McAnally's (The Community Pub) > Author Craft

How do YOU plan your stories?

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comprex:

--- Quote from: meg_evonne on July 31, 2011, 04:38:21 PM ---Longest sentence so far in author craft, I suspect.

--- End quote ---

Are you sure you included the ones where neuro did the Dumas pastiche?

the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh:

--- Quote from: comprex on July 30, 2011, 06:46:05 PM ---*Imagines evil cackling scramble to find the notebook where -exactly- that idea was written*

Hold on

It's here somewhere

I wrote that only the week before last

I know I have it

Yeah, I know the conversation is past it but AHA!  here it is!

Well, OK, not quite exactly that idea, but if you squint just right...   ;D

--- End quote ---

This only works if you let the notebook in question out of your possession.

AdamPepper:
I need to have a beginning and an ending before I sit down and start writing.  The middle is totally negotiable...

Bearracuda:
I find that by default, I come up with a concept and build the story around it.  Then when I need characters, I'll figure out what exactly I need them to do, then assign them a passion and a motivation that will put them in the right place at the right time.  I'll take that passion and that motivation and build additional character traits around it.  Then I drop my character into the world I've got set up, and let them run around.  Generally from there they tend to do the rest of the character development for me.

As for story, I'll start setting up a timeline.  Once I have a pivotal bad guy or 2, and a pivotal good guy or 2, I start imagining confrontations between them that involve serious consequences.  When I have a good idea of what I want these confrontations to be, I'll drop them on the timeline as "checkpoints."  Ironically enough, this is an excellent method for wading through the Big Swampy Middle.  My only problem is that usually I can't figure out how I want the climax to go.  Guess I need to work on that "story question" jim was talkin' about.

newtinmpls:
Depends... the first actual "whole" novel I wrote was based on an RPG campaign. It was a lot of adapting, a lot of combining scenes and short stories and finally one summer I took 9 days off of work and sat down, eight hours a day, and wrote to fill the whole thing in.

Novel #2 was a NaNoWriMo novel. Started on Nov 1 with an idea for an opening scene, wrote that up in a couple pages, stopped when I got out what was in my head, and each day I could see/wrote down "a little more" Was able to finish it in the month. Not great art, but it has a plot and a reasonable amount of coherency.

Novel #3 was a 3-day novel (gonna do that again this year), I knew I only had so many hours, so I took time off work, and wrote out an outline beforehand. Made sure I got enough sleep, and wrote ... maybe 10-12 hours (in chunks) each day and did get it done.

So I guess it depends. Whatever way or ways work - go for it. Maybe a few will.

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