Writers in the Storm

By Kris Maze

Writing a novel rarely takes a straight path, processing many drafts before arriving at The End. Many writers focus on crafting their words but lose their work to faulty saving systems. If this has ever happened to you, this post may the remedy needed to finish your novel quicker.

Where's my stuff!?

Let's say that three weeks ago a side character you quietly killed off now needs to be resurrected, but their key details have disappeared in previous edits. Where were those detailed descriptions again? That clever dialogue you spent hours agonizing over? Digging through your draft history can be a pain, if not impossible.

If you add up these changes over the months and years that it takes to bring a novel to completion, a writer could have hundreds of manuscript versions. And a non-sortable, frustrating, mess.

Drowning in Drafts

Sorting through drafts was maddening for me without a version control plan. I often grabbed the wrong copy or found myself editing an old document. At other times, I updated multiple documents, unwilling to part with old versions I could revert to. Shutting down my computer brought on a wave of anxiety as I wondered, where exactly would my stuff go when it isn’t all open on my home screen? 

My experience finishing a novel was circuitous, winding, and dense. And after losing my work enough times due to multiple save points, I got serious about taking control of my manuscript versions.

If you have ever struggled with losing your work, or keeping your novel-related files organized, this post is for you. Join me, my creative writers, and lessen the stress of finding your work.

Controlling Chaos: Manuscript Version Control Set Up

Making Folders that Keep It All Tidy

The first step in managing your drafts is to have clearly designated spaces to keep the various parts of your project. On my laptop I have a core folder for all things writing. Inside that main folder I have a core “Writing Projects” folder, which has folders for each book or short story I’ve worked on. 

Inside that project folder are five sub folders that keep me organized through the whole book process from writing to publishing. Here are the designations I have within that folder:

Early Drafts

1. “Early Drafts” This one has a lot of the junky, messy versions. This one is named with a working title or the nickname the project has before it gets the final book title. 

I recommend that you keep the nickname on the folder and to not update it once the book has an actual title, since it keeps the early work together and out of your way as you progress through your novel.

Final Drafts

2. “Final Edits” This folder is very helpful in the editing stages. Inside this folder are subfolders for beta feedback, professionally edited files, and many, many “final” drafts that I can now sort through with ease.

Social Media

3. “Social Media” This folder has subfolders that house my social media copy. I have a folder for each type of media, short videos and posts, and it has a spreadsheet to help me keep track of which ones I’ve used.

Book Covers & Meta Data

4. “Book Covers & Meta Data” This folder holds all the variations of the key parts of the book outside of the manuscript. Having separate folders helps to keep it all organized.

Upload Files

5. “Upload Files” This folder makes uploading final documents fool-proof, allowing me to have only the final book cover, manuscript, and digital files ready at my fingertips to upload to stores. 

Scrivener Exports

One step for me involves using the “compile” feature in Scrivener, which I will share here. If you don’t use Scrivener, you can apply these organizing ideas with any document system. You will still benefit from saving multiple files that document your progress and setting up a folder system with easy-to-find files. For the purposes of this article, I will focus on using Word as it is the most used software when working with editors.

Instructions for using compile in Scrivener may change over time as the software gets updates, so check the Literature and Latte website (the URL home of Scrivener) or customer service if you have any issues. 

To export Scrivener project to Word follow these steps: 

1. click Compile icon 
2. choose output format 
3. select files to include 
4. click Compile 
5. give document a title 
6. save.

If you prefer to watch a short instructional video, I found this helpful resource by author Kirsten W. Larsen in a YouTube series on using Scrivener. This video explains how to export your manuscript in parts, selecting only the chapters and not the meta data. It also shows how to export in other formats as well. 

Scrivener will default to the last settings used, so once I set mine up to save only the chapters (and not the notes, or metadata) it would compile quickly each time I finished my writing session.

Naming Docs – The Secret Sauce

Now that you have your first draft outlined in Word and it is time to save it on your laptop. Remember those fancy folders we created? Let’s take one more step and craft a name that will not only clearly identify this draft but will also bump the most recently used draft to the top of this folder.

Using “Save As”

There are two options in the main drop “File” menu that we should pay attention to here: “Save” and “Save as.” These do very different actions to your manuscript and it could be easy to lose your work, as I once did long ago.

The difference summed up here is basic:

“Save As” creates a NEW FILE.

“Save” updates the existing file.

For my system, every time I finish a writing session, I hit “Save As” and create a new version of the draft. Even when I write at erratic times and for various durations of time, each change will be traceable, with the most current one located at the top of my Writing Projects folder. This version during this slice in time will be organized by date and time to ensure that I always grab the latest version.

