Why Nabokov would use Org-Mode if he were writing today

Edmund Jorgensen (he/him) - https://tomheon.com, ewj@inkwellandoften.com

Format: 10-min talk followed by live web conference Q&A
Discuss on IRC: #emacsconf
Status: Waiting for video from speaker

Description

I've written several novels in Emacs. One of them grew into a monster with a baker's dozen twisty, interconnected subplots.

When I started to revise that novel, I had to use an outline to keep all the subplots straight, but I found it nearly impossible to keep that external outline consistent with the prose.

Finally I landed on a workflow using org-mode to keep the outline and the prose together, which significantly reduced the burden of keeping the two consistent as I moved and modified sections. I also found a way to use tags and sparse views over them to enable quick read-throughs of subsets of the book for continuity checks (which I plan to demo).

Later--long after finishing the book--I realized this process was essentially the Emacs update to the writing process that Nabokov used: he wrote on index cards that served as both prose and outline, so that he could move them around (which he did incessantly).

There's something deeply beautiful about org-mode's refusal to treat structure and prose as different things in a piece of writing--something I think Nabokov would have appreciated, and something I definitely appreciate, because it saved my novel.

Questions or comments? Please e-mail ewj@inkwellandoften.com