Tools of the Trade

[lawfulneutralmage]

There comes a time in life one realizes that one has made mistakes. Those wise enough learn form them and move on whereas others are poised to repeat them. The particular type of mistake I want to refer here is: file management.

"How boring", I hear people say. "True", I might answer, but necessary.

In the beginning, I did not know that how one technically writes a story could be an issue. My first story, Unchained, was one chapter long, contained in a single file. I exchanged the text easily with my beta readers. I did not need to keep any versions, because the story did not fundamentally change. Edits were easy and self-contained.

But then came Special Circumstances. It had two chapters contained in one file, but that becomes a problem when working with an editor and a beta reader. To work on a per chapter basis, the chapters had to become their own files. However, that was not the real problem either. I now had to keep state. When I had a version of a file ready to send to @Mikiesboy, I needed to keep that to apply his comments resulting in a new file version aka a new file. This repeated with @CassieQ. The now edited version got sent and her feedback led to a new version aka yet a new file.

This process produces three files as minimum, assuming everything goes well. Then, there a changes... To cut a long story short, for a good chapter without any issues, I have now about 8 version files. For the worst chapter, I have 22 version files. Yikes! That is too much for even my OCD and file obsession! There are too many files and manual work to keep it fun.

But the worst issue with the individual chapter files was applying changes affecting several files. There is no global "Search/Replace" functionality over individual Word files. Each file has to be opened, searched, and maybe corrected and then saved as new version. Arggghhh!

The problem of keeping versions and to make changes in several files at once is a standard task in my job as programmer. We have tools that deal with those issues. So, I went and took my next story from a Word file of many chapters into a set of chapter text files. The advantages and disadvantages I will outline shorty, but first...

Let's talk about file types

Files contain information. There are two fundamental ways of how that information can be stored, either as text or as binary information.

Text files contain exactly that: text - and nothing else. Usually, these have the file type *.txt and everyone who has used Windows Notepad has dealt with files that only contain text. These are WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) files without any formatting.

Binary files contain information that is stored in a way that only the program that created the file can read it. This is not quite true, because most modern file formats are based on published standards so that theoretically every programmer could implement its own reader and writer of e.g. *.pdf files. However, true is that in order to interpret a binary file one needs a special application. If one opens a Word file in Notepad, the poor application tries to display the content as text resulting in some nonsense like this "8Yjj¼¼á$-t-ã£Ój@". The same file in Word displays fine. This is because, Word needs to store additional information to the actual text. Any formatting, font sizes, colors, line spacing ... whatever can be changed of the property of a single letter, a line, a column, a paragraph or a document must have a place somewhere to be stored. And this is in a special format that is not just text.

So, Word files (like LibreOffice) files are binary files. Without the respective application, the files cannot be read. However, in order to publish at GA, we do not need any formatting. We even shall not have any formatting! I have been told that copying from Word directly into the GA site can have unwanted formatting issues.

So, why keeping that formatting information? Why use Word, if, in the end, it is only used as glorified text editor?

The answer is to only use text files, and if one does that, Word is overkill (actually painful).

Code editors are text editors

To write code means to write text files. Code is just text that looks odd:

public string MyFunction(int a, int b)
{
    return (a+b).ToString();
}

Let's not worry about what that means or does, just that when I store that in a file example.cs and open it in Notepad, it will exactly look like that.

Code editors are very powerful text editors that "understand" the text according to a specific programming language's keywords and rules, like this:

public string MyFunction(int a, int b)
{
    return (a+b).ToString();
}

But it is just in-editor coloring. The actual text file is still only the text file without any color information.

What makes a code editor powerful? It can deal with information in several files. A code "project" is just the content of a folder. A search and replace operation will be applied on all occurrences in all files. It even shows a preview of the changes to come, allowing individual changes to be applied or rejected! This editor's only task is to manipulate text!

A powerful and free code editor is Visual Studio Code (also called VSC). Here is the story of a non-developer author who uses it for writing books.

However, it does not help with versioning

This is now much more complex, and is not for everyone. However, if you master this, you will be making changes like no tomorrow and not be afraid of it.

In programming, we must be able to store the current state of a project, then apply changes i.e. make new stuff or change existing stuff, often in many files, and then store the new state of all files as a new version. There is an application called git that can store exactly that. It takes the base state of the files and stores all differences to the new state.

It allows following changes on a line per line basis, but it also allows restoring a previous version completely. Imagine one created version A then made changes and created version B but figures that B does not quite work. But instead of throwing it all away, git allows restoring version A and start afresh creating now version C.

This gives an intro into what git can do.

Both, VSC and git are free, work on any PC Operating System (Windows, Mac, Linux), and are easy to install (and to remove).

Edited July 20, 2024 by lawfulneutralmage

[Mikiesboy]

Wow, that's a lot of files for one story. Like most people here, I use Word or Docs and Grammarly. I guess I can end up with multiple files, depending on how I handle them.

Word does work on GA if you use the replace ^p^p with ^p suggestion.  I don't have much problem posting from Word if I do that.