Naming the Files – The Key to My Organized Universe

A file name can be a hindrance if you don’t have a plan. I have many drafts of older novels that include multiple title variants and clues about which manuscript I am looking at with the word “final” or “complete” in them. Be thoughtful about your title and save yourself a lot of stress later when you try to find your latest file.

Instead of using the hodge-podge titles I had been concocting over the years, I began to use a logical system that would order my files for me. Each file has three to four components as follows…

• Title Name
• Date
• Time
• Special Purpose (Beta, Editor, Critique, for example)

Title

It starts with a shortened title, something you will easily recognize that is not like any of your other projects. Once you save your first draft the latest title will come up automatically when saving. Then you can adjust the other parts of the whole file name.

 Date

Next include the date in this format:

251212. [year in two digits, month and day]

Having the year first is the key. Adding it first allows the files to adjust to your drafts and to automatically order them in your folder.

Time

I write at different times throughout the day, as many writers do, so adding the time is an important identifier to include in the file name. You could add the four digits for the time, such as “0914” for 9:14, but that could be in the morning or at night. I prefer to add “am” or “pm” after that. Other writers may prefer using military time or the standard world clock time that uses 24 hour days.

Special Purposes

At times, it may be useful to add a descriptor at the end of the file name to keep this version separate. Maybe you are ready to share a portion of your work with a beta reader, editor, or critique group. By adding a simple word, or person’s name at the end of your normal file name, you will always know which file you gave them. You can easily send the updated file by using this same system and the date and time will make it clear which one is the newest.

Example:  HarryMetSmiley 250622.0407pmFirstRevision

In the example above, I have all the information I need to understand where this file is in the progression of the novel. 

• It has the working title for the project: Harry Met Smiley. 
• It has the date: June 22, 2025.
• It has the time I finished that writing session: 4:07 pm.
• And I have the stage of my writing: a first deep revision.

Here are some variations of this manuscript near the end of this project’s timeline.

ParallelLives 250622.0407pm CharacterArcChanges
ParallelLives 250624.0407pm Part2Rewrite
ParallelLives 250625.0407pm ForBetaReaders
ParallelLives 250807.0407pm BetaFeedbackReconciled
ParallelLives 250810.0407pm ForEditor
ParallelLives 250815.0407pm EditorialChanges
ParallelLives 250901.0407pm FinalCandidate
ParallelLives 251021.0407pm FinalForPublishing 

Adding date and time assures that each draft is always identifiable, but the way to craft this file name has to be consistent. Be sure to check this when using “Save As”  and making a copy to the correct folder. That little extra attention to your file name will make all the difference in finding it later.

New folders for new steps

In the revision process, you will hit certain milestones or turning points in writing your novel. There may be the completed first draft. There may be a time when the book title changes. There are the instances of before getting extensive feedback from editors and beta readers and applying changes from that feedback.

When you need to clarify the latest stage of your novel, create a new folder and save your next update to the new one. Retire the old ones, tucked away in the main folder to avoid clutter and confusion.

It is also important to back up your laptop and files. Here is a recent post on this topic by James R. Preston.

Work Flow – A Satisfying Habit

This may sound like a lot of extra steps to you, but knowing where to find your latest manuscript is worth the effort. For me, I have learned to appreciate the pattern of exporting a copy from Scrivener and saving it on my laptop. Then with a couple of clicks, uploading it to Slack (or another cloud service). This pattern assures me that my work is safe, and retrievable. And that allows me to focus on the creative writing process instead of wondering where the last draft disappeared to. It has become a satisfying routine that marks the end of my writing session. 

My last writing project was Parallel Lives – The Paths Not Taken, a speculative, light romance with sparkle, and I found that the main project folder contains 251,302,948 bytes (255.2 MB on disk) for 598 items related to writing this manuscript. This does not include the handwritten drafts that filled a notebook over the year it took to draft it. That’s work saved and crafted that I can find whenever I need to.

Final tips 

My hope is that you can find some digital file management tricks that work for you. It is terrible to hear the heartbreak of an author who lost any amount of their work. Sometimes the battle for writing just one paragraph can be a complete tragedy if becomes lost, don’t let that happen to you. Organize your files and protect your work. Your novel depends on it! :)

• Make it a routine that works for you
• Check your files to see that they saved
• Open the files occasionally in all the places to check

Let's hear from you!

Do you have your own system for keeping track of drafts? What trouble have you had in keeping your files organized? Share your version control tricks…I love learning new ways writers tame the chaos of drafting!

