Do you plan your stories?

by Sara Newnes
26th May 2014

Do you plan what's going to happen in your stories before you start or do they tend to write themselves once you begin? If you plan, how strictly do you stick to your plan?

I tend to just start writing and then go back and change bits around if they don't fit, but just wondering if it's easier to dedicate time to planning the story first.

Replies

Usually a scene or a bit of dialogue floats into my head and I then build around it. The story I'm on-off working on started with a random fragment from halfway through the book. Generally speaking, once I've got a few pieces like that down then I start to plan out a story based on those fragments- first of all basic, and then becoming more detailed. I plan out places, people, objects etc and file them and so on, and I write out a synopsis for the whole thing.

George R. R. Martin (who wrote Game of Thrones) started writing the books without any planning, when he had the idea for the beheading right at the beginning and the discovery of the dead direwolf. It might be a good idea to have a bit of structure to your planning, but don't forget that by making it too structured you might miss out on some really good ideas.

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Abigail
Wells
270 points
Developing your craft
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Abigail Wells
26/05/2014