How much of your story do you plan before you begin writing?

[Becoming]

The title says it all. However, I want this post to be longer, so I'll repeat the question.

How much of your story do you plan before you begin writing?

Read the above! The main reason I'm curious is that me n' moonlightning often argue about how much planning should go into a story (this argument suddenly became more important when we decided to do a co-written fic together) - I'd prefer to have most of the story planned out (after the first few chapters - the introduction to the story) so I can have a clear idea of where I'm heading. Moonlightning on the other hand . . . "we should only plan a chapter ahead so it's exciting and fresh when we're writing" - I find that statement ultimately derpy. But what's your opinion on the planning o' a story? How much do you do? Obviously everyone's got a different view on this, so this should be interesting! (Don't get me wrong, I'm not just using this thread as a petty tool to bash moonlightning's opinions and rub stuff in his face . . . well, I'm mostly not). Anyway, since (I hope that) other people will reply in more depth about what they think, I may as well do the same!

In my first fic, I had a beginning and end planned, along with important characters and a rough interpretation of what happens inbetween (also, it was based off the Black/White game plot, so I suppose it was easier for me to plan lots of it). I started writing 'cause moonlightning kept bothering me and bothering me to begin writing . . . so I did. That fic is on indefinite hiatus for now, but during the time of writing I managed to plan a lot more of the story and was confident with where I was heading. ANYWAY

In my second (also co-write) fic, we started the story with the middle and end, plus ideas for characters. We began writing quite soon after that; after the second chapter I decided make a list of what happens in each chapter. We've got up to chapter 11 planned in detail (now when I say in detail, I suppose I mean we definitely know what happens). Now we're going through and sorting out stuff like character development (in more detail that we did before) and what happens when/where/who's there/why're they there etc.

Obviously in both examples I/we didn't have lots of the story planned out when we started writing; but is that necessarily a bad thing? *cringes* Don't hit me!

 

[[Imaginative]:[Clockwork]]

Well, I've mostly written one-shots, but even then, I don't plan a whole lot. I mean, I know the plot and (sometimes) the ending, but generally most of it just comes from me sitting down and writing whatever I come up with right there and if I happen to stumble upon an idea I like, I continue writing. The majority of what I write is formed that way. It's a terrible habit, but I have to agree with moonlightning on this one. It feels good to have meticulously planned out a perfect plot, but following a sudden spark of inspiration until you're left with a piece of work that you had no idea would even exist however many hours ago is a whole lot of fun.

The chaptered fic I'm writing, though, is being planned out much more than my one-shots. I've been writing the first chapter for months. I think it'll get easier, though, since what's taking this chapter so long is making sure that the character's personalities are clear, the world is set up properly, and the plot is at least a little bit coherent. There are so many random lists I have about whatever popped into my head in the middle of the night that I want to work in and I have entire chapters planned out down to tiny details. I find that this is a fun way to write too. It inspires a bunch of day dreams where you just plan out more and more. I still don't have an ending but I feel like getting these ideas down in front of me is going to be such a happy, proud moment.

So yeah, I guess I can see the merit in both paths. :/

 

[Breezy]

The only story I actually planned for was Lull, and even then, the layout for it is just lolable compared to the actual story since I so derailed. I am pretty sure all of my one-shots were spur-of-the-moment, pouncing on that plot bunny and letting it lead me down some of the craziest avenues. HLBMA, being a simple journey fic at heart, wasn't planned either; most of its ideas pretty much appeared either one or two chapters before the actual idea surfaced or surfaced while I was actually writing the chapter. Of course, I'm a little weird as an author. I have a lot of different voices in my head telling me that "Omg that sounds good, doitdoitdoit" without really thinking of the consequences; however, said voices are pretty good at giving solutions to the possible plot holes that can surface from impulsive plot ideas.

I'm definitely with you, whoever you are, when it comes to having a basic idea down and what direction you want it to go, but you should have some wiggle room for spur-of-the-moment ideas. At the same time, you really need to be aware of impulsive ideas. Some of them are really hard to get out of once you introduce it. I actually find written lists of exactly what you want redundant, but that might be because the ideas I really want for future chapters never leave my head until it's actually in written form in the story. *shrug*

 

[SoulSilverMstr411]

I make a rough draft - emphasis very much on "Rough" - of the first 3 - 4 chapters. Then I see where it takes me from there.