So, do you use VSC or git to write in, or are you going to try it?

[Jason Rimbaud]

Both of you should be held down and tickled because you aren't speaking English!

I read both of your comments twice and don't understand a single word. One of the reasons I don't post more on GA because of format issues and I can't figure out how to overcome those things. I usually use Google Docs and I can't copy and paste without getting yelled out by a moderator about format issues. 

I'm a great cook and understand exactly how long to fry a chicken wing until the skin is crispy and the inside is tender and moist. I understand the boiling point of every known oil and can make a sauce from scratch in less than twenty minutes but I can't figure out how not to have my text bold when I copy and paste. The last thing I posted, I gave up and typed the whole damn thing. Then I realized that I had already posted that story and it was a waste of time. 

Thanks for hurting my brain on this fine saturday you two, on a different note, if anyone needs to know how to cook chili that will clear your sinuses, I'm your man. 

[kbois]

7 hours ago, Jason Rimbaud said:

Both of you should be held down and tickled because you aren't speaking English!

I read both of your comments twice and don't understand a single word. One of the reasons I don't post more on GA because of format issues and I can't figure out how to overcome those things. I usually use Google Docs and I can't copy and paste without getting yelled out by a moderator about format issues. 

I'm a great cook and understand exactly how long to fry a chicken wing until the skin is crispy and the inside is tender and moist. I understand the boiling point of every known oil and can make a sauce from scratch in less than twenty minutes but I can't figure out how not to have my text bold when I copy and paste. The last thing I posted, I gave up and typed the whole damn thing. Then I realized that I had already posted that story and it was a waste of time. 

Thanks for hurting my brain on this fine saturday you two, on a different note, if anyone needs to know how to cook chili that will clear your sinuses, I'm your man. 

Recipe for posting on GA:

1 Google Doc

Take Google Doc and click on Edit at the top of the page. Choose Find and replace.  In the 'Find' box type ^p^p

In the 'Replace' box type ^p

Let program run until finished

Highlight all the text and hit control + C

Open a new Word Doc and place your cursor at the top of the page and press Control + V. This will paste your text in a Word doc.

GA does not play well in the sandbox with Google Docs.  It prefers Word. If the ^p^p thingy doesn't work with Google Docs, the copy and paste it into Word and then try it.

The ^p^p thingy cleans up spacing and format issues. 

When it's time to post, use the Word Doc to copy then paste into GA. It should work much better. Good luck!

Edited July 21, 2024 by kbois

[Jason Rimbaud]

Finally someone talking in my wheelhouse, recipes I understand.  Is it permissible to offer favors to other members? If not forget I mentioned it. If yes, do you live in the Bay Area?  
 

in all seriousness, thank you for that bit of help.   Appreciate it muchly.   
 

J 

ps: I hate using word docs.

Edited July 21, 2024 by Jason Rimbaud
Complaining about Word Docs

[lawfulneutralmage]

13 hours ago, Mikiesboy said:

Wow, that's a lot of files for one story. Like most people here, I use Word or Docs and Grammarly. I guess I can end up with multiple files, depending on how I handle them.

Word does work on GA if you use the replace ^p^p with ^p suggestion.  I don't have much problem posting from Word if I do that.

So, do you use VSC or git to write in, or are you going to try it?

Yes, for a new story, I have ditched Word & Co and use VSC with text files and git for versioning. It allows me to copy and paste freely between services, no format character stuff - and I have backup.

No worries, I will give you a Word file for editing

 

[lawfulneutralmage]

11 hours ago, Jason Rimbaud said:

Both of you should be held down and tickled because you aren't speaking English!

LOL, well, have a discussion with @Ticklishboy30 about that idea

Well, my post is intended as experience report. It will make life easier, but only if

1. you face the issue of versioning - most people might not care, but I do and it has helped to copy out stuff I had discarded to reuse later.

2. you need to keep chapters in different files and need to make overarching changes - again depends on how you work with your editor(s)/beta-reader(s).

Generally to consider is also the effort of change. I am a mouse pusher. Have been since day one. A colleague of mine is a a wizard with the keyboard and rarely uses the mouse. I am trying, but it is just not the way I work. So, the adoption cost for me to change to keyboard is too high. I still get my stuff done.

 

Quote

I read both of your comments twice and don't understand a single word. One of the reasons I don't post more on GA because of format issues and I can't figure out how to overcome those things. I usually use Google Docs and I can't copy and paste without getting yelled out by a moderator about format issues.

Very simple recipe (on Windows):

1. Open your Google Doc

2. Select all text in the document and copy

3. In the Windows search (the textbox in the start menu/task bar, enter the text "Notepad" and start that

4. Paste into notepad

5. Select all text in notepad and copy

6. Paste to your target system

Notepad will lose ALL formatting, because it only deals with the raw text.

