How do you plan?

[Dragonlady]

I'm traditionally quite a pantser, but trying to have a go at planning a project, and wondered what that looks like for people who have done it successfully. How much detail do you plan in? How do you make decisions, and how much research do you do first? When do you start writing prose? I know everyone's answer will be different, but I thought it would be interesting.

Also, if you are busy doing planning, researching or editing, do you do other writing to keep your hand in with actual writing prose?

 

[ColGray]

Pantser here, though with aspirations for being a bit more of a planner.

I think it's important to call out why I'm a pantser: i like to find the magic on the page as the story unfolds and i've been unable to capture it when I outline or plan too much. Part of this is that I like the act of writing--and thinking about the thing, and planning how I'll do the thing and what I'll do when I do the thing, isn't doing the thing. (In my brain )

What Hasn't Worked For Me

I've tried a foolscap method and found it didn't work for me -- it was limiting, though I maybe tried to push through it too quickly?

I've tried outlining at a basic level -- Chapters A-B must accomplish __, __ & __, and end with the characters at X location. Chapters C-D must accomplish ... This was better -- loose, but with some structure. I followed it for a bit.

I've tried hardcore outlining -- Chapter 1: X happens, emotional state goes from A to G and they do THIS. Didn't work for me.

I've tried Story Grid, which is kind of Foolscap + scene by scene outlining. Hardcore did not work for me--though helpful for editing.

What Works for Me
Pixar Outline: Once upon a time there was ___. Every day, ___. One day ___. Because of that, ___. Because of that, ___. Until finally ___.
It's broad strokes but also not 2 word answers. Sometimes each answer is four or five sentences and it's a 3 act structure and major story beats in a tight format that gives me a lot, directionally, while allowing me to find the story on the page.

Tracking
I track everything -- as I write. I have a separate document with breakouts to track literally anything that's important to the story so I don't have to remember it/search for it later. This includes everything from place names to historical events to terms to clothing and eye color.

This document rules my writing. Nothing exists until it is on the page, and once it is on the page, it exists and has always existed.

 

[Culhwch]

I'm not a planner either, so I'm not sure how helpful my response will be - though I am interested to keep up with this thread for ideas.

Having said I'm not a planner, I have recently found myself at the end of one novel, with three ideas in front of me for my next project, none of which had a plan beyond a vague idea of what the story might be - until just recently I was seized by inspiration and wrote out a fairly long and fleshed-out (for me) synopsis of one of the three. And not the one I was intending to work on, helpfully. So I have decisions to make

Tracking
I track everything -- as I write. I have a separate document with breakouts to track literally anything that's important to the story so I don't have to remember it/search for it later. This includes everything from place names to historical events to terms to clothing and eye color.

This document rules my writing. Nothing exists until it is on the page, and once it is on the page, it exists and has always existed.

I'm in the midst of a continuity edit on my finished (ha) project and very much wish I'd done this as I wrote. I kind of did, but it was a bit sketchy. Currently using Campfire to bring everything together, and work on new projects. It's okay, but I wish it did a lot of things better than it does.

 

[Laura R Hepworth]

Also pantser here only I have no aspirations of ever being a plotter or even a plantser though I do admire those that can; it's just something that, having tried, doesn't work for me. I don't know what methods you might be using as you write and, maybe you already do this, but something I've found helpful is to keep a notes file for each book I'm working on (as well as a writing journal for when I'm not able to be at my laptop to access the notes file). In it I'll jot down any ideas I've had for the story from character names to even whole scene snippets that I don't yet have a place for, but I'll also write down all manner of brainstorming questions and possible ideas to explore. I might write down multiple different plot directions where I could take things and then see where things actually lead while I'm writing, as well as, write down areas that I still need to solve along with possible ways to do so. I might use those ideas or I might not, but just the act of writing them down can help get the ideas churning to find the one that ultimately fits. Basically, I make notes for anything that can help direct my thoughts as I write and then just follow where the story and characters lead as I'm writing. I think it's what some places I've read refer to as not just being a pantser, but also as an intuitive writer.

