Story Pre-Planning And Brainstorming

ChrisFox · Has No Life Joined: 31 Dec 1969 Posts: 637

Though they may seem tedious and boring, pre-planning and brainstorming are essential in writing a decent story. You have to know who your characters are, where you want them to end up, and how you want them to get there. What I want to know is, how many of you actually sit down and map out the story before writing it, and how many just start writing off the fly from the beginning and just go where the story supposedly will take you?

Every case of the second scenario that I've seen/written has ended in failure. The author runs out of steam, becomes hopelessly stuck for ideas and then tosses the story out on the pile of unfinished misfits. Those lucky few stories that were started without any kind of prethought that do make it to the finished pile end up being plothole-ridden and just all around--poorly thought out. More authors I know have become bald ripping out their hair in frustraion because of writers block, and the only cure that I've found is planning, and overplanning, ahead of time.

If you do map out your stories beforehand, how do you go about it?
If not, how come? And what, if any, methods have you tried in the past?
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Rindi_chan · Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2005 1:55 am Post subject:

Mhm, that's a tough one to answer. I haven't written a story in a very very long time. I didn't plan my early stories because they were based off of daydreams that developed as I went along (I was a sad kid in middle school with no friends XD). And yes, you're right. I never finished those stories because I got bored. They just kind of trailed off...

The only story that I've ever completed was a short story that I had to do for an English class in high school. We were given free reign, so it was a lot less structured than the stuff I usually had to write for school. It came out fairly well because I outlined the basic idea before hand and knew how I wanted the story to end. Unfortunately, it was a bit rushed because I had a deadline to meet, so there were plenty of plotholes and silliness. It's actually salvageable though - I think I could rewrite it if I actually wanted to, and not have it be too horrible.

A few years ago, I decided to go and rewrite one of my oldest story attempts, only with a much more fleshed out world and background. I'm much more satisfied with it now, but I only have a starting outline... I haven't worked on the actual storyline itself. I probably won't ever go back to it either, but at least I feel like I've redeemed it somewhat, as the motives for my characters finally have meaning.

A good story can't be written without some serious planning. Take a look at the Harry Potter books - tiny details end up becoming quite significant in the end. You can't get all that without planning anything out.

I was actually thinking of scribbling up a small piece of fanfic the other day, and I'm still thinking through the details. I haven't written 'for real' in ages, and I'm not sure that I want to go through with it. If anything does happen, I'm defintely going to plan it all out first so that it doesn't sound stupid - my basic method for writing is to think, outline, and then write. Supplemented by lots and lots of editing along the way. ^^ As long as the story doesn't get too long, it should be doable. I hope.

I think this recent desire to write was inspired by all of the... less than excellent fanfics that I've skimmed through on FAC. Something tells me, "Heck, I can do better than that." Laughing

dannyrog · Newb Joined: 19 Jun 2005 Posts: 23

When i write i use the typical characters and setting which need no planning- moody hero, naive childish friend, mary-sue who's realy annoying ect and build up the personility as i go, giving reasons for why thier like that- hero is moody because he's unmotivated and doesnt want to face his past, friend is childish because he hated his family, ran away from home and ended up with a group of people his age, mary-sue type is annoying because she's immature and used to not following the rules. i just add the details so they make the characters seem to evolve with the story. Setting for me is not very important, so i leave out the unnesisary details and let the reader form an image.

ChrisFox · Has No Life Joined: 31 Dec 1969 Posts: 637

Setting not important? WTF?

Have you found that using that formula, your stories become somewhat repetative?
_________________
"I've got a sticky Darodo!"
"You might want to see a doctor about that."
[img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v245/kaymando/gandyhands.jpg[/img]

Captain_Hook · Very bored Joined: 28 Jun 2005 Posts: 217

I normally pre-plan on all of my stories. I only brainstorm when I have no idea what to write about. It really helps because when you plan, you know exactly what you're going to be writing in the story/play/etc and you don't get confused or pressured to think up something halfway through. That is, if any of that made sense...

ChrisFox · Has No Life Joined: 31 Dec 1969 Posts: 637

I'm going to take this to mean the majority don't.
_________________
"I've got a sticky Darodo!"
"You might want to see a doctor about that."
[img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v245/kaymando/gandyhands.jpg[/img]

dannyrog · Newb Joined: 19 Jun 2005 Posts: 23

my storys rarely do get repetative, and i ment by setting unimportant my characters travel a lot so the setting is less important because there only there for a short while.

Captain_Hook · Very bored Joined: 28 Jun 2005 Posts: 217

[quote="dannyrog (daniel)"] my storys rarely do get repetative, and i ment by setting unimportant my characters travel a lot so the setting is less important because there only there for a short while. [/quote]
:huh: But don't you ever get confused by the plot if you don't preplan? :huh:

Fyori · Newb Joined: 26 Jul 2005 Posts: 8

Mine's probably a weird case; whenever I plan out my stories, I mean REALLY figure everything out, I just end up not finishing it. I think it's because I think the ideas I came up with are too great (wow, that sounded really pretentious) and I can't find the right way to express them. So I end up getting discouraged and giving up.

Then again, when I DON'T plan it out, I end up getting discouraged anyway. Ha.

I was wondering, though, how do you guys plan out your stories and/or fanfics? For me, I either plan it out in my head and then write it down or I discuss it with one of my friends.

Does anyone have any other methods?

Veilius · Byte me Joined: 06 Feb 2005 Posts: 256

Veilius · Byte me Joined: 06 Feb 2005 Posts: 256

Captain_Hook · Very bored Joined: 28 Jun 2005 Posts: 217

[quote="Veilius ()"] I realized there are better ways of going about writing stories, so I began thoroughly planning ahead of time... but I haven't written more than a few paragraphs of story since I first began using this method, and that has been several years. The thing is I plan and plan and plan, and it takes a really long time, and by the time I make significant progress I realize there is unfixable badness about the idea or its execution and I discard it or start from scratch. [/quote]
I know exactly what you mean. I tried thoroughly planning a story once and although I wrote 17 pages, I kind of ended up completely giving up although I'd done research and planning and printed out pictures for it. It sucks when you can't get it right, doesn't it?