Do you plan?

[rorygilmore]

do you plan a story before writing it down? like all the info about the characters etc. or do you just make up as you go along?
me, i don't plan at all, because i'm a really shifty person and by the time i plan a story i want to change something, or add something... or make it completely different :) but how 'bout you guys?

[Andy]

I find it easiest to write out a list of all the events in the story, and then describe them a little. That way, if you need to change something, you only have to remove/change a paragraph instead of an entire chapter.

There are benefits to making something up as you go along, though. It's especially good for brainstorming, or if you have no idea what to do with the story.

[Starry]

I plan as little as possible until I'm well into the story, like 5 or 10 chapters in, because otherwise I get so bogged down in all the little details that I lose the plot entirely. For me, the best bet is to have an idea of where you want all your characters to end up at the end of the story and then work at getting them there.

[Majyk]

I plan sometimes, but other times I just sit down and start writing and see what happens. It sometimes seems like the story takes off by itself, and other times sits there until I think of an idea.

As I go along and think up ideas for later on in my story, I write them down so I can remember them. I must have had twenty different endings, each time thinking of a new one when my plot took a new turn.

[Chie'N'Kadath]

I do with big projects, but sometimes I'm not sure I should. They always go through millions of revisions before they get to the 'plan' I want, and even then there's likely to be another revision... (Although I guess I shouldn't complain about my novel series that I am working on, because having the research papers and idea logs can be useful.)

For example..

The Forgotten Hollows has had 3 character swaps, 3 total overhauls of the plot and setting, and the titular creature has undergone 4 revisions since I first decided to write about them.

Beelzeboss issue 9 has needed a second writer to come on board, two total script overhauls, 1,954 rejected poses/screenshots, 142 lost poses/screenshots.

And don't get me started on my screenplay for How to plagiarize with your eyes closed. I'll be lucky if I even finish it in the next 6 years. (The actual film, that is. The screenplay itself is finished, and it's just a slightly less absurd version of my story with the same name, which is in of itself, a rewrite of my story 'The Idiotman' but with an actual structure to how it's told.)

[Midnight_Moon]

I plan story line lightly and characters quite in depth, I find it quite fun.

[Rouge]

The only time I ever planned a story was for an essay on the history AP exam last week. I only did it so I wouldn't fail it.
Hopefully I didn't. :laugh:
But on anything else, no, I don't plan. I find as a waste of time.

[Starry]

The only time I ever planned a story was for an essay on the history AP exam last week. I only did it so I wouldn't fail it.
Hopefully I didn't. :laugh:
But on anything else, no, I don't plan. I find as a waste of time.

How did you write a story for the AP history exam? Do you mean APUS, because I took that one and I don't really see how you could make your responses to that even slightly interesting in story form. Though I guess there was a possibility in the track-the-presidential-elections-1928-to-1948 one, I suppose.

Then again, I have a friend who, on every essay on her English HSA, wrote something completely wacky. Particularly, on a compare-these-two-works question, she phrased her response in dialogue between her two main characters she's been writing, culminating in the final line of "Let's have sex." (Keep in mind, this is my friend, NOT ME) (Also, these tests are so easy that they're not worth thinking about, in the sense that you really can bomb every essay and still pass). But I don't know, maybe we need to entertain all the exam-graders a little more. I personally just went and used every big word I could think of in hopes of confusing the idiotic HSA people.

[Shaun]

No. I don't like outlining. The most I will do is get the basic idea and have some understanding where a story will go. I don't recommend working this way, especially for fantasy novels. Not planning leads me to a lot of dead ends in what I'm allowed to do in my fantasy series. I have to constantly refer to the first book to make sure I don't screw something up.

[Rouge]

How did you write a story for the AP history exam? Do you mean APUS, because I took that one and I don't really see how you could make your responses to that even slightly interesting in story form. Though I guess there was a possibility in the track-the-presidential-elections-1928-to-1948 one, I suppose.

Then again, I have a friend who, on every essay on her English HSA, wrote something completely wacky. Particularly, on a compare-these-two-works question, she phrased her response in dialogue between her two main characters she's been writing, culminating in the final line of "Let's have sex." (Keep in mind, this is my friend, NOT ME) (Also, these tests are so easy that they're not worth thinking about, in the sense that you really can bomb every essay and still pass). But I don't know, maybe we need to entertain all the exam-graders a little more. I personally just went and used every big word I could think of in hopes of confusing the idiotic HSA people.