As for research, I don't necessarily know what I'm going to need to research until I get there so I research as I write. If there is some preliminary research that I need to do to even just get started, I'll do just enough to get me going so I can start actually writing and then research everything else as I come to it.

As I write, I also edit. I don't really do the whole 'draft' thing. Every time I sit down to work on one of my stories, I'll reread, at the very least, everything that was written the last time I worked on it, often times though, rereading even several chapters worth before I write anything new. It helps me to reimmerse into the story so that it's easier for me to just pick up and keep writing, but it also helps me catch things I might want to change (or need to change in the case of typos) or places where I may need to flesh things out a little more (maybe there's too big a block of dialogue, but not enough action, description, etc.). As ideas come to me, I'm also constantly going back to make any necessary adjustments to make those new ideas work (maybe I need to drop some hints earlier in the story so that a plot twist doesn't feel completely out of the blue). I'll make the adjustments right then rather than wait until I finish writing everything. Why? Well, 1) I might not remember what I needed to adjust if I wait until the end, and 2) I will be unable to focus on anything else until I take care of it. As a result, my 'first' draft is pretty much my only draft having been edited and revised the whole way through and just needing that last polish from a fresh pair of eyes to make it completely ready.

Another thing I do that has little to do with plotting, but has been helpful for other things is that I keep spreadsheets for information that I might want to make a quick reference to later for something. For example, for my high fantasy, fairy tale retelling series I'm working on I've kept a spreadsheet of all my kingdom names so I could refer back to it while making my maps, but it's also come in for general reference as I'm now writing the second book. For that same series, I've also kept a spreadsheet for creatures and plants that I've come up with for it both for reuse as I'm writing, but also so I can have the fun of creating artwork of them down the road. As new things pop up that I want to organize better for easy referral back to I'll make a new spreadsheet and start tracking that info too.

Not sure how helpful any of this is to you as I'm not a plotter, but hopefully there's something in there that you find useful.

 

[Steve Harrison]

As @Laura R Hepworth appears to have completely stolen my writing methods , I'll just add a couple of things.

I start a novel when I have a beginning (which might change), a few major scenes or plot points and an ending, so I can write from one to the next and maintain direction. I don't have characters at that start point or know what will be between those elements.

During the writing, lots of new incidents and details pop into my head well before I need them so I keep a running set of notes in red at the bottom of the manuscript. At any given time I have between five and ten reminder words of sentences sitting there and I read through them prior to a writing session to keep them in mind. And I delete them when used. And if not used when I reach the point I thought I would need them, I leave them there, as invariably later on I'll remember why I came up with that point and go back to add.

It's not exactly an outline, but I find that if I don't write them down in this way I'm tempted to take short cuts so I can use them.

 

[Biskit]

Another dedicated pantser, but I currently find myself doing a bit of "after-incident report" planning. The current WIP is complex, with four threads that do interweave, and I was doing all that on the fly, in my head, etc, until it all went off the rails. My current, planning-related issue is that I am on the final book of the series, everything has to come together, and at some point when writing the opening few dozen chapters, I got a lot of things in a mess. Realistically, I was still finding my way around the finale, floundering to find out exactly what story I was writing, and the pantsing left me with too many inconsistencies to ignore until later (characters appearing for the first time more than once, major characters arguing about something that hasn't happened yet...).

So, I am planning. Sort of. I have an as-yet incomplete flow-chart of the chapters that I have written, along with where threads intersect, and a few notes to keep tricky details straight like a character doing a dance of triumph on being released from prison three chapters before it happens.

The plan is not really a plan, but more a record of what I've done, and periodically I do the really boring thing of adding recently written chapters to the chart. As of now, that boring stuff has become a priority, because I have a major event that impacts multiple threads, and I need to make sure it does so at a meaningful point in each part of the narrative. (Or, more honestly, I'm pretty sure I've messed it up in one thread, and I really ought to get that straight before I write much more, but it's too convoluted to do in my head***.)

