Forum: Author Hangout

I'm trying to plan! Really!

JoeBobMack 🚫

Working on the 6th book in my series. Ensemble stories. Really trying to plan more. Used a spread sheet. Color coded for various threads, tagged for others. Able to highlight various tags. 85 chapters planned. Over 11,000 words in the "synopsis" of the various cells. Estimated length of the story, 195,500 words. Decided I had done all the planning I could stand and had to start writing and... wrote an entirely unplanned first chapter. It just had to be.

Dang it! I generally know how the book is going to end, and that tends to hold. But, when I put myself into the moment of "what's next?", the characters and the story often demand something different than I planned. Sigh.

Does this happen to others?

Replies: Switch Blayde Grey Wolf

Switch Blayde 🚫

@JoeBobMack

the story often demand something different than I planned. Sigh.

Does this happen to others?

Yep. I know the basics, but not the detail. I let the story and characters lead me. The one time I tried doing a detail plan, it was boring to write the story and what I wrote was rather stilted (didn't get too far before abandoning it).

Grey Wolf 🚫

@JoeBobMack

I'm not a planner, but - to the extent that I plan - 'the best laid schemes o' mice 'n men gang aft aglay.'

I still have early notes indicating that two characters wind up in bed together by about 2/3 of the way through Book 1. To date: not yet.

My longer-term notes are usually okay, but planning? Doesn't work for me. To do it, I have to get so deeply into the characters' heads that I might as well be writing. If I not writing, I'm losing the bulk of the scene and by the time I write it, it will likely change.

Replies: JoeBobMack

JoeBobMack 🚫

@Grey Wolf

To do it, I have to get so deeply into the characters' heads that I might as well be writing.

Yup. That's me. I find my planning turns into writing, sometimes complete with dialogue!

Replies: Grey Wolf

Grey Wolf 🚫

@JoeBobMack

Definitely, not to mention characters having in-depth discussions at two in the morning when I should be asleep.

I have an entire opening section of a future (not connected to anything else) short-to-medium-length-story that's currently just in an email because the character decided to start telling her story at one in the morning, while I only had my phone.

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Forum: Author Hangout

I'm trying to plan! Really!

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