Planning · 1:46pm Jan 23rd, 2015
This is more out of curiosity than anything else. Do other authors heavily plan their work before starting? I do not. I tend to let my fingers dance over the keyboard while my mind wanders, usually with assorted music going in the background, and words happen. I learned from the boiling crucible that is NaNoWriMo that writing time is writing time, and editing time comes afterwards.
This is why someone suggested the sirens one day, and I worked them in the very next day. I'm not writing in advance, nor am I following a grand design that everyone is adhering to. The protagonists are doing what they do, and the world is moving on around them, repeat. This is grand for 'sitcom' type writing, where it's meant to go on and on, but it is likely weaker for tighter storytelling, where you have start, middle, end, and a single plot dealing with the primary issue of the story.
What are your thoughts?
That's usually how I do most of my art and writing
wing it, then edit it
I map out the general shape of the story when I start, but I leave the details somewhat nebulous, so I can add interesting ideas when they come to me without having to rearrange everything else.
I meticulously plan out every detail in "notes" format before actually expanding it into story text, and I always make sure I know where the story is going (and often where it's going to end up), so much so that the first chapter is often the least complete of all. I have zero stories published, but a total of 18 Word Documents are currently sitting open on my computer for when I come up with any new idea for any of my stories. A quick look at the word count reveals 18,000; 61,000; 13,000; 4,000. Granted, those ones are mostly multi-part episodic serials and have more story than others, but the 61k one has been in the works since December. Of 2013. My "notes planning" is basically in play format, consisting of character dialogue interspersed with stage directions of who does what, and then a few general statements here and there reminding myself of the type of thing I'm planning on having happen. I find that it's easier to rearrange parts of a skeleton such as this rather than having to edit full paragraph text if I change my mind about something. It's also useful when I suddenly come up with a scene that I want to be able to record before forgetting and place in some context later.
2741888 And therein lies the danger. I see too many people get stuck in the planning stage and never get to the 'I'm done!' stage.
2741917 The planning stage can be long, but Chapter 1 for one of my stories (surprisingly, the most recent one I came up with) is almost ready to go up save for three "lull" areas of scene transition I don't have any particular ideas for.
2741931 Have you finished a story yet? This is NOT meant as an attack in any way!
2741965 Not taken as one. No, none of them are truly "finished". I have all/most of the episodic setups for the segmented ones, but there are at least a few unresolved endings or missing middles here and there. And for some standalones, I have a rough sequence of events, but few details.
I basically cannot stop myself from planning. I can't even start something without knowing the ending, and then I spend the whole time trying to keep it thematically appropriate.
That being said, I'm not particularly meticulous about planning: usually I only know the beginning, the climax, and the next couple of chapters, and wing the rest. I haven't really tried to make whole-plot synopses, and the plans I do make frequently change as I get to the events in question.
But... I'm also a slow author. If I were able to just go and write, I would probably either be able to wing it more by not focusing on the future as much, or conversely stick to a plan 100% because I'm getting through the chapters monthly.
2741979 I can't stop typing! My target for this story is 4k words a day. 2k in the morning and 2k later in the day.
Depends on the story.
Something light and silly like "The Adventures of Spectrum Slash"? Very little planning, if any.
Something involving time travel and some characters experiencing the events of the story out-of-order, as in "Paradox", requires far more meticulous planning just to make sure that the major events happen as they should (but still has room for the occasional wing-it scene).