How to organize when writing a book?

  • rickhedin · Member ·

    Hello. I am writing a book, using WordPress as my text editor. One advantage is that I can make a post public, mention the url in Twitter, and get feedback.

    I’d like to have a site like this:
    Chapter 1
    Scene 1 John stood in the doorway …
    Scene 2 Sylvia gasped. …
    Chapter 2
    Scene 1 A boom resounded through the room! …
    Scene 2 The cat stretched …
    I would enter the posts in whenever I enter them, so they would appear as blog posts, but they would also appear in this structure.
    Is there some way to do that using categories and tags?
    Also, is there some way to make posts appear in a sequence like this? It’s not a chronological sequence. It’s a story order sequence.

    I’d like to be able to insert a scene.
    Chapter 1
    Scene 1 John stood in the doorway …
    Scene 2 The candle flickered. …
    Scene 3 Sylvia gasped. …

    I’d also like to keep an old version of a scene around. Just as a blog post? Or in a category like ‘All the scenes I took out of service on April 23rd?’
    Chapter 1
    Scene 1 John stood in the doorway …
    Scene 2 The candle flickered. …
    Scene 3 Sylvia stood mute. …
    230423
    Chapter 1 Scene 3 Sylvia gasped. …

    WP.com: Yes
    Jetpack: Yes
    Correct account: Yes

    The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)

  • staff-95percentghost · Staff ·

    Hi!

    So I understand correctly, were you thinking of using the categories and tags both for the ‘main’ book content, and also for letting visitors find the edited/earlier drafts? That should be possible; it sounds like you’d benefit from not having a default ‘Posts’ page where all blog posts show up, and sticking only to the archive (category/tag) pages so that your blog posts are appropriately filtered.

    Your theme, Livro, is compatible with the Site Editor in WordPress. What that means is that you can in fact very much customize how the category and tag pages appear, as their layout is governed by the ‘archive template’. We have a guide about editing the archive template that you may wish to view.

    It isn’t directly mentioned in the guide but you can even create specific archive templates for specific categories/tags. So you could have:

    • one template for the category page of the ‘main’ content where your finalised chapters are listed
    • a different template for the category page of draft/edited content.

    By default, archive templates display posts in reverse chronological order, which is why I mentioned that you can create dedicated templates – a custom template for a category can let you decide in what order the posts should be displayed. For example if you’re titling each blog post as ‘chapter 1’, ‘chapter 2’, ‘chapter 3’, and so forth, then you could display the posts in alphabetical order. This is done using the Query Loop settings (click the link to find the Query Loop guide).

    If you were thinking of something else let us know and we’re happy to help point you in the right direction!

  • rickhedin · Member ·

    Thank you infinitely! I had never heard of an archive template, or of the query loop. I am reading through WordPress for Beginners 2023, but if it mentions those topics, I haven’t gotten there yet.

    Visitors don’t have to see the former versions of pages. That’s just for me. If I decide I was right earlier. “Wait. She shouldn’t be dumbstruck. She should gasp.”

  • geekinthegirl · Member ·

    Hi there!

    I’m so glad we were able to help – please do let us know how you get on with creating that archive template, and if you need any extra guidance or have questions along the way, don’t hesitate to ask.

  • rickhedin · Member ·

    I’m having a horrible time getting this done. Two many pieces to learn at once. Is there a theme that already has most of the elements I need? Perhaps a navigation menu on the left, that shows all of your posts by date? Maybe from there, I can add posts by category.

  • rickhedin · Member ·

    Reading around, I guess left-sidebars are unpopular because of mobile. But I am writing a book. On a laptop.

    I’m a programmer. Maybe I can do something in php. (Although I’m mostly a Javascript programmer.) But the whole point was to focus on writing the book, not writing code. I started out writing directly in html, and gave up.

  • staff-totoro · Staff ·

    Hi there,

    Reading around, I guess left-sidebars are unpopular because of mobile. But I am writing a book. On a laptop.

    There are a few themes we offer that have a built in sidebar. You could use these as the starting point for your design as well:

    Though as you mention they are often falling out of favor because of mobile concerns. The issue is not that you are using a laptop to manage your site, the issue is with anyone visiting your site from their mobile device.

    There is not really room for two columns (a side bar column and a main content column) on a small screen, so these are usually stacked on mobile. If they were kept side by side the text would be so cramped as to be illegible.

    The issue with stacking your sidebar is that if your menu is in there, and the theme you are using stacks the content above the sidebar (which is most common) your menu would be at the bottom of every page, where no one is really looking for it. Of the two theme above I’d recommend Stewart since that sidebar was designed with menus in mind, and should stack correctly on phones.

    I had never heard of an archive template, or of the query loop. I am reading through WordPress for Beginners 2023, but if it mentions those topics, I haven’t gotten there yet.

    I’m not familiar with that book so I’m not sure if it would or would not, but we do cover setting up custom blog pages in this recent webinar. We show how to use the Blog Posts Block as well as the Query Loop block, which are two ways to create a custom display (feed) of blog posts.

    Hope that helps. Please let us know if you have any more questions.

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