by Lisa Hiton
One of the most important muscles to exercise as a writer is one’s reading...
In our September Writers’ Q&A, writingwithmypen (United States) asked:
“What's your method for outlining stories?”
Do you like to create a detailed plan before you start writing? Or do you prefer to just begin and see where the narrative takes you? Either way, it is helpful to figure out which methods work best for you! To give you some ideas, we have compiled a few responses from the WtW community about their approach to planning their writing.
1) Structure your planning:
“For novels I have my own excel spreadsheet template that I made for plotting multi-POV stories.” - x essie x (United States)
“First, I come up with the beginning and the end, get to know the characters, and fiddle with the plot in my head until it's satisfactory. Then, I blab everything down on paper, roughly separating things by chapters if I have a good grasp of that. Then, I go in and rearrange, fill in, and flesh out the scenes by writing a very short summary of what should happen in each one.” - ToWolfKin (Malaysia)
“I normally do that one method with the half triangle line, where it builds up to the biggest event and then drops to the conclusion, and I just put events at the circles! Then I connect the events throughout the writing.” - ^+*juliet*+^ (United States)
“Once I have an idea of my characters, I always ask myself the following two questions:
1) What do the characters want?
2) How can I keep them from getting it?” - HaydenWrites (United States)
2) As you go along:
“I just kind of go with the flow and jot down ideas as they come. So I start writing and if an idea comes to me that could happen later in the story, I jot it down on a piece of paper.” - Ambre (United States)
“I don't really outline a piece, the structure kinda handles itself as I write.” - CallmeLyric (United States)
“I like to get started straight away [...] and then just build on the rough plan I have as I go.” - Lola (Australia)
3) Start with a general sense:
“If I write a short story or a script for a skit, I find that my imagination/the mental movie is sufficient planning due to how short it is.” - Simon Wilcoff (United States)
“I come up with a vague idea and vague characters, and then they kinda take control and I'm just along for the ride.” - toria15 (United States)
“I usually write down a very messy rough draft based on the ideas in my head.” - Sahil J. (United States)
4) Make a plan—then change it!
“I put down the numbers of the chapters, give myself a small reminder of what happens each chapter, and rarely stick to what I wrote down.” - Wolf Dragon (Canada)
“I just write down every event in chronological order, and if things change while I'm writing then I'll incorporate that into my timeline. It's really a trust the process kind of thing.” - Tom1613 (United States)
“Often with a story I come up with a little seed of an idea and it grows until I start developing the plot. [...] Almost every story I write ends up stretching waaay longer than I first expected it to, and that's a good thing!” - Kira Skipper (Japan)
5) Just write:
“As I am still quite new to writing and mostly write poems, I kinda just let the words flow.” - Anise Zoe (Australia)
“I really don't outline my stories. I should, I know I should, but I never do. [...] Really I just sit down and start writing.” - art3mis (United States)
“I wish I had a method! So far, it's slap some words on a page and connect them together with conjunctions or adverbs or whatever.” - FruitMonster (United States)
“I just write them and make their storylines while I write!” - A writer (United States)
Do you have a question to ask the WtW community? Submit it for Writers’ Q&A here!
