McAnally's (The Community Pub) > Author Craft

Plot points

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trboturtle:
Speaking as a fanfiction writer, I don't plot as much as have a point A and a point B, with a few scenes fully formed here and there. Sometimes, the way from A to B is an expressway, other times, it's a drive along the seanic route. The result has been unusual at times.

While that works for fanfiction, for my original attempts, I find I have to plot a bit more. I have a paritial fantasy novel plotted out and I can feel the difference in the structure of the story.

Craig

Belial:
What usually happens for me is that I get a basic idea for a character (or more), then I get a basic idea for a story (usually one that screws the character over).

I drop the poor bastards in and let em work their way out of it.

The story then goes through several drafts, becoming fleshed out a bit more each time.

However, there have been times when I've plotted things out a bit more... and I find that the results are usually better. I still like writing by the seat of my pants though, I write stories that I'd like to read, and it's always fun to find out what happens as I go along. Makes it a bit more fun for me. And since this is primarily a hobby for me, that's the way I do it. If I ever needed to meet deadlines, I would think that outlines would be the way to go.

blgarver:
Anyone else here too impatient for outlines?

terioncalling:

--- Quote from: blgarver on December 14, 2006, 06:51:56 PM ---Anyone else here too impatient for outlines?

--- End quote ---

*raises hand*  Mainly 'cause I can never follow the damn things.  Only two stories of mine (the major two right now in my big fantasy world) have loose outlines and the one I've been working on for the past few months has already deviated from it if I recall correctly.  But then it jogged right back to hop back in line so its following the outline and not all at the same time.  Very confusing.

the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh:
I tend to get plot as "here is key scene A that happens about the middle.  Here is key scene B that happens right next to the end. Now what can you do to get the right set of people to be in the right places and react in the right ways to make a story out of this ?" I'm not comfortable starting without knowing where I am going, but it's very rare for me to write more than a couple of thousand words without them telling me something new and useful that can feed in to that process; my outlines are tools to be continually refined and updated, they don't actually match  the book well until the book's written and usually rewritten a couple of times too.

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