 

[Diddy]

Moonlightning, what you said was ultimately derpy :3 *cracks up* xD

Although I 'gree with him, because I, like Breezy, write my chaptered fics on the fly.

The only time I plan my chapters is when I'm physically unable to write them. If I'm at work and there's nothing to do, I'll think about where I am in the story and look at where I would like to go and how exactly I could get there. When I get in a position to write what I've thought of, I've usually forgotten it, but the brief vestiges of what I remember is what gets put into action to continue the fic.

Meticulously planning every possible moment of the fic, I couldn't do that because as someone said, it wouldn't give you any wiggle room if you thought of a kickass plot point halfway through writing it.

 

[Dragonfree]

Less than I should. I generally start writing when my plans extend only as far as how it ends, a few scenes in the middle and some very vague idea of what needs to happen in between, and then before I know it I realize I really should have set up thing X in some chapter I've already written and posted and actually something I've discovered I need to put in between doesn't work because of something I established off-hand in another chapter and so on and so on.

That being said, planning out everything usually doesn't quite work for me because a lot of stuff just happens while I'm actually writing - when I write the characters conversing about something in full I suddenly realize that the way they'd react to it is completely different from the way I'd initially thought they would, or maybe they suddenly choose to reveal something I hadn't expected them to reveal yet. If I were to plan everything completely in advance, most of the plan would end up obsolete as more and more of these little details would pile up and the end result would be unrecognizable. (Today the plot of The Quest for the Legends is absolutely nothing like what it was supposed to be when I started it, barring a few stray plot points that usually end up in a wildly different context than I'd planned, and that was just a 'basic idea of how it ends, some scenes in the middle and a rough idea of what happens in between' plan. And just try telling anyone who's read Morphic that originally I put it under 'Humour' on FanFiction.Net and nobody was supposed to die.)

On the other hand, if you're going to rewrite a fic after finishing it, you should probably take a moment before you start the rewrite to plan out exactly what you're going to change and what consequences it will have. You already have a rough plan anyway (just following the old version of the fic) and all you need to do is write it down in an easily manipulated form and then make the appropriate changes to that overview. Because you've already run through the characters' reactions to things and so on once, it's a lot less likely to end up straying wildly off the path.


As for planning making the story less exciting, even I can't agree with that. While a lot of my stuff emerges off the top of my head while I'm writing, there are always those few scenes I had floating in my head from the start or at least very early, and writing them is usually just as exciting as writing scenes I had no idea about beforehand, if not more. There is a special thrill to actually writing something out that you've been looking forward to for ages (granted, most people aren't like me writing the same fic for nine years, but still).

 

[Sgeckledorf Spoongeblorb]

The end and the beginning.

That's all.

 

[Chibi Pika]

Warning tl;dr. And I reference my fic a lot, but unlike a lot of my posts I actually tried to explain to people who haven't read my fic why my experiences can help others. As opposed to just rambling about my fic because I can.


My relationship with planning is...a strange one. It probably should not be followed. And like Dragonfree's, it operates under the assumption that one decides to write their fic for TEN YEARS WTF, which I am increasingly beginning to realize is a very stupid thing. Dx

Kay, so the best that can be said is that I do generally plan out story arcs. These were in fact, the first things I started planning way back in like, Revision 2 of my fic. The problem is that you should keep the scope under control. I generally just had a vague, soupy idea of SUPER COOL AWESOME plots for the future that I was gonna write 160 chapters for, but they were only concepts. They weren't broken down into events. I knew how they started and what they were, but not what actually happened, or how they were resolved. I think that working these things out is a much better idea than leaving them off. You should have a solid skeleton for your fic, and only leave the details to chance. Otherwise you end up changing your fic's plot every other month.

