Stash or Trash

I keep all major revisions as separate files. If I take out large chunks of writing, I keep it in a separate Scrivener folder, in case any of it is good later on.

I edit as I write a lot, so I don't always end up with multiple documents. If I cut out something substantial, I'll usually save the cut portions in another document.

Keep all your revisions. They don't use much space if they're all on disk, and they will be invaluable if you're ever caught up in a plagiarism row.

I keep old drafts in separate folders, so there's no real need to delete them. They're out of the way and I have ridiculous amounts of storage space, so it's not a problem to keep them.

I keep everything, which does sound like madness, but I am a hoarder anyways. There is a part of me which thinks that I will one day look back at the very first draft of a specific scene and marvel at how much I am grown as a writer... yeah, right! But who knows, I might have.

I keep everything. I sometimes refer to old drafts. I may go back to an earlier draft, pluck something out of it and put it in my current draft, thinking, "Why did I changed that passage? It was better the first time."

As Old Hack said, old drafts don't take up much space. Keep 'em.

I keep pretty much every incarnation. No real idea why. I guess it's so that when I'm massively famous, I can show people how first drafts generally suck.

MagicWriter said:

I keep my stuff, but I'm thinking of thinning out the inventory. Just wondering what others do.

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I don't write in drafts, except at the sentence level, so I don't have multiple versions to keep. I only keep discarded bits that I particularly like and could maybe be recycled later.

I keep most things, unless I'm really sure I'm not going to want it. I use Scrivener's "snapshot" feature for most of it, though I do have a separate folder called "cuttings" for things that wouldn't be caught well by a snapshot.

If I'm doing a major restructuring I'll create a new version and save the old as-is. There have been a couple of times where I've gone back...

I trash alot of it. I haven't come into any problems trashing writing that isn't working. I enjoy the process of writing so don't get to upset if i have to rewrite a bit here or there. The trick is to trash what isnt working and not make mistakes on your judgement of what is actually trash.

I keep every draft. Never know when you need something from an old draft.

Unless a museum or a library wants them, I can't think of anything more useless than an old draft. Not that I ever have any to keep. I don't. But if I did, I'd toss them as fast as I'd toss rejection slips.

When I was younger, and had several different word documents, I used to loose them without meaning to. I have an old floppy disk hanging around that probably has old drafts on it.

These days I use Scrivinger, and so I just organise it so everything is in the same place. Keeps things neat, and as I tend to re-write a lot, having old drafts around can be useful to remind me of my previous thought process, and give me ideas when I'm stuck.

Old Hack said:

Keep all your revisions. They don't use much space if they're all on disk, and they will be invaluable if you're ever caught up in a plagiarism row.

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ahyup! This is why I keep everything.

Old Hack said:

Keep all your revisions. They don't use much space if they're all on disk, and they will be invaluable if you're ever caught up in a plagiarism row.

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Well, I don't have any revisions, so I guess I'm out of luck. Not that I think they'd help much, anyway. Too easy to fake.

BethS said:

I don't write in drafts, except at the sentence level, so I don't have multiple versions to keep. I only keep discarded bits that I particularly like and could maybe be recycled later.

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I do this too and only keep my final draft.

I do a backup onto cloud storage every day, as I draft or edit and keep all the previous copies. I also do a backup onto a USB stick, but that's overwritten each day. But I always keep an unaltered copy of the first draft and other major stages of the work in progress locally and on that USB stick as well as in the cloud.

When I get edits from my publisher I keep every round of edits in its own folder. The document file has a different name for each round anyway.

So, yeah, I've got basically a version of the novel for every day I worked on it!

I usually don't safe drafts separately, but usually just work off the same document. Maybe I should be more careful to do so...

I back up my draft each evening or so (or, if I've had a few days off, when I next make significant additions) and label each file with the date, so I have backups of each stage from day one of writing on both my main computer, a thumb drive and an external hard drive. As Old Hack said, I've got the space, so why not? If I ever start running out (which I doubt), I can always go through and bin the very early backups.

Becky Black said:

So, yeah, I've got basically a version of the novel for every day I worked on it!

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Me too - every time i work on the novel, I save that file with today's date, so i have probably hundreds of dated drafts from the last 2 years. I have on occasion gone back to an older draft to find something i cut, but I can't say I can remember exactly which file it last appeared in. I usually find it by working out roughly how long ago i cut it though.

When I'm doing minor edits, I might not keep a backup file, but if I'm making any major changes, I always keep the original available.

Just keep revisions clearly labeled so you don't spend a big chunk of your time trying to figure out which file is the most recent.

I keep 'em mainly because when I delete a scene during revision there's always a chance I may later reinstate it. Plus, it's kinda neat when you're all done to skim thru earlier drafts and note what you've changed.

I'm one of the ones that keeps everything - to the point that even if I didn't work on something recently, I do a backup of its current copy, even if I have one already on the external drive. I have a 1TB hard drive and a 1TB external drive... And the external has a lot more on it than the hard drive. It's mostly manuscript backups, all in dated folders.

Even if I deem a story idea or partial manuscript "not good enough" to finish or publish, I keep it. You never know when something in it will work for another story. For example, I have an "over 18" scene from an older work (from 2006) that I'm going to revise/tweak to fit my current WIP in time, and I'll probably use other ideas from the "dead" files in the future.

Unfortunately, the "dead" or "not publish worthy" files outnumber my current "possibly publish" files at the moment.