So I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, and since this is currently the only community of writers I’m attached to, I was wondering about your writing methods.
[name_f]Do[/name_f] you start a story with an idea, develop a plot and characters, then begin writing? Or do you just start writing and see where it goes? Some combination of the two? Something else? What have you found the most successful?
I’m all over the place, and I don’t feel that I can count my many unfinished products as successful. I’d like some insight as to what process, if any, has been helpful to others.
I’m also all over the place, and have more uncompleted and abandoned projects than I care to count. This current story I’m working on (and hopefully will finish!) started as an idea that’s always intrigued me. After mulling over it, I took inspiration from books, movies, TV shows, etc and twist it in a way to somehow develop a basic plot outline. I’d jot some random ideas down, even skim through the outline in my head just to see if it’s story-worthy. Generally, I know about 60-70% of the plot before I start writing.
Specific characters actually came much later, and with the help of various images I found online that matched the picture in my head. I find it helps me flesh out a character better if I have a solid idea of what he or she looks like. Basically, I paste the picture of a person representing my character in a Word document, then bullet point names, personality traits, hobbies, etc that come to my mind when I look at the picture. Also, as I develop a character’s personality, I make changes to my plot to help better fit the character.
When it comes to the actual writing, I find that it helps to just start writing the first chapter or two, without giving any sort of purpose to those chapters. I think it helps to set the stage and let the reader get to know your character(s) as well as letting you figure out the most natural place to being introducing the plot. Also, my early chapters tend to be more ‘flexible’, so if or when I think of some great idea later on to add, it’s easy to manipulate the story to fit it.
I’ve tried going strictly both methods before. Writing freely gave me a wad of text that had no drive towards a plot of any sort, and writing strictly based on a preplanned plot gave me an extremely short story with very little development character-wise. I think that something in between both styles is the best way to go, for me at least.
Personally, I start with an idea that blossoms from my imagination. Sometimes I’ll just be watching TV and like an image comes into my mind or like a short scene and that’s where my ideas start. I try to write from the middle, not the beginning because I get lost and hung up on the first line.
I write many fanfics so I don’t necessarily make up characters, but when I do make characters up, I try to focus just on them and write a detailed description about them. It helps me write a story more quickly.
I also have to be really devoted to the story I create. I have an idea currently, but I just don’t feel devoted enough to it to finish it.
Oh, I’m right there with you. I can’t finish a project of mine to save my life. Usually what happens to me is unplanned. I’ll suddenly get a simple idea or the perfect backstory to a character and I take off from there. Usually the idea is more of an ending scene and I try to plan my story around that. I recently just came up with a supernatural mystery murder, which I’m actually really excited about (shockingly enough), and it first started out as just a tiny scene that I was going to create into a short story, but the ideas snowballed and I’m now writing a much larger story than I first intended to. That’s usually how it works out for me.
I’m kind of all over the place too. Usually, I get an interesting idea, create the characters, and start writing to see where it goes, mainly because I’m too excited to start writing a plot first :). But I almost always end up writing myself into a corner or losing steam, so for my current story I forced myself to sit down and outline. As it turns, that’s much better for me, because now my story actually has a real story, with twists and everything (something I could NEVER pull off before), and most importantly, is actually going to be finished. pats self on the back
Clearly, although plotting and outlining is boring - for me - it’s also very good for my stories.
It depends if it is something for school I will normally start with a plot and then the charecter and just write. However if it is something that I write for fun, I will generally start with the main charecter and just explore him or her until I know what I am righting mostly by roleplaying as this charecter in my room.
Oh my gosh, I’m am totally all over the place. I have SO MANY IDEAS, I believe that one day my brain will explode if I don’t try to write ALL of them. Seriously, I had this one idea about a made-up creature yesterday, today it’s a dystopian/ sc-fi story. I wonder what tomorrow’s idea will be…
About the actual planning and writing part, I have many methods for this. Sometimes, a sentence will pop into my head and I create a whole story plot about it (but then, the next day, I come up with a whole new story idea). I might try to write a story without any details, just one main plot line. I usually add in the details as I go. I mainly try to figure everything out before I start writing, and that is my most used method. My last and least favorite method is when an idea comes to me and since I have nothing else to write on, I use my hands as paper to write on. I actually quite like this method, but it’s my least favorite because my parents get on to me for constantly having words on my hands and getting ink on everything I touch.
I’ve always wanted to be more systematic about my writing.
I’ve written many short stories, but when it comes to longer pieces I feel like I fall into 2 camps. Either I get bogged down in creating lists and complicated backgrounds for the worlds and characters, and I never end up writing much of anything before I get sick of it. Or, I start writing and lose sight of the point in the midst of word choice and dialogue issues.
I need to find a happy medium between the two, but I seem to become less and less confident about my ideas the more I dive into them. I need to buckle down one of these days and just push through it.
I think I might end up combining some of my smaller projects into something bigger if I can find a solid link.
Sometimes, I have a sudden flash of brain magic, and I’m like “Whoa, story idea!” and I (how very stereotypical of me) write down the idea on any paper in sight, including napkins. Sometimes I start with a title of a book that sounds great, and the story builds itself around the title. I’m working on a story called And a Pinch of Stardust, which started as a title. But there are also other stories I’m writing that don’t even have titles yet. They started with a fragment of an idea that built up on my head, or specific scenes that I think of and then work towards or from or to. Others I even base off of dreams I’ve had. I just find whatever bit of inspiration screams, “Write me!” the loudest, and I, well, listen.