The thing that stands out most about the pretend-planning is that after I had done the flow chart for the two tricky threads that interweave closely at the start before diverging, it was obvious that there were serious inconsistencies. As a consequence of that, I started a whole new version of the flow chart and called it "what should really happen" as opposed to the garbage I'd written. I then discovered that my new plan was also garbage. The third iteration of that flow chart became a merging of "what should" with "what's already written", and somehow that morphed into something that did work, and guided some moderately savage editing and fixing.

Like @ColGray, I've dipped my toe in the proper planning waters a few times over the years, and it has never gone well. This business of keeping track of what I've done, and being able to see where things are gong astray, is working for me, so far, and so is the most successful planning I've ever done.

*** It may be that my head is getting too old.

Also, if you are busy doing planning, researching or editing, do you do other writing to keep your hand in with actual writing prose?

So, technically, I'm not doing proper planning, but while I've been doing it, I did write a 100% pantsed 20k novella thing last week. It made me feel better about the mind-numbing slog of updating that flow chart.

 

[ZroSkeerd]

I've always been very much a pantser. Ideas seem to come easier while I'm actively writing prose.
With that being said, I've also tried very hard to be a planner for a long time because I like the idea of an organized approach and I feel it would help me with continuity and the like. So I would sit down with every intention of outlining the entire story before I set down any prose, and every time I would give up because I just got overwhelmed. My goal was maybe a paragraph per chapter - where it is, who the players are, basic action, etc. - but I could never commit to it long-term. I would get ideas for later, things I should change earlier in the plot, scenes or lines that have no real place with what I've got so far so now I have to work to make them fit.
I know I'm rambling at this point but that's the way my brain would work. It would just be too much to try and lay it all out in some kind of organized fashion.
What's been helping me lately is short-term planning. For my current WIP, I'm trying to map out just a few chapters at a time, then write those chapters, then back to the outline. So far I'm pretty comfortable with that. I still keep my notebook for random lines or ideas that pop in my head, but I'm only going ahead a few chapters so I don't feel as much pressure to twist things around to make them fit.
I don't know if that's any help to you at all, but I hope somewhere in my rambling I made some kind of sense.

 

[ColGray]

The thing that stands out most about the pretend-planning is that after I had done the flow chart for the two tricky threads that interweave closely at the start before diverging, it was obvious that there were serious inconsistencies. As a consequence of that, I started a whole new version of the flow chart and called it "what should really happen" as opposed to the garbage I'd written. I then discovered that my new plan was also garbage. The third iteration of that flow chart became a merging of "what should" with "what's already written", and somehow that morphed into something that did work, and guided some moderately savage editing and fixing.

Oh, i like the flow chart idea. It focuses on story beats and events, not, and then they say this and it upsets CharB so they leave and CharD enters, etc.

@ZroSkeerd yep, same. I both create and solve interesting problems by putting my fingers on the keys and typing. Some of them get flushed and I've written myself into a corner a few times, but never to the point where I had to dump something significant and never where I had to dump something that I thought was better than the solution.

 

[Oligonicella]

As I've noted here before, it looks like I'm the most rigid planner but the rigidity differs with scale. My shorts, although related to everything else, are only planned insofar as I know the message, character list and scene. Those are rarely over ten or so pages yet there's a crap-load of them and they all have gravity.

Some people write unrelated tales, I wound up with a little universe so it's like the three Spiderman meme but with more people and everybody's using all their fingers. Since they all 'have' to relate, I keep track of things with a database tool. It's scalable and malleable, so most any detail can link up. I described them on another thread but I've attached an example. A story idea can readily spawn a fairly busy flow right off the bat but I have one story that started with one bubble.

