Sabsz

I've always wondered, how much planning does another writer do? I'm not just talking about the plot but the characters and back history?

Do you have elaborate histories and descriptions of your character or simply ideas or a 'basis'? How detailed is your plot outline? Etc.

I think I over plan a little bit. I'm not really talking about the plot but my characters. I have whole word documents detailing my characters that I sometimes I get bored by the time I'm done.

-- sabsz

astralis

While a writer is always planning by observing, taking notes, and thinking of ideas and scenes, actually sitting down and working on a story is a different idea.

I think once a writer sits down and decides to plot and write the story, it can take a while to write it; maybe about a year.

The planning is very important to me in terms of establishing the plot points, characters, backstory, etc...

I think if you're getting bored planning, then maybe you might want to think about how everything ties into your main plot. This brings you back to base so you don't go down a rabbit trail on a character sketch. It also keeps it exciting because you know you're keeping your eye on the main story.

Some methods that might help you:

1) Establish your world and how it functions from the beginning.
2) List all your main characters and all the tragedy that they're bringing into their story, as well as their relationships with each other.
3) Think about the main plot of the story; what is its controlling idea, where are its turning points, etc...
4) What revelations will your story provide?
5) What changes will your characters go through?
6) Plot out the:

• inciting incident
• first act turning point
• second act turning point (the mid-act climax)
• third act turning point --
• crisis decision
• final act's climax

While your story might have a lot more acts than this, the basic structure will be identical (you can't avoid the quest no matter how you might try). Remember all your subplots also follow the same form so writing those out and how it ties to the main plot is important.

I like to make it as detailed as possible as I build my step-outline. I almost always know where I'm going but nothing is every set in stone. All of this keeps me very busy. And when you do it on a deadline, you know you'll get it finished.

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PageOfCups

I can't plan. If I plan I get bored of the story before I even start to write it. Somehow I manage to keep everything in my head and wrok it out as I write. I note down things that I might forget but that tends to be daft things like which side a scar is on. Plus when I start my idea is almost entirely incomplete. Half to time I'm shocked by what I writing (which now I think about it is probably a bit weird). I'm also horribly indesisive (I still haven't desided if the novel I'm writing is set in an alternate England or somewhere else entirely and I'm almost finished chapter 16). So if I do write somethign down as a plan, chances are I'll change it anyway so I might as well not write it at all.

kidstaple

For the longest time, and up until recently, I never planned anything out. But I have found, that as the page number in my novel increases, and the storylines fuse together, I have to keep track of them. So, I sat down one afternoon and wrote out the guts of the story; all of the characters, some scenes and the majority of the history of the world, races and languages. It's a chore itself, but I have found that it is quite worth it.

Now, I actually have a freakin' idea on how I'm going to carry out the rest of the novel, and specific chapters, instead of loosing interest a quarter of the way through it, and never finishing it, which has always been a problem for me. It's pretty cool, because now, when I have a question that about the history of a race, or a person, I can just open up the word document and read through, find what I need and continue to write. I never thought it would be so easy...

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omginternetlord

Not a lot, I think it's a good idea to just get going with something and build some momentum.

RomanticRose

I start with a very rudimentary plot plan -- beginning, ending, and 5-7 pivotal events that have to happen to make the plot go where I want it to go. From there I build my characters, very detailed, more like a psychological profile than a character worksheet. (Have to put that Master's Degree in Clinical Psych to work somehow!) Next is a basic timeline.

With all that in place, sitting down to do the actual writing is realtively easy.

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Noirllyn

Planning? Hard for me to say. When I get a story idea, I usually get the whole idea (beginning to end) with all of the major points stuck out, and usually a few details that I thought, "haha, that'd be great".

So, I don't really plan it, but I have a spontaneously occurring plan for most ideas.

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Ungood

I plan quite a bit.

Ungood.

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Katastrof

Ditto for me. When I get an idea in my head, I'll have most of the story already thought out, it's just the middle points and some areas of conflict that don't come to mind immediately. Also I never do character sketches because I believe that the way the character reacts to the situation of the story is more important than what their favorite color is...

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SilkFX

^^Thank you, Katastrof, for that insight. I've had the character chart template for the better part of a year but haven't used it because something about it just didn't feel right. You hit the nail on the head.

I plan as little as possible. Anything that comes after the draft is started is note-taking. I might obey my notes, or I might not.

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Remedy

I've gone both ways. The first few stories I did had long, drawn-out plans for each of the characters (in separate documents, of course; one was in a notebook). Ultimately, it didn't do much for me.

These days, I tend to just write as it comes to mind. I know my characters just on a general basis, and I don't need to spend a lot of time trying to decide how they would act or what they like or what they'd call something, ect. I'm that way with the plot too; I start out with something in mind, and if it changes, so be it. Sometimes I don't even have anything in mind, but just start writing.

With novels, really, I can go either way without too much of a problem. With short stories, however, I am absolutely screwed if I start thinking about planning my characters.

For example, the current apocalypse challenge for this site - I came up with two separate ideas that I really liked. And then I started thinking in depth about the characters - their motivations, their pasts, their feelings, jobs, ect -, and it just ruined it. I seriously spent an entire day trying to decide if one of the main characters should be white collared or blue collared, because white-collared seemed kind of cliched, but blue collared would be difficult to explain, and what motivation would reside there? How would he be able to compromise the world if he had a family he loved? How would he make contact anyway? Ect, ect. There was no way in the world that I was going to be able to stick to the word limit and feel like it was decent. So I ended up writing something completely different that, quite frankly, I'm not completely happy with, because I liked the original ideas a heck of a lot better.

rumpole40k

Some times everything is meticulously planned out to the last detail. Other times, I wing the whole thing, it just depends on my level of inspiration and how lazy my muse is on that particular day.

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