As an author, how do you plan out your stories?

[DubstheDuke]

Do you plan an overarching plot, and fill in the details as you go?
Do you try to plan out a set of big scenes, and build up to them?
Do you just write one chapter at a time, and see where it takes you?

At one point or another in my writing career, I've written using all of these types of planning.

My personal best planned arc was one where there were many seemingly disconnected stories, which all came together at the end for a large arc with many planned out scenes and plotlines.

But how about ya'll?

 

[DDTStudios]

I plan out the beginning and the end and fill in the middle with all my fluff and world building. Since all my worlds are connected they essentially have a similar ending. And Yes, I do do my research before writting.

 

[TRNRLogan]

I have an idea for what i want to happen in the beginning middle and end. Then i plan out a whole bunch of chapters with a barebones summary. I don't plan out all the details and merely figure those out as i go.

For instance the story I'm writing write now (still in world building phase) is a dungeon core story. The beginning is setting up the first 10 floors. The middle is growing strength and establishing working relationships with 2 countries. The end is a war. I've written the barebones summary for at least 10 chapters so far (don't know length yet so that's a VERY conservative number).

 

[Moctemma]

I have an overall plot with a "clear" ending, but it's based on scenes that came to my mind. Every time a new scene pops up in my head I write it and start expanding the plot based on the requirements for the scene to happen.
When most of it is ready I organize it and remove the unnecessary things. I write one chapter at a time knowing what will happen and how it'll end, filling the details as I go to reach the scenes I had in mind; the plot constantly evolves, but the ending is the same.

At some point I throw everything out the window, except the ending and some characters. For example, my character Sophia was planned as a second character, an unlikable one, but she's one of the protagonist now. Another is the romantic interest, I needed a character for my protagonists to fall in love with, and I discovered I already had one with all the requirements. The most drastic one; when I resolved all the details of the relationship of the main characters, I found one of them would die as planned in the beginning of my story; it changed the story so much it'll end in 8 more chapters
I also changed the main villain, it's a character who wasn't planned and I just added her in the heat of the moment. You could say I let the story write itself, because I seriously thought the story would last 2 years and had more than fifty chapters, bit it'll end in two months with 21 chapters

 

[pynkbites]

I don't. The characters write themselves.

 

[JayDirex]

This is not a mystery bro. It's not magic, The answer is THE THREE ACT STRUCTURE. The 3 act structure was used by ANCIENT GREEK PLAYWRIGHTS and is used by EVERY SCREENWRITER IN HOLLYWOOD AND ON THE PLANET EARTH TO THIS DAY why? BECAUSE IT WORKS. I wish more young novelist would actually apply structure to their work, but they all resist because they all love writing neverending stories to nowhere where characters meander around pointlessly until the author gets bored and stops writing -_- (shakes my fist, " you kids today, I guarantee if you all put structure in your writing you'd actually finish your novels."

THE THREE ACT STRUCTURE- YOUTUBE

THE THREE ACT STRUCTURE EXPLAINED FOR NOVELS

use it! it works.

@DubstheDuke

 

[Khiricastares]

Concept. Then ending. Rest is optional. Then wing it.

 

[Nanakawaichan]

The beginning - plot - ending. Done. The rest is depend on the mc personality.

 

[DDTStudios]

Well my stories are more in Chinese/Korean webnovel formats so it’s a bit different that the typical European/American style story writing. I mainly approximate how long my stories are going to be (around 200-250 Chapters)

 

[MajorKerina]

Wait...wait...you're telling me we're supposed to plan? Oh...shi---

How i go about it
Compelling idea - Hey, what if a girl walked home and found her family believed she was someone else? Hey, what if a high school was turned into a live JRPG? What if I wrote Inktober as stories instead of drawings? What if we had modern mages and fairies instead of doctors and scientists? Etc.

What characters experience it and how?
What is the result of the setup?
What happens then?
How does it all go together?
How does it end?
If I get all those elements with some confidence then I start writing something.

 

[AliceShiki]

Planning? What is that? Is it tasty?

Jokes aside, I really only plan the beginning and the end, everything else is winged~

 

[ForestDweller]

Do you plan an overarching plot, and fill in the details as you go?

This, mostly. I do have a couple of scenes that must happen in my mind.

 

[K5Rakitan]

I write in a paper notebook with a few notes on the side and hope for the best.

 

[gaylolis]

most of my planning went to the concept.

i want the kind of story where i could screw up however i want and it's still be friggin' fun shit. no need to worry 'bout plot holes whatnot.

i will usually write the first chapter on a whim, and plan the continuation from that. all in all, it mostly depends on my mood. i will go with what's most fulfilling and fun for myself.

 

[DubstheDuke]

I can still make tweaks and changes to the story, and even completely re-approach how my characters act and think in ways I didn't initially expect, because all I have set out is the general plot points.

Indeed. For my story as well, there have been some things that I planned to happen initially, which I ended up completely changing just because of how things progressed. For example, there were a couple of characters who were originally supposed to die in the end, but I ended up liking them so much as I wrote them that I changed the narrative so that they wouldn't.

 

[BenJepheneT]

It may differ for everyone but since my stories are character focused, my whole plot and whatnot are based upon the main character's arc. There's usually a theme in the character arc and I base the whole story around that theme, playing with different perspectives and viewpoints, letting the character advance in his/her arc until they reach the end, whereby the story would end there.

I hate pulling stories beyond the intended goal. After I've finished a story, I want it to stay finished. I don't want it to die out in a sick whimper like Bleach or Boruto (hasn't ended but let's be honest, it should've). I make a general skeleton and have it stay that way.

 

[GhostlyArtz]

I create a character and then kill the character.
And then move backwards in why the character died. What were they trying to do? Why were they trying to do that? Did they get any help? Are there any iconic scenes that I want to create? (The last point actually created another character haha)
Then, start moving into the world, if this then this. What would create a world that would cause such and such to happen?
For my actual story I ended up combining three separate story and kept a few important bits and the characters and used it to reinforce the end story. Eventually, crafted an over arching plot, but a lot of sup-plots for the characters since my story is character driven rather than plot driven. (Also, I sometimes decide not to kill the character. Sometimes. I'm very blood thirsty when it comes to my children though haha)

I keep little random notes for everything and keep a lot of it locked away in my head because it still needs some tweaking. Once I have a confident idea of where it's going I write little cliff notes of plot points- for my current story I wrote a paragraph per chapter so I know what plot points are getting developed where but since my chapters are 5k words long and I only have a paragraph of rambles, I have a lot of wiggle room and I also can't get too far from the plot as long as I hit up the specific details in my plot points.

 

[D4isuke]

I write through immersion of the characters, then I jut down some essential details for the worldbuilding, but first, I have to set up the conflict.

I don't plan to write a world, I only write a story itself.