planning

[meteomage]

Hi! I was just curious as to how many people plan their stories before they write, and how closely they follow their plan.

When I write, I usually only have a very general idea of what I want the story to be about and mostly just type away. I'm often surprised with where the story goes, especially with stories on this site. I think I have to start planning more though, because it gets really confusing sometimes.

[Vesnic]

I usually plan the general outline for a story in my head, and then get "inspired" with the details as I go along. With Country from Hell, I thought out the overall plot, theme and message ahead of time, as well as a few specific paths. A few rooms that appear later on in the story were actually written first, so I made paths that would logically connect to those points. I did try to draw out a very exact diagram of what the story's structure would be, but I found this to be much too confining and it just didn't go with the natural flow of the story. This is not to say that magnifying a certain branch of the story and planning it all out isn't helpful to keep you on track.

GODAMIT HAVE I GOT MENSTRUAL CRAMPS. I'll be right back. God fucking dammit. GAAHH!

Where was I? Oh, right. Story planning. While just free-writing a story with absolutely nothing planned ahead of time has been useful to get a concept established, I don't find it very helpful as the story progresses. It tends to make the story uneven, with lots of open ends that I feel inspired to finish at one moment, but not at the next.

As for Global Warming, I don't give a shit. I'll just build myself a yurt on Everest Island where I'll continue to be luxuriated by the Ethiopian slaves and muscular Swede I won from the contest.

[Locke]

I don't plan that much. Often a story will start from a single idea or phrase, and by the time I've written that out properly I'll have thought up a good deal more. As I'm writing, interesting turns of phrase and plot will occur to me and I'll change events on the fly, so the specificities I'd thought up earlier will become something entirely different. Then when I read the story over I'll usually add a few sentences here or there as a final accent or tweak to a given scene.

[ChubbyTeletubby]

I don't deliberately plan, but I do like to carry a certain theme. With a story like CRACK ATTACK, it was obviously a stream of consciousness kind of thing.

Sometimes an entire plot will just plop into my noggin while I'm on a walk or something, but by the time I'm finished writing it down, it no longer resembles the original idea.

Mostly the words just seem to take a life of their own, as do the characters - and I just let them take me where they will. I really wish I WAS a better planner.

[Usoki]

I've found that a general outline prevents rambling...but the more I plan it, the less likely I am to have the motivation to write it. I've had that scene in my head for so long in one form I find myself unmotivated to put my thoughts to paper. It's much more fun to wing it.

[apotheosis]

I have a a vague idea, then I write a quarter to a half of it, then I turn that vague idea into a thesis of sorts to help guide the rest of the story.

[End Master]

I typically plan at least one storyline and write it from beginning to end, then I go back and start completing the others and fill in all the other branches. The bigger the story, the more planning.

Like for Primal, I haven't really started working on it yet other than the background, but I have like 3 main storylines already thought out and a general idea of how those paths and variations of them are going to play out.

Nothing's completely set in stone though, sometimes I'll go back and change something if I get a better idea, or if the story is starting to feel slightly different than I intended, or that particular bit isn't working out like I wanted.

[xnull]

The few examples of stories I have written have followed the same format. Come up with the general plotline (Flesh door versus 2023 versus XSS Story) and make each branch of the story as filled with detail and fitted to the events that led up the the branch. I use details I write in to make the story good to round out the characters for me. I used these elements and put them back into other parts of the story or use them in the other branches.

I get more ideas for the story when I am writing a branch than when I am trying to plan something.