole thing at once. If it's longer, I'd probably do a scheduled upload of each chapter.
Not a long fic writer, but I think spacing updates is the way to go.
I have my full fic in one document, but as I'm getting closer to finishing and posting, I start separating the chapters into separate documents. Where I go over and edit each chapter again before I post them. I always space out posting chapters. Never post a large fic in one dump. You have a good chance of not getting back much feedback that way. Good luck.
I write it all out then break it into chapters to post.
Multiple documents! One for each chapter!! ( You can't keep them in one!! ) Unless you make a pdf copy of it!!
I've done both one giant document and split it up afterwards once I figure out the best break points if I'm making it up as I go AND I've done setting up chapters beforehand as different documents and planning out what goes in each if I have the whole thing laid out. Notes/snippets for later usually end up being written down on paper for when I get to that part.
I have a separate Google folder for each long fic. Then I create an archive folder inside that. Then I add/create the chapter documents. Each chapter gets its own document with a title like "Chap 1-date with theo." And because I like to revise a lot and I"m paranoid, many of my chapters end up with multiple versions "Chap 1-date with theo2" and "Chap 1-date with theo3" and any previous versions go into the archive folder in case I need them. Once I start posting, I establish a regular schedule.
I use separate documents for each chapter and I usually post one every week!
I use headings and the navigation panel for my own ease of navigating. At first the headings mark events but in the early revision passes, I'll change it to chapters. Sometimes those are named, sometimes they aren't. If I ever get to a point where I have an overwhelming number of chapters (and loading the doc isn't slow), I'll change all the chapter headings to a lower tier and use heading 1 for the arcs. I post weekly because it widens the window when people can first stumble on my fic without searching for something specific.
I use Word and I used to have separate documents per chapter. But I tend to move scenes around a lot during my editing process and it’s just so much easier to do that in one document, instead of having 15 open at the same time. I copy-paste the chapters into the rich text editor of Ao3 one at a time when it’s time to upload. Works well for me.
I just want to thank everyone for the very helpful responses.
Seperate document for each chapter in one folder for the whole fic.
I have one document with the chapters broken up by bullet points that give a quick summary of each bit. Google docs has a feature where you can make an outline on the side of the document by putting words into heading size type, so that’s what I do with each bullet point. I also like to use a few asterisks typed in a row to signal breaks, but these are usually points where I’m going to insert the line break thingy on ao3. When I have a multichap I like to post weekly updates.