I also have plenty of stories I haven’t finished, and probably never will. But I’ve come up with a mantra to get me out of that rut: Writing is like long-distance running or a repetitive, menial job: after a while, you just keep going. If I sit down to write, I have to push myself to get through at least ten minutes, and suddenly, I get into the story and things start to happen.
As for my story-planning strategy, I never have trouble coming up with characters, setting, or premise, usually right after the other. And, of course, names Character development is one of my favorite parts - like jinglebelldaisy I often role play in my room, as I play around with names to find the perfect one. But when it comes to the actual story part…shrugs shoulders I try to think about it as little as possible. I find I lose interest if I know exactly what’s going to happen. But I find that happening less and less as of late - one story I wrote knowing practically every single scene and yet that was the story I was most engaged in. That was like a magic short story though. It just popped into my head and onto the computer practically perfect in every way. I don’t count on that happening every day, so I try not to plan my stories overmuch. It’s nice to have something to look forward to, though. Pick a big event, and plan to get there, but don’t know what’s happening along the way - that sort of idea.
That probably wasn’t helpful at all. [name_m]Ah[/name_m] well. Good luck and keep writing!
I used to be very disorganized! The first story I tried writing was basically about me which wasn’t very smart so I just went on rants about myself… so don’t do that haha! I was kind of structured with that one… I had a basic plan of what was going to happen in what order and who my characters were but I just couldn’t get it to flow so I stopped writing. My second story I started in the middle of the night because I got an idea and just started writing. That wasn’t a very good idea either because I really only had characters. I didn’t know anything about what was going to happen or really what the story was about. And to this day I still don’t know. So what I’ve learned from that is that you really need to start out with a basis of what your story is about and develop on from there. The story I’m writing now I feel like I’m finally going to finish. I got the idea for it one day and just kept it in my mind and thought about it a lot to work out some of the details of what could happen. [name_f]One[/name_f] night I had a dream of what could happen in the story and that’s when it really all came together. My idea was about what could happen if like for some reason someone set off nuclear bombs and started a nuclear war. [name_m]How[/name_m] it would effect the people, if anyone would survive, basically what would happen. After my dream I finally started writing. The first few paragraphs was kind of my ranting time, trying to introduce the story. After that I worked on developing characters and learning about who they were. After that I got into the groove of the story. As I’m writing I begin to get small details. In the beginning, I kind of had an idea of what was going to happen, but I found that when I really got into the groove of writing and had my creativity flowing it really helped me to think of more ideas for the ending. So basically start with a structured idea. Then develop characters. Then as you write you can develop the details of your story
I tend to be pretty unorganized when beginning a story. I actually like to write a draft of the first chapter just to give a good idea of my setting, but then quickly move on because the beginning is just setting up the rest of the story and because I, as the writer, know about my characters and the plot, I don’t need it to write the rest of the book; the beginning is mostly for the reader. After I’ve already written something, I find it easier to get a strong start because I know what will happen, so I can decide if I want to begin with foreboding or if coming right out with a typical introduction would go better with the rest of my book. The introduction style should match that of the rest of the story. Also with a part as vital as the introduction, you will ALWAYS need to draft of even write more than one.
I just start with an idea, then I pull it’s guts out and redo the story’s entire anatomy once a week, so it takes a reallllllllly long time for me do to anything.
I’ve found that I start with a basic concept/plot first. Then I figure out characters. Then I start writing. Change the plot to fit the characters. Write more. Get bored. Let it sit for six months. Come back. [name_f]Edit[/name_f] because my writing has gotten so much better that I can’t stand my first draft. Get bored. Let it sit for one month. Change the plot. Write another ten-thirty pages. Get bored. Leave it for a year.
It helps me to jump around, sometimes – write the scenes I can’t stop thinking about, the big plot changers and all that. It’s not like I can’t change/redo them when things around them change, and it keeps me going on a story longer than a week.
I always start with worldbuilding. From there I make up typical problems of the people living in that world, and built the main conflict and characters around that. The idea for the world will mostly come from a “what if”: What if there were 3 sexes instead of 2, what if people didn’t age normally or backwards or slower but everyone aged differently, what if someone divided the world into one where everything is magic and one where nothing is and we live in the latter and so on. Sometimes it’s also something I dreamed about. I’ll keep that world in mind for months trying to figure out if it makes for any good stories. But at the moment I actually try to not think up new worlds so I won’t get distracted from my current story.
Once I start writing, I’m a mix of the two types (I think they’re called Pacer vs Planner). I have the start, the end and some middle scenes in mind but mostly I’ll make things up on the go. I try to be more of a planner, though, so I won’t write myself into a hole I can’t get out of.
Hmmm. I guess I’m a lot less organized than I thought.
I kind of just start writing something that sounds cool. Most of the time I start with a quote that someone is saying and then kind of start building the plot from there. (ie: “Why do I have to follow you everywhere?” or “Why can’t you let me be?” or “What was it like?” - something that could go a million different ways) I always need to have characters with names before I get beyond like five pages, so I normally ask for help on those early on or have a name and then build my character on the name (I know, it’s backwards. But before I found nameberry :), that’s what I did.) . After that, I kind of just write something that comes to mind in that moment, maybe have a few ideas that I NEED to tie in later on, but I normally don’t have any idea what the middle or end will really turn out to be.
Now that I’m done with that, it seems absolutely useless to everyone. Sorry!
Since I mostly write fanfictions I already have the characters and have basic personality traits of them under my hand. I choose characters I want to write about and only use a few. I choose a plot that can be related to the universe of books or show.
