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There are many methods for writing a story and many mediums on which to write them... which ones are yours? Do you use Microsoft Word? Or maybe you prefer a more exotic word processing program instead... even NotePad, perhaps? Better yet, do you even use a computer for writing at all, or is paper with pen or pencil your preference instead? Discuss!
The method that I've been using for story-related things is typing everything down in a program called TextEdit, which is essentially the rough Macintosh equivalent of WordPad on Windows. That may sound painful, but when it comes to the art of writing, I personally prefer my "canvas" to be as simple as possible. And in the case of TextEdit, that means no rulers or margins, no "pages", and no word counters (although that last one is something that I miss). This is all actually quite useful from my perspective because it allows me to see exactly what the story will look like in an environment that looks similar to how most people will read it (like on a forum or an FF.net-style website).
That said, I've also been increasingly writing stuff down on plain old paper. You see, one of the problems I've found myself having with writing is that I'll have ideas in my head at one point and then forget them later without them ever having been written down. Naturally, that means that what could have otherwise been an awesome idea is instead lost forever, and even if I can somewhat recover what I was thinking about at a later time, it will never be quite the same as it was originally... often for the worse. Meanwhile, writing them down on paper allows me to take better advantage of the spontaneity of my thoughts and save them anywhere and anytime, especially given that paper and the tools to write on them with are relatively easy to find and take with you wherever you go.
Now, you may or may not be thinking: couldn't you do the exact same thing on a smartphone? Well, I originally thought about doing the above on just that, but for me, typing things down on a virtual keyboard just doesn't compare to the experience of writing things down on actual paper with a nice pen. Also, as far as electronic devices in general go: I find that paper is a far more flexible and liberating "canvas" compared to the average word processing program, because you can write anywhere and any way you want instantly, with complete and utter freedom from the "hard" mechanics of most computer software that can only attempt to simulate the above without ever really getting there.
With all of the above said, I can't imagine myself writing an entire story completely on paper. And indeed, I'm using it primarily for notes and summaries at the moment. For a full draft of an actual story - and especially a final draft - I'm much more inclined to do that on a computer since writing on paper is still as slow as molasses compared to typing... and that's before the all-too-necessary transcribing phase comes into play. To those writers who write everything down on paper and then write it all again on computer later... seriously, how do you guys even do it!?
The method that I've been using for story-related things is typing everything down in a program called TextEdit, which is essentially the rough Macintosh equivalent of WordPad on Windows. That may sound painful, but when it comes to the art of writing, I personally prefer my "canvas" to be as simple as possible. And in the case of TextEdit, that means no rulers or margins, no "pages", and no word counters (although that last one is something that I miss). This is all actually quite useful from my perspective because it allows me to see exactly what the story will look like in an environment that looks similar to how most people will read it (like on a forum or an FF.net-style website).
That said, I've also been increasingly writing stuff down on plain old paper. You see, one of the problems I've found myself having with writing is that I'll have ideas in my head at one point and then forget them later without them ever having been written down. Naturally, that means that what could have otherwise been an awesome idea is instead lost forever, and even if I can somewhat recover what I was thinking about at a later time, it will never be quite the same as it was originally... often for the worse. Meanwhile, writing them down on paper allows me to take better advantage of the spontaneity of my thoughts and save them anywhere and anytime, especially given that paper and the tools to write on them with are relatively easy to find and take with you wherever you go.
Now, you may or may not be thinking: couldn't you do the exact same thing on a smartphone? Well, I originally thought about doing the above on just that, but for me, typing things down on a virtual keyboard just doesn't compare to the experience of writing things down on actual paper with a nice pen. Also, as far as electronic devices in general go: I find that paper is a far more flexible and liberating "canvas" compared to the average word processing program, because you can write anywhere and any way you want instantly, with complete and utter freedom from the "hard" mechanics of most computer software that can only attempt to simulate the above without ever really getting there.
With all of the above said, I can't imagine myself writing an entire story completely on paper. And indeed, I'm using it primarily for notes and summaries at the moment. For a full draft of an actual story - and especially a final draft - I'm much more inclined to do that on a computer since writing on paper is still as slow as molasses compared to typing... and that's before the all-too-necessary transcribing phase comes into play. To those writers who write everything down on paper and then write it all again on computer later... seriously, how do you guys even do it!?
