You could say I'm an improviser. I have a bad habit of doing things on the spot and coming up with plans right then and now.

Sometimes, a "Do and Ask Questions Later" behavior can be helpful in certain situations. Many people might do this. Those who might plan things ahead (Which I sometimes do) might not be able to accomplish goals swiftly and effectively, while someone who improvises an idea can get it done and worry about details later.

There is never an excuse to do this in writing.

Think of writing a story like designing a building. Structuring and details are crucial or else the building remains structurally unsound, or a story that can be riddled with errors and holes.

I've learned that, over time, a story should be carried out accordingly. Designing character traits, setting and other parts of the story beforehand makes it, although not technically required, much easier to write. When you know what you're going in guns blazing, you may run into trouble that you may have to spend a lot of time working around.

It's quite important to plan things ahead so you also don't make any mistakes. Rushing through it without a second thought can create accidental errors. Anything from run-on sentences to mispellings can occur.

Does this apply to just these works of fanfiction, though? Of course not! It applies to any kind of literature you stupid silly! You should always try to find ways to get a blueprint of your story so you have an idea of what you want to do with it.

What you can always do is, per se, create a Microsoft Office Word document and just list characters, character traits, story details, et cetera.

I hope this helps those who actually pay attention to my lectures.

1446660 I have this bad habit too. But, with my next story, I've been planning the backstory for literally years now, constantly changing it to make more sense. I'm really excited about it.

1446660

I should really do this for my current story, now that I think about.

I literally just wrote the first chapter without any real planning beforehand, and now I'm not entirely sure where I'm going with it.

I should be doing it, but I have a bad habit of writing down my stories as I come up with ideas for them.

I have a bad habit of completely planning out a story from beginning to end, but never writing it.

I created a story bible for my first MLP fanfic which greatly helped when I was wondering what to write down. By now that bible is now alos part of my second fanfic.

When I plan, I start by designing the world, it's history, and it's atmosphere. Then I make a very vague (as in one sentence) plot, and add characters. Once that's done, I refine the plot to a fluid outline (with spots open for potential filler).

And then I am ready to write.

1446660
Completely with you there, buddy.
Knowing where you're going with a story is as crucial as knowing where you're going when driving.

1446726 same here

Sometimes I think too much and write too little.

1446660 Yes but it's also good to try things out before you design a complete story around it. For example, you design an entire three-hundred chapter saga about a protagonist that, in your planning, seems great, but then when you start putting him into your story world and have him interact with others, everything falls apart and the protagonist actually sucks. Then you have to change his personality / traits, and thus, most of the story itself. So doing a bit of writing here and there to test-run certain story elements is also a must if you want a clean cut, interesting read. Also,

1459530 This :P

1446830 I'm curious as to what you define as "filler" because I used to designate a lot of things in my stories as filler before I realized most of it was actually important to the overall presentation.