 

Quote

I'm a great cook and understand exactly how long to fry a chicken wing until the skin is crispy and the inside is tender and moist. I understand the boiling point of every known oil and can make a sauce from scratch in less than twenty minutes but I can't figure out how not to have my text bold when I copy and paste. The last thing I posted, I gave up and typed the whole damn thing. Then I realized that I had already posted that story and it was a waste of time.

That is the nature of things! One cannot know everything! I am a looser in the kitchen. I can now boil rice, but not noodles - always too soggy or to al dente).

I must say, I am getting dismayed, because everything is now digital (i.e. there is an app for that) whether it makes sense or not. I go "dumb" as much as possible on stuff I buy.

 

Quote

Thanks for hurting my brain on this fine saturday you two, on a different note, if anyone needs to know how to cook chili that will clear your sinuses, I'm your man.

[Ticklishboy30]

1 hour ago, lawfulneutralmage said:

LOL, well, have a discussion with @Ticklishboy30 about that idea

Well, my post is intended as experience report. It will make life easier, but only if

1. you face the issue of versioning - most people might not care, but I do and it has helped to copy out stuff I had discarded to reuse later.

2. you need to keep chapters in different files and need to make overarching changes - again depends on how you work with your editor(s)/beta-reader(s).

Generally to consider is also the effort of change. I am a mouse pusher. Have been since day one. A colleague of mine is a a wizard with the keyboard and rarely uses the mouse. I am trying, but it is just not the way I work. So, the adoption cost for me to change to keyboard is too high. I still get my stuff done.

 

Very simple recipe (on Windows):

1. Open your Google Doc

2. Select all text in the document and copy

3. In the Windows search (the textbox in the start menu/task bar, enter the text "Notepad" and start that

4. Paste into notepad

5. Select all text in notepad and copy

6. Paste to your target system

Notepad will lose ALL formatting, because it only deals with the raw text.

 

That is the nature of things! One cannot know everything! I am a looser in the kitchen. I can now boil rice, but not noodles - always too soggy or to al dente).

I must say, I am getting dismayed, because everything is now digital (i.e. there is an app for that) whether it makes sense or not. I go "dumb" as much as possible on stuff I buy.

 

@lawfulneutralmage you're awesome for thinking of me. I'd gladly help to hold you down and tickle you. 

[Mikiesboy]

4 hours ago, lawfulneutralmage said:

Yes, for a new story, I have ditched Word & Co and use VSC with text files and git for versioning. It allows me to copy and paste freely between services, no format character stuff - and I have backup.

No worries, I will give you a Word file for editing

 

Once I am done posting my current story, I will give your VSC a closer look. While I'm pretty simple—I just want something I can use to write that works—when it's time to replace my sad laptop, I'm not sure Word will be an option for me. And I am not a fan of Google Docs, though I can use it. So, VSC or something else may be worth looking into.  Thanks for sharing the info. 

[Ticklishboy30]

Not sure if this'll help. I use grammarly to write my stories, then I copy, paste and format it using Libre. It's a software program you can download.it saves docs as odt docs. From Libre I copy and paste the chapter to GA's system. 

[Mike Carss]

Wow! I think using VSC and git to write a novel has to be a first. Congrats! 😄 I'm familiar with both, and yeah, it would absolutely work.

While using Word, Google Docs, LibreOffice, etc. to write a novel is certainly possible, I feel it's far from ideal. I discovered that after maybe ten chapters into my first novel. After doing some research, I started using Scrivener and never looked back.

For those who aren't familiar with it, each scene is stored as its own document. Each scene appears as an entry on the left-hand side, like a binder, organized into folders (the folders act as chapters.) The main benefit is this allows the ability to jump to any scene in any chapter to double-check something you might've written months ago. And despite each scene being a separate document, you can still perform searches (find/replace, etc.) across them all as though they were one giant document.

And of course, it has snapshot support, allowing you to save versions of each scene as changes are made.

Regarding posting to GA, I still use Word for that purpose because I want to keep formatting for italics, and centering for marking scene changes. After some testing, I found if I set the font to Calibri 12 point in Word, then copy/pasted that into GA, it looks the same as a post with all formatting stripped.

[lawfulneutralmage]

16 hours ago, Mikiesboy said:

Once I am done posting my current story, I will give your VSC a closer look. While I'm pretty simple—I just want something I can use to write that works—when it's time to replace my sad laptop, I'm not sure Word will be an option for me. And I am not a fan of Google Docs, though I can use it. So, VSC or something else may be worth looking into.  Thanks for sharing the info. 

Let me know. I can give some setup steps.

[lawfulneutralmage]

8 hours ago, mcarss said:

Wow! I think using VSC and git to write a novel has to be a first. Congrats! 😄 I'm familiar with both, and yeah, it would absolutely work.

No, not the first: https://jaypenner.com/blog/writing-novels-and-non-fiction-with-visual-studio-code/

But I had the idea and googled it

[LJCC]

I'm a basic ass bitch, so I use LibreOffice.

I like the entire dark/black background format it has going. It doesn't strain my eyes too much.

My word is expired—too cheap and lazy to renew. 😂

Edited July 27, 2024 by LJCC