Novel writing process?

This thread is in response to Sol's posted chapters in this group about writing a novel. I thought I would add my two cents here in case anyone wants to have a discussion about the writing process. Hopefully, members of this group can improve on my process.

Aside from the outlining suggestions made by Sol, following are some of the other steps I use to write. All of the following are "living" documents that I do my best to keep up to date. Some are based on what I've learned from writing guides, others based on trial and error, and the rest from other writers here on the site.

For the outline, I try to include an estimated page count for each scene/chapter. That gives me a rough idea as to whether or not I can add more to the story or should strip some out. I'm not fixated on the page count, but I find it a useful addition to the process to compare my manuscript's length to other stories in the same genre. You can also get a rough estimate of word count based on page count. I write about 250-300 words per double-spaced page using Times New Roman 12-point font, which I'm told is the standard way to format your manuscript.

I keep my outline up to date, throwing in more scene- or chapter-specific ideas as they pop into my head while I'm writing, or removing ones that are no long relevant.

I also maintain a "names" bible, usually referred to as a character bible. For anything as long as a novel, it's almost a must to keep track of names of characters, what they look like, their backgrounds, what motivates them, etc. In my case, I prefer a spreadsheet, so I can easily scan the information (e.g., all eye colors to make sure certain children look like their parents, or to avoid having too many characters that are too similar).

In the same spreadsheet, I also maintain other named objects in the universe I'm building (e.g., ship names, ship types, ship tech, weapon types, military titles/ranks, stars, planets, cities, societies, etc.). Anything that can be named/described I keep together in the same spreadsheet as the character bible. It even includes expressions (e.g., military mantras) used by my characters, such as "For the Realm!" or forms of address such as My Lord, Your Highness, Your Majesty, etc. Anything I might want to reuse elsewhere in the story. Personally, I can't keep that much information in my head, so I put it all in a spreadsheet. I'll probably end up with 400-500 named entities by the time I'm done, each with multiple characteristics. Some of it I may never use, but I have it if I want it, and it helps me create more three dimensional characters and places.

I keep a big Notes file of every idea/change I might want to include in the book but am too busy to do at any given moment (e.g., I'm writing one chapter, but think of something I should do to others to keep things consistent). I peruse the Notes file regularly and keep it up to date. I divide the Notes file into several sections, especially ideas that are still percolating and ideas I've rejected or completed. I don't want to lose the latter in case I want to revisit them later for reuse or new/changed ideas.

I also took a crack at writing a short one to two sentence theme for my book: Those who struggle at the intersection of religion, mental illness, and homosexuality have the greatest capacity for empathy and are willing to endure the greatest hardship for the benefit of mankind. Too over-the-top? Try the short version: You're too pious, you're crazy, and you're gay, so lighten up! :-) I also wrote out who the primary target audience is for the book (e.g., sci-fi fans, late teens and up, with an interest in adult-oriented themes, primarily for North America, Europe, and other Westernized cultures). I don't, for example, think the book is appropriate for YA given the violence, cursing, and crude humor, nor would it go over well in non-democratic societies (I pick on China, North Korea, Russia, and Apple Inc., among others), nor in the Arab-speaking Islamic world. It helps publishers figure out if a book fits their typical market. The theme and target audience also help me keep the story on track, although I'm perfectly willing to change either if that's where the story takes me.

Not too long ago, I wrote a one-page, single-spaced synopsis of the book, including a complete summary of the book and how it ends. This too is used by publishers and for writing contests and is another great exercise in helping craft the story. Obviously, in a single page, you only highlight key characters and the most important plot points. Writing it forced me to really figure out my ending for the first time.

I use MS Word change-tracking when exchanging documents with my editor. She marks it up, and I can decide what to keep or reject. We both use the MS Word commenting feature (the little balloons tied to a piece of text, accessible via the Reviews tab on newer versions of Word). As the name implies, the comments can be about anything related to a chapter, scene, paragraph, word choices, grammar, etc. that are not words that actually belong in the story itself. It's equivalent to inline comments on TNBW, except you can see them all on the page at once as balloons off to the right of the story text.

I also use the comments to help me manage TNBW reviews. When I'm processing a review, I make the small edits (e.g., typos, grammar, etc.) in the manuscript, and I add MS Word comments for any major feedback that will require more effort, such as a chapter rewrite or changes to overall plot/character arcs, or simply things I need to think about. If it's feedback about something that spans multiple chapters or the whole story, I usually place an entry in my Notes file instead of in a Word comment.

Since TNBW inline feedback cannot currently be displayed without clicking on each individual item of feedback, I try to incorporate all inline changes right away so that I don't need to come back into the review and click through all of them again later. I maintain a Word comment at the top of each chapter of my manuscript that lists all of the reviews I've completed processing so that I don't accidentally reread the same reviews over and over later, looking for which reviews I still need to work through.

One important note about Word comments: I can't figure out a way to copy the manuscript chapters from Word into TNBW without also bringing over the Word comments. I then have to manually strip them out each time I post, which limits the number of comments I'm willing to attach to any given chapter. On the other hand, if one of my chapters is in such rough shape that it's still full of comments, then it's probably too soon to post.

I keep lots of backups of everything. Every Word/Excel document is backed up regularly, both on my computer and on two backup drives, especially before I make significant changes to chapters, such as incorporating all TNBW feedback. I sometimes need to go back and fetch something I wrote and then discarded, wanting to add it back in after all. My backup of last resort is the material I published on the TNBW. Now that we have version control, I can even go back to earlier versions of chapters. So far, I haven't had to use TNBW to recover something, but it's nice to know it's there if I need it (e.g., if North Korea infects all of my hardware).

That's all I can think of for now. I'm sure others have a better/more mature process and will hopefully add their feedback.

Regards,
Dirk