: When writing on paper, how do you move things about? I am amazed thinking how people used to write before the computer ever came about. Before that, everyone was forced to write on paper.

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There is always the original "cut and paste". Write your ideas out, and, if you need to move stuff around, literally cut it up, and tack it down again. Once you have got the ordering you think you want, write it all out (you can scribble on the originals too, for minor amendments). Hopefully, you will then have something much closer. You can repeat the process.

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I have heard of people using 3x5 cards with good results (in case you are not familiar with them, "3x5" cards are made of card stock that measures 3 inches by 5 inches; it can be blank or have lines); it is pretty easy to put a single thought/sentence/paragraph on one card and reorder them in a stack or lay them out on a table and move them around in two dimensions.

Another quite different tool is "mind mapping" which is a technique for capturing ideas in a graphic fashion; it could help with the above-recommended outlining process.

Good luck! It is good to have the option of paper.

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Here's a simple tip: use a legal pad (they are a little longer than standard notebook paper), and, on the first draft, confine your writing to the middle third of the paper (or thereabouts).

This scheme gives you plenty of room to rewrite the paragraph on the same page, if you want to overhaul it. It also lets you add a paragraph before (or after) the one you originally wrote.

As for reordering, you can label each paragraph its own number, and jot notes such as, "Move para. 13 here" and "Move this to after para. 21."

It's still nowhere as easy as a word processor, but, if you're set on writing in longhand, this arrangement can give you plenty of room for ad-hoc revisions.

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A lot of people find it easier to write and keep their ideas flowing when they are writing by hand. Unfortunately, as you suggest, that makes it difficult to rearrange the order in which your ideas get written down. If you decide to introduce a character earlier in the story or if you decide you need to provide more information to an earlier portion of the story it becomes a problem.

What I tend to do is just keep writing, without consideration of where everything need to fall into place. I will usually write comments in the margins to help me remember what I want to do with a new portion of text, and that often helps. In addition to this, I make sure I number my written pages so that I have a point of reference, and I will also number different sections of a story. For example, if I am writing a particular scene, I will draw a line in the margin to identify where that scene starts, and then I draw another line at the end of the scene. Then I can go back later and number the scenes. If I find myself adding content that needs to be placed elsewhere, I can refer to the page/section number to make it easier to organize when I start typing everything up.

Generally, I always write with an outline so that I can at least have a basic structure to start with. My outlines are usually numbered as well, so I may choose to refer to the outline numbering instead. Either way, as long as you can find a process that makes you comfortable and helps you to keep track of things, that's all that matters.

When I do start typing everything up, I will usually go through and read the handwritten copy first. At this time I will usually verify that my sections are numbered in the order in which I want them to appear by using red ink to number each section. That way if I have a section at the end of my handwritten copy that I wanted to appear earlier in the story, I can place it there as I'm typing to simplify the editing process later.

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