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Found out 5 pages of my zombie book were just me rewriting the same scene, and a free tool caught it
I pasted 40 pages of my draft into a free word counter tool last Tuesday just to check my daily count, and it showed the phrase "she crept toward the door" 9 times. Turns out I had rewritten the same hallway scene in 5 different chapters without noticing, all because I kept forgetting what I already wrote. Now I keep a one page list of what actually happens in each chapter open next to my draft. It feels dumb but catching that one thing saved me from cutting 30 pages later. How do you all keep track of what you already wrote without slowing down your first draft?
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seth_singh2019d ago
Been there, done that hallway scene about four times myself. What worked for me was writing a one line summary at the top of every chapter before I start drafting, like "Jen finds the stash, gets chased, loses her flashlight." Takes ten seconds and stops me from wandering back into stuff that already happened. I also keep a separate running list of objects and weapons my characters pick up or lose, because I caught myself giving the same guy a crowbar back after he dropped it two chapters earlier. The chapter list lives in a plain notebook, not in the doc itself, so I'm not scrolling around and getting distracted while drafting. It does slow you down for like a minute per chapter but it saves way more time than cutting repeat scenes later. That word counter thing catching your phrase 9 times is honestly a gift, most people don't find out until a beta reader points it out.
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