So rigid but not diamond. Things happen that make me adjust story flows that haven't hit print yet. My very favorite secondary character was meant to be a one-off cutesy thing who, in short order, took over that story's focus and actually usurped the character I had envisioned as top female lead. It didn't happen all at once but (it felt like) the things Voos did influenced the flows enough to force the result. Not like I fought it tooth and nail like Sala did. I'd still call it rigid because of the time frames though.

I write dialog and scenes shot gun as I think of each bubble (or whenever) then tie them together later, rearranging if necessary and once 'what happens' is set, I start at pg1 and go through again and again adjusting time frames, scenes and dialog. I try to vocalize everything at least once.

As for detail, except for Voos there, I write bios for each character that has any significance past a paragraph mention. Sometimes before I introduce them but at minimum right after. Phersuna was inspired by my misreading a sign that said "Checks Cashed" as "Cash Checked" and Phera became a bank teller that checked for conjured cash. She grew from there but before that introduction was done I knew what she was going to be doing and had inserted bubbles in various flows where I needed place markers. Voos was different because she's puki and I had to sort of watch her display the characteristics that make for puki.

Mind you, I knew I was playing with a fuse leading to nitro worth of detail, so a question you might consider is, how much world building do you want to do?

 

[Righmath]

I'm traditionally quite a pantser, but trying to have a go at planning a project, and wondered what that looks like for people who have done it successfully. How much detail do you plan in? How do you make decisions, and how much research do you do first? When do you start writing prose? I know everyone's answer will be different, but I thought it would be interesting.

Also, if you are busy doing planning, researching or editing, do you do other writing to keep your hand in with actual writing prose?

Somewhat of a planner and pantser here. Whilst the methods listed above are very useful (also, I wish I used tracking - genius!) I tend to respond better when I plan a visual route. I find that drawing a timeline of events through a chart helps get my creativity going. I'll mark the major feats of the story (beginning, middle and end) with side segments/events leading up to each of these.

However the biggest component which helped bring my story to life, and what I might suggest could help you, is to create the map where the story is told. It was the first document I compiled, knowing perhaps where I would want significant places to be positioned helped me imagine how characters would achieve this and what struggles they could face. It also help create characters, knowing what they might look like, being from certain places helped my create their back story.

Let me know if that helps, I can take a look at it too if you like!

 

[Wayne Mack]

This links to an outline created by Brandon Sanderson, "Skyward Outline" near the bottom of the page.

 

[The Judge]

This thread might throw up some ideas to help with your planning What Does a Novel Plan Look Like?

 

[Phyrebrat]

I'm traditionally quite a pantser, but trying to have a go at planning a project, and wondered what that looks like for people who have done it successfully. How much detail do you plan in? How do you make decisions, and how much research do you do first? When do you start writing prose? I know everyone's answer will be different, but I thought it would be interesting.

Also, if you are busy doing planning, researching or editing, do you do other writing to keep your hand in with actual writing prose?

Good question! Although, sadly all you'll get is us telling us about our own practice!

The only thing that works for you is what works for you. I have traditionally been a discovery writer, too, but it wasn't until an ADD/ADHD referral two years ago that I had a bit more context of how I work. So, for me, there has to be a dopamine excitement 'reward'. After plotting my magum opus A Sour Ground when I got to version ten of a rewrite (nb, not a redraft, a rewrite) back in 2018 or earlier, I realised it'd got away from me.

I began to write it and lasted maybe a week (if that), because the joy of discovering the story had gone. Thus it's remained trunked/unfinished.

I tend to just start with a tone or an idea or something else nebulous that grabs my attention, and go from there.

I'd recommned Zen and the Art of Writing by Ray Bradbury. It's a collection of non-presciptive essays on the wider influences on writing; basically have a life. Whilst more philosophical than Stephen King's nuts n bolts approach to writing in his memoir On Writing, I've found it has given me more help; my skills as a writer have needed feeding in the creativity zone rather than the technique and rules zone. I also find a lot of permission-asking here on Chrons from newer writers (I used to do this myself) and Ray Bradbury has given me the knowledge that everything is permitted.

