Where do you start planning?

sozme

sozme

Well-Known Member
Joined
Feb 24, 2013
Messages
200
I have had the idea of writing an expansive space opera at some point in the future for a few years now. As a result of long periods of rumination over the years, I've developed very general ideas about the conflict, characters, and setting, as well as more specific and detailed ideas about the finer points and themes.

I was just curious as to where you guys would suggest starting to put some of these ideas down on paper? In other words, would you start laying out the main conflict in detail or would you start outling some of the characters?

I'm a newbie when it comes to writing novel-length stores, and I have tried to do so in the past. Unfortunately I h,ave not had the best planning and outlining, which is why I abandoned many of these projects.
 
As you probably already know, there is no real formula to the craft. You're going to have to figure out what works best for you personally and go with that.

I'd suggest just start writing it and spit out a first draft. That's usually what I do to get an idea going, after that I sometimes jot down a rough outline of events and see if rearranging them helps the story flow better. But, in the words of Harlan Ellison (and many others) "Writers write."
 
I'd suggest you start with Chapter One.

I'd say to start with the prologue, if you have one, but I've found, personally, that starting there tends to result in my having five prologues and no Chapter One.

(Not much of a planner, here. My planning consists of planning to sit down and write something one of these days.)

:D
 
Interesting responses... I guess I expected more people to say they developed a series of notebooks on conflict, character sheets, etc. I guess an over obsession with planning could bog you down in details that can be figured out later, and then you never end up writing. As someone with clinical OCD (and obsession to detail), I've always worried that I'd spend far too much time planning than actually getting down to the writing.
 
you say you have been thinking things through for awhile now that's great, go away and write chapter one then check your notes, then if alls ok do chapter two:p
 
You don't even need to start with chapter 1. Pick a scene you see as being important, preferably something exciting that will make you need to carry on. It doesn't have to be anywhere near the start, see where it goes and what happens, how a couple of characters act, then start to build a storyboard around it.

I guess everyone is very different on how they work. I work with a co-writer for the main work in progress so it works very differently, but we started with a handful of scenes and worked up a basic storyboard (which has seen several incarnations now and doesn't much resemble our first board lol).
 
I've been watching videos all day about writing, and plotting etc. One of the things i see commonly done is begin with the Ending (or resolution), or final conflict. I'm sure even some pantsers, or gardeners, or discoverers do this to a small degree.

This series helped me work a lot out, and I think it's only fair to share.

Dan Wells on Story Structure, part 1 of 5 - YouTube

Another, which is a much longer series, but also interesting. This is just the intro, and i enjoy watching it (makes me feel like i'm really there, or maybe that's just me...?)

Brandon Sanderson Lecture 1: Ideas are cheap (2/5) - YouTube

But as everyone else has said, every writer has their own techniques, rules and processes. You've just got to work out which works best for you.
 
Had an idea for what was supposed to be a minor character in a super hero story. Did nothing with her for about twenty years.

Read an article in the newspaper about the Special Operations Group (our equivalent of the U.S. S.W.A.T. teams) testifying in court with their identities concealed. Wondered if that could be applied to super heroes.

Wrote what was supposed to be a short story, with that almost-forgotten super hero from twenty years ago being cross-examined.

That short story is now about chapter 22 in a novel that's rapidly expanding to become at least a trilogy, if not a longer series. Every idea seems to spawn a dozen more ideas.

Anyway, that's my "planning" process. :)
 
If you're having trouble deciding where to start a plan or outline, why not pick a random something that's interesting (whether it's a particular character, a key moment in the conflict, an important piece of tech) and when you come to points in the planning that can branch off (say you went with tech, and in the planning you mention the inventor, or examples of 'real world' use), you follow those branches and start planning the new branch?

Of course, this approach can get quite huge pretty quickly (everything in worldbuilding is going to be connected - heck, in the first planning paragraph/handful of bullet points, you might find half a dozen branch points), so you could impose limitations on your planning session - for example, tell yourself that you won't go more than three levels of separation from your original topic (piece of tech -to- real world use in a conflict -to- background of that conflict -to-[/to] important figure in the conflict), and every time you exhaust a branch, go back up to the parent branch and continue with that one (thus ensuring that you don't cut a branch in the middle of planning it).

Next time you want a planning session, pick one of the terminating branches you told yourself you couldn't go deeper from, and work on the new branches that sprout from it.