I didn't make it a story, I just got my ideas straight and actually had an outline for once in my life. :P It was a DBQ (document based question) and I wanted to make sure everything was in line, because I didn't know the answer to the other two essays we had to do. :confused: lol I wanted to do good on at least one of them. :rolleyes:

[Guessed]

Then again, I have a friend who, on every essay on her English HSA, wrote something completely wacky. Particularly, on a compare-these-two-works question, she phrased her response in dialogue between her two main characters she's been writing, culminating in the final line of "Let's have sex."

Oh, thank gods, there are people out there who were even more adventurous than me... I was disgustingly sarcastic and cynical in my "Why should people live in America?" essay on the History HSA!

As for planning? I'm not sure - I imagine that for a long book I'd outline a story idea, but not write character histories. That's no fun, nor is describing characters' appearances in great detail. They should be up to the reader's imagination.

When I write, I can never start from the beginning on - I start wherever I want. Then I block things together like a puzzle. Then I go back and slice it all up and rewrite and rewrite and voila, something!

[Reason Invalid]

Personally, I think planning is very important. If you clearly lay out what you have in mind, whether if it is plot, character or whatever, you can get work done much faster than if you improvise as you go. If you improvise, chances are that: a.) your story could be incoherent in one or more aspects b.) if you change your mind about a part, it would be harder for you to adjust or change anything. It is also true that if you plan too much, it would seem very mechanical and probably seem entirely different from what you originally intended. However, you can always change the plan until it satisfies you.

I also think that 'planning' does not necessarily have to be strictly formatted or chapter-by-chapter, character-by-character planning. For example, if you think that a visual representation would be better for a certain part of your story, then draw it or find a picture that represents what you have in mind. I think that planning is important for keeping your story as one single story and also keeping track of ideas.

However, being a completely amateur writer, my advice is merely coming from a musical composition point of view. I find that writing a story and writing a piece of music has a lot of similiarities, so I thought I'd give my two cents on this matter. ;)

[sXe_Jinxeh]

Then again, I have a friend who, on every essay on her English HSA, wrote something completely wacky. Particularly, on a compare-these-two-works question, she phrased her response in dialogue between her two main characters she's been writing, culminating in the final line of "Let's have sex." (Keep in mind, this is my friend, NOT ME) (Also, these tests are so easy that they're not worth thinking about, in the sense that you really can bomb every essay and still pass). But I don't know, maybe we need to entertain all the exam-graders a little more. I personally just went and used every big word I could think of in hopes of confusing the idiotic HSA people.

That's brilliant. At one point, I bet my friends twenty dollars that I could have "cows go moo" in my Social 10-1 final exam and get away with it, and I so totally did, XD. But that makes me think of a story my own teacher told us about marking PATs (Provincial Achievement Tests for all you non-Canucks) where they get a bingo card with random words on it, and for every random word you find you get to mark it off, like astronaut.

But the only planning I do is specific scenes, in my head, usually while washing tables at work. Other then that, I usually just pull stuff out of my ass. Making my movie will be very interesting when I make my actors go back and reshoot scenes because I got a better idea.

[Saraphine]

I prefer to write spontaneously but the ideas that i make take a lot of time so I plan my ideas in my head and start writing and later on if I feel something is missing I simply add it

I think before writing you need to set up a base and that is what is more important to me than any other thing. Correct me if i'm wrong.

[Coraline]

What I usually do if I'm writing a fantasy is plan out the world, not the story itself. I think it's easier to create the world or situation first, and then the characters to fit it. But that's just me.

[random_writer]

I can't plan. If I plan, said plan is guaranteed to fail miserably. But that's just me. :D

[ScottyMcGee]

For complicated and structured ideas: yes, of course.

For free-spirited stories: No.

[Carraka]

I even plan my SBS rounds.

I list out all the players, figure out who dies, figure out how they die, and what order they die in. But most of the time, the little jokes found in the dialogue come spontaneously. When I arrive at each death, I discover an interesting way to write it that I hadn't thought about when I was outlining.

[angela]

Hrm.. for me, I plan the story if i feel like it ~

Most of the time, an idea or line pops into my head, and then I write/type it out, and work from there. So basically, I don't really plan. =p

[Hannah_Scotland]

I do a rough outline of the way my story is going to go and then let my ideas flow.
I usually do in-depth plans of my characters so I can often get inside my character's head.

One thing that really annoys me is that English teachers make it compulsory to do a very detailed plan before doing any piece of writing. Plans work for some people but not others, so surely it should be the individuals choice to do what suits them best?

[Shukara]

Truly, it depends on the story for me. Sometimes I just make things up as I go, including characters. Other times I sit down and at least write out a physical description or a small plot line. I usually find that when I write out too much of the plot it seems to prevent me from truly being creative.