This led to serious problems once my fic started getting actually, well...good. It was stuck with plot tumors from old revisions that I didn't know how to get rid of, because cutting them out would leave me with NO PLOT. I had NO IDEA how the fic ended, and I think that is a VERY bad idea. And I even knew this back then, because I knew that my best plot twists by far were the ones in which I knew the solution to something, and then built all the events around it to be as impossible as I could, so that when the twist showed up, it was like ZOMGWTF THIS FITS PERFECTLY BUT HOW. But then I started writing straight through, as opposed to backwards. Setting up all the events to culminate in an impossible situation none of the characters know how to fix......and then finding out that I didn't know how they would fix it either. Granted, writing straight through was pretty fun in a lot of ways. I got to look back on my older chapters and somehow find foreshadowing to plot twists that I came up with waaaaay later that somehow fit together perfectly. But on the whole, it was unhealthy for the later chapters of the fic because I had no idea how they were supposed to actually go. And that is the true reason my fic died, not my obsessive rewriting urges.

But there are still a lot of areas where I write spontaneously, and will continue to do so because I believe it is healthy for the fic. Conversations ALWAYS, and even some sub-plot arcs. I know they have to start, last several chapters, cumulate in X and Y events, which influence the plot in a specific way, but exactly what happens during said arc can be whatever just happens to come up while writing it.


So now I have a much better grasp on how my writing style works. I plan things out as follows:

Story arc gets kicked off by Event Z. Future plots Y and V get alluded to somehow. Character X is introduced somewhere in chapters 32-35 and then talks to characters A and B about something. Then some cool action stuff happens, but things go wrong for the main chars, which somehow leads to event W. This is followed by a quiet chapter that develops characters A and B talking about character X. And then everything changes with EVENT Q DUN DUN DUN, which I guess has to be foreshadowed in there somewhere.

Believe it or not, that is a whole heck of a lot better than what I did previously. It gets a grasp on which events lead to what, but not how, and that a character needs to get introduced and developed in order for him to serve his role in the plot later, but not how. This keeps things fresh, because my best conversations BY FAR are the ones where I'm like "Kay guys...talk." And then my characters talk for awhile until I need to move the plot along. I highly approve of this conversation writing method. It works far better than trying to laundry list a character's traits and then come up with ways to reveal them.

However...

This does need to be controlled sometimes.

One time I set up a convo so it would lead to the resolution of two character arcs and ultimately force a character to confront and move past some serious psychological issues that had finally come to light in the previous chapter. But once these issues had been explained, they were just kind of brushed aside because THE CONVO GOT HIJACKED ARGH. My Absol clone character who almost never talks decided to butt in and say some things that HOLY CRAP GAVE HER AWESOME CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT.

And then originally I just left it like that. I loved the things she said and didn't want to cut them, and the other character's past had been explained, so everything I had set out to do had been accomplished. But that was a poor decision. I had explained some backstories to the reader, but I had not allowed the characters to work out how to move past their problems for the sake of the future, and for the sake of the plot. So I ended up having two characters bring up things troubling them, explain said things, and then...not resolve them? Wut? And I clearly did not intend to resolve them later, because it would not make sense for those characters to move on in the plot the way they did without having come to terms with some things first. So it took some effort to go back and smooth out the cracks in the conversation to actually resolve those subplots while still allowing the Absol to hijack the convo afterward. Because we all know that in real life, conversations get hijacked CONSTANTLY.

...that sounds sarcastic but it's not. It happens.

Life happens.

Even in your fic. Just make sure it has a path, let it meander in a zigzag vaguely resembling the path, but don't be afraid to grab the reins if it gets too out of control.

~Chibi~;249;;448;

 

[FlamingRuby]

I write out a basic idea of the plot, character profiles, spell lists (if applicable) and synopses of the first few episodes. Then when I'm close to the limit of the initial plan, I write out more synopses.

Having said that, the plan is not set in stone once I create it--it can be added to, deleted from, and/or rearranged at any time

 

[Gelatino95]

I usually just make sure I have a direction for the story to go in before writing up the story itself. I have to think up what will happen in a chapter I'm about to write, but a lot of it just comes to me while I'm writing (though that didn't work so well in my most recent chapter). I never plan an ending, because I don't plan for my story to end. Ever.

 

[Ausgirl]

I'm not a fanfic writer but I have been working on my own fantasy world... so far I've created a map and I'm currently working on a huge family tree showing five generations back. So yeah I like to plan as much as I can befor I start writing...