I don't know if this helps you, but for me I like to read snatches of poetry. It can really inspire you. I'm usually reading George Seferis, Samuel T Coleridge and Wallace Stevens whilst also reading novels as they are so inspiring in terms of compacted prose and ideas.

I'd also recommend entering the 75 and 300 challenges as a way of originating and then streamlining an idea. It's been the most invaluable tool to me when editing because it forces me to be brutal with word count and scenes.

ETA: Have you finished a novel yet? Or a short story? I feel I was just feeling my way until I finished my first long form. When that was done, all the way to the sub stage, I had perspective that I hadn't had till I'd finished a project. Now I can silence the constant-editor in my mind when I'm in first-draft stage. Secondly, I now know what i enjoyed about writing that book (I liked my characters) and make sure that is present in all my new stuff.

So, like most things, it's really what you find works for you.

 

[Dragonlady]

Really interesting thoughts there @Phyrebrat ! My Adhd brain struggles with tying down the details of planning and wants to just impulsively write, which has its merits and pitfalls. I finished one first draft as a teenager and one more recently that I have been struggling to revise because it's not a straightforward plot, and my current skills were struggling with getting it where it needed to be, so I'm trying a shorter, 10k story to try and practise getting a story that's actually good, without side plots and complications. The 80k draft I finished in recent years started as a short story- I have no idea how to get something that actually has story into 75 or 300 words at the moment.

I read a lot of poetry- it's the mechanics of a story I am working on at the moment- getting a character who has depth and a misbelief, and putting them through proactive try/fail cycles, rather than having them be too finished at the start of the story. This is where planning comes in, it really helps with this stuff. I was essentially planning my WIP In draft 2, which has its disadvantages. Inspiration I find much easier.

I'll look up the Ray Bradbury books, thanks! I know it's about finding out what works for us as individual writers - but it's so fascinating finding out what other people do!

 

[Dragonlady]

@ColGray I'd love to hear more about what your tracking document looks like. I've mostly ended up doing this after the first draft before, which has distinct disadvantages. Thanks for the recommendation of that older thread @The Judge. I've recently moved to scrivener which makes flitting between notes, character profiles, random freewrites and actual drafting much easier (and it's easier not to lose things).

 

[ColGray]

i can share some screen shots and docs tomorrow if that's helpful.

 

[The Big Peat]

I'm traditionally quite a pantser, but trying to have a go at planning a project, and wondered what that looks like for people who have done it successfully. How much detail do you plan in?

I've tried everything from light detail to heavy and I have to say, I've found lighter works better. As with most things in life, there's no point going heavier than you need to.

How do you make decisions,

Oh goodness. Hmm.

I think the first most important thing is to get a really fixed idea of what the core of the story is. You might be wrong and later change it, but having a fixed throughline is very useful as it lets you make decisions by going "does this serve the core or not".

A lot of decisions aren't made consciously though. They're just the first thing that came into my head when I think "what would happen here". Decisions are for when multiple things come into the head and are conflicting, or when you find that the idea isn't working...

... and that's usually only found out when you start writing.

and how much research do you do first?

As little as possible.

Which is always my answer.

When do you start writing prose?

Since I never use quite the same authorial voice twice, I usually break ground on the prose very quickly in order to work out whether I can actually do the voice or not. Projects that don't have a ready made authorial voice are usually projects that do not survive.

I know everyone's answer will be different, but I thought it would be interesting.

Also, if you are busy doing planning, researching or editing, do you do other writing to keep your hand in with actual writing prose?

Yes although I suspect that's made my editing a lot harder.

To add to this -

I am in practice someone who alternates between planning and pantsing. I increasingly try to go with enough plan to start pantsing, then return to the plan and make it better and stronger once pantsing has run out of steam

Something I have found useful is doing a movie-style treatment. It's very helpful for getting down detail about the important stuff i.e. characters, setting, mood, themes etc.etc.