About Kris

Kris Maze is a speculative fiction author who crafts suspenseful, heartfelt stories with twisty plots and a touch of the uncanny. Her work blends science fiction, mystery, and emotional depth, often exploring the big “what-if” questions of life and the universe. She also writes darker fiction under the pen name Krissy Knoxx. When she isn’t writing, she’s likely teaching, traveling, or wandering trails pondering the wisdom of Bob Ross. Follow her author events and join her newsletter found at KrisMaze.com.

Parallel Lives – The Paths Not Taken

Check out my new release!

A speculative time travel with light romance elements!

Harriet Last doesn’t expect much to change in her careful, practical life. That is, until a tech demo lets her revisit the “paths not taken.” What she finds is a glimmer of the person she used to be… and a thread of unexpected connection she can’t quite explain.

As Harriet explores these softly shifting memories, she begins to see where she set her dreams aside and where she might pick them back up again.

A heart warming, hope-filled story about rediscovering yourself, welcoming possibility, and noticing the spark that’s been beside you all along.

Buy it today wherever you purchase your next favorite story!

by Rachel Warmath

Many of us write about the hardest parts of our lives.

We use storytelling to explore the traumas we’ve survived, the wounds we’re still making sense of, and the difficult moments that have shaped us. Whether you’re a memoirist telling your own story, a ghostwriter telling someone else’s, or a novelist channeling pain into a character, you’ve likely faced the question:

How do we approach heavy material without letting it consume us?

That’s what we’re going to unpack in this blog post.

Early in my career, I had one ghostwriting client who recounted a certain scene from her past. It was violent and chaotic and triggered something in me. That whole day, it haunted me. I felt on edge. When my imagination would replay the images and dialogue in my mind, my palms got sweaty and my heart would race. I managed to jot down a few notes about our call, but I avoided sitting down at my desk to write. That night, I didn’t sleep well at all. The next morning, I still wanted to avoid the project.

Through that experience, I made a decision: In order to safely write about trauma, I needed better boundaries and real tools to protect my energy. Over time, I have learned how to do exactly that, through trauma-informed training, nervous system regulation tools, therapy, and consistent self-care routines.

4 Ways to Protect Your Writing Energy

In this post, I’ll share with you what I wish I’d known sooner. These tools and practices are designed to help you create safety for yourself and your writing clients. Let’s get into it!

1. Create Self-Care Routines and Take a Proactive Approach

A resilient nervous system starts with taking full responsibility for yourself and actively developing habits before the stress hits. Trust your intuition on what you think might work best for you.

There’s something to be said for mastering the basics of self-care: getting good sleep, eating nourishing foods, staying hydrated, spending time in nature, and doing practices like walking, yoga, exercise, breathwork, journaling, and meditation. Create a solid foundation for yourself because it will empower you in every area of life, including your creative pursuits.

Be open to trying new things. When you do find a practice that resonates, do it often. As the quote goes, “We don’t rise to the level of our expectations; we fall to the level of our training.”

2. Create a Clear Opening and Closing to Each Session

Clearly open and close sessions, whether you’re writing about your own trauma or interviewing a client about theirs. Experiment with different cues to signal to your body and brain that it’s time to start or stop working. I’ll sometimes light a candle as I set sacred space; blowing out the flame at the end of the session is a great visual cue that my work is done.

I’ve also used essential oils, smelling one scent at the start of a session and then a different scent at the end, to help my body differentiate between when I’m beginning and ending work. This is actually backed by neuroscience! Scent sends signals directly to your body’s limbic system, where emotions and memories are processed. And trust me, now anytime I smell citrus and vanilla, my body knows it’s time to relax.

You could also try:

• Walking barefoot outside and setting an intention before you sit down to write
• Listening to a certain song or playlist to get “in the zone” for a session
• Washing your hands after working, signaling that work is over and you’ve rinsed off any dense or negative energy
• Changing your environment when you’re done —closing your laptop, stepping outside, or switching rooms
• Saying out loud, “I’m done for the day” or “I release this” after you’re finished
• Taking a short walk after work as your “commute” if you work from home (or adding mindful breathing to your drive)

The point here is to find a small ritual that works for you and feels natural. Not only are you creating mental distance from work, but you’re also bringing your body into the experience, too. It’s a somatic reset that says, the work is now done and I’m moving on to what’s next.

