Yes, it’s possible to draft full text for pieces of writing in Workflowy. You can do this either by typing the text of the draft as notes under the bullet (shift + enter) or indenting the text as a bullet under each outline point. When you’re ready to write your draft, simply copy your outline, and begin writing the first draft by elaborating on the main bullet points. Each bullet either supports the main point directly, or supports a supporting point. Then write the rest of your outline as bullets under that primary one. One of the most helpful outlining methods is to outline your piece with your main thesis as the primary bullet. Simply create a character study you really love, then remove the particulars about that character and save it as a template.įor nonfiction, the ability to structure arguments and enter notes in Workflowy is a huge help. And he even did a screencast exclusively for Workflowy! Since Bradon’s piece, Workflowy has created its templates feature-which make things like character templates even easier to do. Brandon Abbott has a wonderful article on The Writing Cooperative about how he uses Workflowy for fiction writing. If you’re writing fiction, you can create character studies, outline story arcs, and rearrange dialogue. Outlining your writing is where Workflowy shines. Once I’m done selecting the ‘#good’ ideas, I refine them in a separate bullet. Then, the good ones get a hashtag (something like ‘#good’ to move on). Quantity actually creates quality in the end, so I list a bunch of ideas first. Be they good, bad, or otherwise, get as many ideas as possible down before you evaluate them. My favorite process is to create a separate bullet called Brainstorming, and then go crazy listing ideas. Workflowy was almost built for this purpose. You have to start from scratch – build up a wall of ideas, and knock down all the blocks but the precious few that will make the cut to your final piece. There are some pieces of writing where brainstorming is a necessary component. I’ve found it helpful to hit ctrl + enter to put a note with some hashtags or symbols with key themes or tags that can help me identify that text in the future (since it’s not searchable!). These days, I heavily leverage Workflowy’s image feature, and snap a picture of a page or excerpt from a book. In the bad old days, I used to literally type out excerpts from physical books. Under that bullet, I put everything from interesting thoughts of my own, to links, and even full excerpts I copy and paste (or type out) from another work. One thing I’ve found helpful is for any piece I’m writing, there is a section called “Reference”. But however it’s done, keeping it all in one place and organized is key. Other times, it’s included directly in the work-via quotes and links, or in a thorough review. Whether you’re writing fiction or nonfiction, a short article or a novel, for fun or for profit, reference material is a big part of the writing process. Here are just a few, as well as how you can do them in Workflowy. Elements to Organizeīefore you even begin writing a draft-and even once you are writing a draft, there are plenty of things to keep organized. That’s where a great organizational system truly shines. The more quickly and reliably you can record that inspiration, and integrate into your writing process, the better. Whatever form they take, when they hit you, they hit you. They can be a passage from a book, a quote from a song, a scene from a film, and on and on. The sources of inspiration are tough to predict. This gets us back to the inspiration part of writing.Įven if inspiration is only 1% (or slightly more) of genius, it’s still a part of it. While typing out the words, sentences, and paragraphs of your work may be where all the action is, the work of planning, arranging, and ordering your thoughts is where the value is.Įffective tools for organizing all the work involved in your writing help you come up with more ideas and implement them in writing once you get going on the work of drafting and editing a piece. For a writer, that less glamorous, but much more important work is organization. That may well be an exaggeration, but the general idea holds that the value of inspiration is vastly overrated when compared to the less glamorous work that bookends it. Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.
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