I have found the best way to turn vague idea into plan is to basically keep writing the idea over and over only bigger until it's a plan. Start with the one line logline. Turn that into three lines, into seven lines, into seven paragraphs, into three pages, into seven pages... you get the idea. Exact numbers aren't important, what is important is starting with something manageable then adding something manageable and keep doing it.

A very easy way to plan a book is to grab a template of a common plot i.e. Hero's Journey, four act Mystery plot, etc.etc. and just fill it out. Think of it as telling something you only just remember, and the template between someone prompting you and doing it without being no prompt at all. There's a risk the prompter will be wrong but it still makes life easier.

With plans as with drafts, there's nothing wrong with going [ADD DETAIL HERE] and just keeping on going if you're in a flow. Does working out where the MC would find the weapon help? If it doesn't, do it later.


Finally, if in doubt, as with most things, the two biggest virtues are simplicity and specificity. Don't lose yourself in detail but at the same time, make sure the detail is there on the things that really matter.

 

[Karapace]

Tracking
I track everything -- as I write. I have a separate document with breakouts to track literally anything that's important to the story so I don't have to remember it/search for it later. This includes everything from place names to historical events to terms to clothing and eye color.

This document rules my writing. Nothing exists until it is on the page, and once it is on the page, it exists and has always existed.

Same here. I have character files, backstory timeline files, tech book files, etc. All so I can keep things consistent. The actual story I don't plan much, though I have an idea where it is going and what i want to say.
My biggest instance of planning was with The Dark Heart which had several threads going. I got a massive sheet of art paper and sketched in a tree of scenes with potential consequences (what if Jay does this or this or this, etc). It ensured my MC didn't get killed 5 chapters in and that the end didn't fall apart

 

[Juliana]

I'm a bullet point planner, as in, my outline is a list of things that have to happen. I start with a couple of tentpole scenes - important moments I already have in my head, usually starting point, middle, and end - and then slowly fill in with other key scenes throughout the drafting process. So when I start out, there might be only a few bullet points, but by the time I'm done there's a whole list of them (which makes it easier to write a synopsis!).

It's planning, but light, allowing for changes and detours along the way. When I first started writing seriously, I would do full descriptions of each planned chapter before starting out and stick to that outline rigidly. I've since learned that having a rough idea of where I'm going works better for me than trying to plan it all out in detail before starting.

Edited to add: that's with novels; with short stories there's a LOT more discovery writing, although I do have a rough outline in my head.

 

[ColGray]

Here's an example of note tacking and tracking for a current WIP. It's gaelic gaslamp where druidic magic is real and the Sidhe are a bit Puck-ish, a la Shakespeare and Susanna Clark / Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell.

I use Word and the Styles to quickly break things down and make them easily referenceable and identifiable with minimal effort. My rule is that, until it's on the page, it doesn't exist--but once it does, it goes in here. "On the page" doesn't mean that I spelled it out or stated something, rather, the decision or backing information defines or informs what's on the page.

I try to be consistent with each section so i've got the same info -- or sometimes just the same buckets waiting for the same info. Characters, for instance, get a full name, description, critical relationships and background and then wants/do not wants. It gives me a really concise way to frame someone that is deeply helpful if they're in some scenes, and then there's a big break from them, and then they show up again. Or, alternately, it helps me see if i've got too many characters that fall into a similar bucket / too little overlap / influence/ lack of influence / etc.

I also use this file to curtail ADHD rabbit holing. For instance, I came up with a list of about 30 names, across different styles, and have them in here. These can be someone major or someone who appears in a couple scenes-- but I've got names ready to go and don't give myself the opportunity to go down some internet hole if i come to a point where I need a name.

I also track word count, chapter WC, words/day, WC changes with editorial passes, words/POV, etc. -- but that is in a different document because Excel is built for that kind of dashboarding. LMK if seeing that would be helpful and I'm happy to share.