3. Understand What’s Happening When You’re Triggered and Use Tools To Ground Yourself

Diving into traumatic material can activate your nervous system and trigger a response—whether you’re writing about your life, someone else’s, or a fictionalized version of something you’ve lived. Even though the danger isn’t happening to you directly in that moment of writing, you can still become agitated. Or if the heightened state becomes chronic or very intense, you could experience vicarious or secondary trauma.

The risk increases when the material mirrors something you’ve been through. For example, if you’re writing a character who endures a type of harm you’ve survived, or you’re ghostwriting for a client whose story is similar to yours, the emotional resonance can be overwhelming. So first and foremost, have keen discernment about which projects or storylines you’re equipped to handle. You’re allowed to say no to a book project or theme that could be too much for you.

Keep in mind, too, that your body’s reaction is normal—it’s actually your nervous system trying to keep you safe! Recognize when you need to take a break and consider those moments an invitation to prioritize self-care.

4. Know Your Energy and Your Limits

How well do you know your own energy? Can you tell the difference between when you are at full capacity and when you’re drained?

Do seasonal or cyclical check-ins with yourself. I like to revisit my workload every quarter and ask: Is this feeling balanced? Do I need to set new boundaries around when I take meetings? Do I need more days off? Sometimes the required shift means limiting client calls to two per day. Other times, it means scheduling more rest between drafts.

The more self-aware we are, the easier it is to notice early warning signs of dysregulation and prevent compassion fatigue. Create boundaries not only with clients but with the book you’re writing. Know when it’s time to take a break… and take breaks without any guilt! Every writer needs time off.

This Is Sacred Work

Writing about trauma is an incredibly healing, transformative kind of work. Alchemy is happening under the surface. When you reflect on your pain or witness another person’s pain and translate it into a meaningful narrative, that takes artistry and emotional intelligence.

It also requires resilience: mental, emotional, and energetic resilience. By honoring your limits and caring for yourself, you create space for yourself to thrive even while writing about the heaviest moments you’ve been through. May these practices help you stay rooted as you write the hard things. Remember, healing happens throughout the creative process, not just in the final draft.

Keep going. You’re doing powerful work here.

About Rachel

Rachel Warmath is a memoir ghostwriter, writing coach, and developmental editor based in Salt Lake City, Utah. She is also a trauma-informed yoga teacher and energy healer. Rachel believes every story holds medicine. If you’re ready to write yours, she’d love to help.

Visit ConfidentAuthors.com to learn more about her one-on-one support for authors.

Featured photo created with Canva Premium.

by Janice Hardy

When familiar becomes forgettable, it’s time to shake things up.

My husband and I recently watched a movie that was well done, but still fell flat, because it didn’t offer anything we hadn’t seen dozens of times before. We could pretty much describe how the entire movie was going to unfold based on the first few scenes, and it unfolded exactly as we expected. That made it really hard to care about the characters or the plot.

Same tropes, same character archetypes, same basic story.

Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as readers love the tropes that speak to them. I can’t get enough of underdog sports movies, even though they’re pretty much the same movie every time. The entire romance genre is built on stories that appeal to beloved tropes, and readers pick up a book because it has the tropes they’re looking for.

The trouble starts when “expected” slips into “predictable.”

Tropes are a natural part of writing. Every genre has them, every reader expects certain ones, and they help define a particular type of story. But when we rely too much on them, or fail to do anything new with them, they become predictable.

And predictable is deadly to stories.

When a reader can see what’s coming long before it happens and there’s nothing in place to make them anticipate that moment, the moment will have little to no impact when it arrives.

What You Can Do to Liven Up Your Tropes

The trick to avoiding “been-there/done-that” tropes is to offer something new or surprising to the reader.

1. Do what readers don’t expect

The good thing about tropes? You usually know what they are for your genre, which makes them easier to turn on their heads. If a scene or plot point starts to feel predictable, look for ways to not do what you originally planned.

• Go ahead and write that adorable meet-cute in a coffee shop, but then surprise readers by making the sweet barista who witnesses it be the actual love interest.
• Let the heroes split up to search for the killer, but doing so lets them flank the bad guy instead of being picked off one by one.
• Give your Chosen One a feeling they were special all along, but show they have the skills and ambition to deal with the prophecy.

Brainstorm what your readers will expect, and then look for ways to satisfy that expectation from a different angle or new perspective. Sometimes all it takes is tweaking the motivation or letting a minor character make the move readers assume the protagonist will make. By nudging the story a degree or two off the expected path, you can create fresh character choices and more intriguing outcomes.

2. Have the trope fail (or succeed).

It’s usually a shock when readers expect a win and the hero loses (and vice versa). While you don’t want to do it just for shock value, a loss (or win) at the worst time can shake things up in unexpected ways.

