Planning your Fic

[alster08]

Most people plan fics but most people do it diffrently. Do you plan by chapters or you just set up characters and go from there. Share your ways of planing.

 

[Der_Neuevenmenschen]

I just make my crap up as I go along. I make a quick plan in my head and see how it turns out on paper, then I just come up with more stuff later on.

 

[White Len]

Set up the characters and see what they would do given a hypothetical scenario. And then turn hypothetical scenario into a chapter.

 

[Lugion]

I plan out trilogies. It's just a habit I have. I then write down major events in each story on a piece of paper, sort of like DVD "scenes".

 

[Gama]

I'm big on planning. When I write a fic I like to write out a long term plan of the whole thing. While I'm writing it, a lot tends to change, for instance, in the original draft of Rival's Story, the Scientist was barely in it but due to his popularity got like 3 recurrences.

 

[Kavidun]

I plan all of the chapters on word. For (Loading... Please Die.) I wrote it out in sets of 5 chapters, which has haunted me now due to writers block

 

[LightningTopaz]

For one shots, I take an idea and run with it. For longer works, magic powers often play a role, so I take a minute to draw up a spell list, magic items, and a detailed outline. Said outline is not set in stone, and can be added to, deleted from, or rearranged at any time

 

[revolvingscott]

I write it all out exactly. I'd start out with an idea and then I'd set it out on paper, then I'd plan out the plot and characters. Once I'm finished with that, I write a short synopsis of what happens in each chapter. Then, I go into more and more detail until each chapter has an A4 sheet worth of plans-ish. Then, it's straight into writing it all out properly.
Things do change during that process. For example: In my upcoming fic, there was never a planned Prologue but midway through writing the first Chapter, I realised that it would be a good idea to introduce it all with a prologue. Thus, I've written a prologue and am still writing Chapter 1. ^^

 

[Trouble]

Depends on how I'm feeling. For the Tales of Jonah that I'm writing now, I have a beginning, climax and ending planned, and all of the characters, but the details in between I'm figuring out as I go along.

 

[Kayi Rowling]

If it's a mostly original story, I start off with one scene involving the protagonist. From there, I begin building other characters, the story, the setting and its rules, generally in that order. Then, iterations are made. Lots of iterations, until I'm happy with all of it. Which would be kinda useful if I applied the same process to my software developing activities :XD2: Finally, I begin writing.

If it's only a fanfic, though, planning the ending generally gets me the best results for it to build itself as I go, because I'm too lazy to plan something that already has characters, a setting and rules to follow...

 

[Tigress]

I make it up as I go along. >.>

 

[Captain GIROG]

I do what Roald Dahl does. I get a random idea, then I think of how I could expand that. Field Research started as "What if two room mates joined Silver in an attempt to restart Team Rocket, and the older room mate had a cop for a girlfriend who tried to shut it down?".

Then Silver turned into Cammaren, who is either Silver's daughter or niece, Team Rocket turned into an independent team based on Team Rocket, the cop girlfriend was almost completely changed into Caitie, who kept the cop aspect as her former job and actually joined the team.

It also had Justin and Ken being poachers instead of researchers, having Justin start with a Larvitar, having Jared being Justin's brother, having Barnabas being a gym leader, et cetera, et cetera.

I basically start with a random idea and change it as I go along. It's fun how the story is always better than the original plan.

Except Barnabas being a gym leader only slightly changed... What?

 

[Gama]

I do what Roald Dahl does. I get a random idea, then I think of how I could expand that. Field Research started as "What if two room mates joined Silver in an attempt to restart Team Rocket, and the older room mate had a cop for a girlfriend who tried to shut it down?".

Then Silver turned into Cammaren, who is either Silver's daughter or niece, Team Rocket turned into an independent team based on Team Rocket, the cop girlfriend was almost completely changed into Caitie, who kept the cop aspect as her former job and actually joined the team.

It also had Justin and Ken being poachers instead of researchers, having Justin start with a Larvitar, having Jared being Justin's brother, having Barnabas being a gym leader, et cetera, et cetera.

I basically start with a random idea and change it as I go along. It's fun how the story is always better than the original plan.

Except Barnabas being a gym leader only slightly changed... What?

That sounds like quite a cool story, I might have to give Field Research a read.

This is a cool way of coming up with a plan, it is kind of like what I do too. Obviously with Rival's Story it was a bit different though because once I came up with the idea, it was actually a very structured story already because of how close to canon it goes.

That does sound like how I came up with Are We Heroes though. I first came up with the idea of a squad of four Pokemon trainers who all had different specialities. At first they were purely villains who went and terrorised people but that seemed a little boring so I made them into world police. But then that too seemed too simple so I added the moral qualms between Boss and Brains and that was how the story finally started to take shape.

 

[revolvingscott]

That sounds like quite a cool story, I might have to give Field Research a read.

This is a cool way of coming up with a plan, it is kind of like what I do too. Obviously with Rival's Story it was a bit different though because once I came up with the idea, it was actually a very structured story already because of how close to canon it goes.

That does sound like how I came up with Are We Heroes though. I first came up with the idea of a squad of four Pokemon trainers who all had different specialities. At first they were purely villains who went and terrorised people but that seemed a little boring so I made them into world police. But then that too seemed too simple so I added the moral qualms between Boss and Brains and that was how the story finally started to take shape.

You do realise that I am now going to demand I read this fic now, right?
GIMME THE FIC!

 

[Gama]

You do realise that I am now going to demand I read this fic now, right?
GIMME THE FIC!

Are you talking about Field Research or Are We Heroes?

Are We Heroes can be found in the Archives and there's a link to it in my signature =) - it's the one to the right of Rival's Story with a picture of a Super Nerd.

 

[Azure Butterfly]

I make stuff up randomly most of the time. AatMM2 is the only time I've actually planned it all out... and I'm not doing a very good job of keeping it in order. XD

 

[Legacy]

I think this is a great topic because I think planning out your fic (especially longer fics) is vital to its success and quality.

1. I start off with a rough idea of the characters - What kinds of details and personalities will my characters have and how will they interact with each other.

2. Create an outline of the plot - With TPI, the plot is a bit complicated at times, so I create an outline to try to plan our the pace of the plot and what events/parts to include in what chapter. THIS IS VITAL IMO.

3. Then it's easy to write - If you plan it out chapter by chapter, it's easy to focus just on the chapter you are currently writing.

 

[Flaze]

I just plan it out as I go along, mostly because I stink and planning ahead cause of the fact that I usually change what I thought at first to something else. That and if I plan stuff ahead I'll get so much anxiety that I won't be able to wait till I get to a park I really want to write and thus I get bored with the chapter I'm writing.

I do plan some stuff out but not all of it. Just enough to have something to fall on.

 

[Legacy]

Here are a few articles explaining why planning/outlines are important. They may or may not be helpful to people.

http://www.writing-world.com/fiction/outline2.shtml

http://www.writing-world.com/fiction/outline.shtml

http://www.writing-world.com/fiction/outlining.shtml

 

[Rakarei]

I have an end in mind before I start, and places I need to go, but other than that I just let the characters do what they do.