 

[Ysavvryl]

I do some planning. Basically, I come up with characters and a basic plot. I make sure that there are secrets in the plot, something that some characters know and others do not know. Then I just start writing, keeping those secrets in mind as the characters interact. However, I find out that if I do too much planning, I can get bored with the story and stop writing it, so I try to keep some parts vague to keep me interested in figuring out how to get to the next plot point.

 

[Absol6028]

I usually don't plan a whole lot out. I just plan out the Main Character\s, personalities, plots etc. I usually right as a I go since I'm one who can (sometimes) get pretty creative if I type as it comes to me. I mean, don't get me wrong, I do have some things planned out a few chapters ahead but 9 out of 10 times, I'll just type as I go. I'm not one to plan.

 

[SerenadeSP]

I do some planning. Basically, I come up with characters and a basic plot. I make sure that there are secrets in the plot, something that some characters know and others do not know. Then I just start writing, keeping those secrets in mind as the characters interact. However, I find out that if I do too much planning, I can get bored with the story and stop writing it, so I try to keep some parts vague to keep me interested in figuring out how to get to the next plot point.

This is basically what I do, only I also make sure to have a few extra not-as-necessary plot points as well just so I don't stray too far from the original story. Not too much, but enough to keep me on track. On top of that I also try to interconnect all my characters in some way and won't even start a story until I've found some way(s) to do so.

 

[M-Dub]

When writing a chapterfic these days, I plan a few things in advance.

1. The basic premise of the story.
2. How the story begins.
3. A vague idea of how it ends.
4. Some REALLY AWESOME BITS that go in the middles somewhere.
5. That's about it.

While I'm writing, whenever I can't get to a computer, I have a hardcover exercise book in my bag which I make worldbuilding notes in. Currently, it's got an explanation of the structure of the Army of the Third Ring and a couple of character bios, and I'll keep that going for as long as I can. The more I put in there, the fuller my world will be and the easier to write in. I do very little planning overall - just a few key events. Other than that, the story pretty much ends going where I want it to.

 

[Bay]

When writing a chapterfic these days, I plan a few things in advance.

1. The basic premise of the story.
2. How the story begins.
3. A vague idea of how it ends.
4. Some REALLY AWESOME BITS that go in the middles somewhere.
5. That's about it.

While I'm writing, whenever I can't get to a computer, I have a hardcover exercise book in my bag which I make worldbuilding notes in. Currently, it's got an explanation of the structure of the Army of the Third Ring and a couple of character bios, and I'll keep that going for as long as I can. The more I put in there, the fuller my world will be and the easier to write in. I do very little planning overall - just a few key events. Other than that, the story pretty much ends going where I want it to.

Haha, that's pretty much me too with my longer stories. I would have an idea what the story will be about and thought over how it'll begin and end. The middle I think of some scenes and will worry how I'll get to them later. XD Like everyone else, I plan a bit so I know where I'm taking the story, but not so much that I'll get bored and not have any spontaneous ideas thrown in.

Fun fact- Nothing, Everything I thought of like five alternate endings, decided to go with one in the rough draft, and then revised the ending like three times. XD

 

[D. Scott]

I very rarely plan out a story more than a chapter or two in advance: it makes me feel like I have to follow my original plan no matter what when I do, and it sort of limits the room to change things when I get a new idea in my head. I know it's stupid and all, but it's just how it makes me feel.

 

[acetrainerbob]

i just go with what i come up with. i had to come up with an essay for school and ive been using my strategy to come up with a still being written 86 paged novel with minor revisions along the way. Once I finish the rough draft, I'd read it (this should be about th third time you've read it) and revise it so that everything makes sense and flows smoothly. i get the basic plot in my head and go with it, sometimes events may change, characters, and even the plot itself.

 

[Xman96]

Well, I'm working on a chpatered fic right now, that I split into parts. Each part could probably be considered its own fic, but they all follow a (semi) over arcing plot. How much planning do I do? Not much. I have a basic idea for how I want the part to end, and sometimes I have some important plot points planned. For the most part though, I take my characters, and have them do what they do. I feel that the characters are developed enough to do that.

 

[Charmanderman]

I usually plan the beginning, end, and bit of the middle. But it gets off track, and usually becomes nothing like I'd planned. (I have written other fanfics, I just never posted them)