Take a clue from Deep Blue Sea and have that shark eat Samuel L. Jackson during his inspirational speech. Or follow Game of Thrones and behead the character everybody thought was the protagonist.

• The obvious escape is the hero sneaking out through a bathroom window? Brick up that window.
• The heroes suddenly remember an old piece of equipment or weapon left forgotten? Yeah, make it not work after all.
• That complete makeover the heroine goes through? The love interest is turned off by the new look and attitude that goes with it.

If you find yourself using a common trope in the way it’s always been used, brainstorm what would happen if the opposite effect occurred instead. How would that reversal ripple through the story? Would it force characters to make harder decisions? Create more tension? Reveal deeper emotional truths? A single unexpected outcome can reset the stakes and change how readers see the story.

3. Do the expected, but not where it’s expected.

Sometimes seeing something familiar in an unexpected place is enough to spice it up. The monster you find in your bathroom is much scarier than the one you stumble across in the dark woods.

• Maybe the lovebirds meet in a place neither one of them would ever want to admit to later.
• Or the monster decides to attack the bright sunny hotel room before the heroes get a chance to go after it.
• Perhaps the evil wizard bent on enslaving the world is confronted in a cute two-bedroom cottage surrounded by flowers.

If crawling through air ducts to escape is a common trope in your genre, find a fresh, new way for your hero to make it to safety. Moving a trope to a different setting can shift the tone, the emotional stakes, and even the pacing of a scene. A moment that feels both familiar and surprising is a powerful combination that can keep readers guessing.

4. Borrow tropes from other genres.

Just because a trope is a little tired in one genre, doesn’t mean it can’t work wonders in a different genre. You’d hardly expect a “dark figure behind the shower curtain” moment in a romance, but what if that’s how your lovely couple meet? A different-genre trope brings its own set of emotions and expectations you could have fun playing with.

• Maybe the heroine and her friend “split up” while shopping, and she runs into the antagonist and bad things happen.
• A false scare in a horror novel could really be a meet-cute with the love interest for a subplot.
• Have the Chosen One die in the first few chapters as an unexpected sacrifice.

Mix it up and see what tropes might work in unexpected ways in your genre. An old trope from another genre feels fresh if your readers don’t read that genre. You might even discover new tonal layers, such as humor, tension, mystery, or romance, simply by letting a borrowed trope bring its emotional baggage into your world.

5. Consider what happens if you eliminate all the genre’s tropes.

This one’s a bit extreme, but what happens if you cut every common trope from your story? What new possibilities do you see?

• The Chosen One becomes a gal who happened to be nearby when crap went down and she stepped in to help.
• The two lovebirds have worked together for a long time, but sparks fly as they work on a strange project together.
• The campers at the haunted lake stay together and craft a smart, safe, well-considered plan of attack, but the bad guy is just smarter.

Looking beyond the obvious outcomes can reveal fresh and original scenes. Removing the “safety net” of familiar ideas forces you to explore your story’s unique conflicts and turning points that emerge naturally from your characters, not the tropes surrounding them. Even if you put some tropes back in later, it’ll be because they work for your story, not just any story in your genre.

Tropes can be comforting, but they can also cause a great story to sleepwalk its way through the novel.

Sure, the pieces are there, but without surprises or fresh angles, readers will forget the book minutes after finishing it. Strive for the unexpected, and your readers will remember your story long after the final page.

EXERCISE FOR YOU:

Pick one trope you know appears in your story. Now write down:

• The expected version of that trope.
• The opposite version of that trope.
• A sideways version—something surprising that isn’t opposite, just different.

Compare all three and consider how they change your story. Which one would make it stronger, more surprising, or more compelling?

What tropes do you rely on? What’s your least-favorite trope? What about your favorite trope? Please share it with us down in the comments! (Janice is available for your questions as well.)

About Janice

Janice Hardy is the award-winning author of the teen fantasy trilogy The Healing Wars, including The Shifter, Blue Fire, and Darkfall from Balzer+Bray/Harper Collins. and the chapter books Who's Haunting Who? and The Haunting of Cabin 13 for Lerner Publishing. For adults, she writes the Grace Harper urban fantasy series under the name, J.T. Hardy. When she's not writing fiction, she runs the popular writing site Fiction University, and has written multiple books on writing, including Understanding Show, Don't Tell (And Really Getting It), Plotting Your Novel: Ideas and Structure, and the Revising Your Novel: First Draft to Finished Draft series. Sign up for her newsletter and receive 25 ways to Strengthen Your Writing Right Now free.

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