Think of it like reading Wikipedia - you find an interesting page, and halfway down you feel compelled to click a blue link. Than halfway down that new page, you feel compelled to click another blue link. Before you know it, you've somehow travelled from Minbari to Hayes command set and the sun has disappeared behind a far off hill.


This, of course, is my preferred method. I sometimes feel worried that if I spend too much time on one thing, then all the ideas I get as I plan are going to disappear before I get round to them, so flitting from one thing to another as the inspiration strikes keeps me happy. I like to think that it will give anything I build a realistic narrative (pick anyone thing from our real world and you'll be able to trace it backwards and, depending on its age, forwards. Nothing just appears from thin air)!
 
Hi Sozme

I remember writing my first book and like you had a general idea of where I wanted it to go and what I wanted to happen. Like you it took a while before I knew how to take the plunge, it being important to hook the reader and all. In the end I thought of a really emotive scene, tension building, something happening that sets the book up, immersed myself in the feeling and began to write.

First draft was pants, but it definitely got me on my way. What it did was connect me on a very personal level with what I was writing, and that sort off held up through the rest of the book.

I know it probably sounds obvious to those on here that are experienced writers, but when you’re making your first attempt nothing is obvious.

Hope that helps.

Mark
 
Planning is desirable, and there are plenty of people who will tell you how to plan. It might save a lot of rewriting.
But many writers are unable to work in that way.
You will not necessarily know which camp you are in until you try.
If trying to plan isn't doing it for you, start writing at the most interesting scene and see what happens.
If it's still not happening, maybe it's just not the right time for you, or the right set of ideas. There was a time when I spent ages thinking that I ought to write, but could not think of a single useful idea. If you were not doing the space opera, what would you like to write? What would be fun?
Characters are key.
 
I like to write out character descriptions first, and a rough description of plot and setting. That gets me started, although I usually change half of it or add to it once I've started writing the story. But I find planning out the background etc on paper first gives me a base to jump off from.

Try a couple of different exercises to see what gets things flowing. One suggestion I've heard is to write a page of description of each main character from their POV, as if they're describing themselves, to get a feel for their voice (I tried it once, was a fun exercise).
 
I would say it's always good to have a plan. But if this is your first work and the first real world building then I think you might want to concentrate on making a world that is consistent within itself that intersects with a very good story and see where that goes both for you and the reader.

On the other hand if you are certain you are going to write for yourself then a plan would be great. I certainly would have loved to be a fly on the wall in David Weber's creative environment at the beginning of the Honor Harrington series-

It seems that game builders are great world builders and you might try modeling your notes as though you were creating this large mmorpg with all it's rules and such.

I would get busy writing with a note book handy-electronic or paper-and keep track of things as they come up and divert off to research when necessary. Set the rules in whatever way is best for you and just remember to be consistent and after a while you will have your writing as a reference.
 
The way I've decided I'm doing it is: Work out the structure for the main plot thread. Turn each of the points into scenes. I then look at possible secondary and tertiary plot threads, and work out their structure. Again turning each point into scenes. If the scene is standalone, I'll see where it fits along my plot-line on the wall, if it's going to be a part of another scene, then I see how I can merge the two scenes together.

With that, I slowly put on the layers and fill in the gaps. The structure, Central conflict and characters involved are the only planning I do. Even with that, it's minimal. In terms of Characters, i just work out their name and physical description. After that, I write at the seat of my pants and see where the story ends up taking me.
 
I've tried to plan, but it didn't work for me, it just slowed me down even more. So now the story goes straight from my head to first draft. I take some sparse notes as I write, but mostly I just write. When I skip forward I tend to insert placeholders for the missing parts, such as empty chapters with just a title or one-sentence scene descriptions. That's the only planning I do.

I know where the story is headed, of course. Writing without knowing the end is like going on a journey without a destination. Also, it's important to have a clear understanding of what the characters are like. This will determine their actions.

It will be interesting to see how much I'll need to restructure when I reach the end. Probably not that much, considering I'm doing that already as I write. I've decided not to cut out any chapters or scenes before I have a complete story, except for that one scene which I really have no use for.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Thread starter Similar threads Forum Replies Date
chongjasmine Where should I start? David Eddings 6
Dragonlady how to work out where to start and cut your scene Writing Discussion 11
redzwritez Where do chapters start and end? Writing Discussion 11
S Never had anything published, where to start? Publishing 4
R Where to start? Battlestar Galactica 2

Similar threads


Back
Top