Hatrack River Writers Workshop: How much do you plan?

This is topic How much do you plan? in forum Open Discussions About Writing at Hatrack River Writers Workshop.

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Posted by Nova1021 (Member # 3242) on :

Hi, I am a beginning writer. I've read several books about "how to write" but am now in a creative writing class which, by way of deadlines, is making me get more serious about actually putting pen to paper. I have heard the advice from several places now that an author should not plan things out too much ahead of time. Instead, just introduce your characters, set the scene, and see what they do.

What are your thoughts on this apparently hands-off approach? Have you used it? Does it work for you? It seems to me that most of the story should be planned out beforehand, but the experts seem to disagree.

Posted by ethersong (Member # 3216) on :

I asked a question a bit similar to this like 2 weeks ago you might want to check out. (didn't get all that many responses, but its something...)

http://www.hatrack.com/forums/writers/forum/Forum1/HTML/002834.html

But you have some other questions here that should be considered.

I don't pretend to be one of those awesome published writers that we have floating around here on these forums (or maybe I do...I can't tell ) but I have found with my experience that planning too much can be burdensome and wasteful since you just end up changing things anyways. Yet not planning at all also isn't very good. It varies from person to person.

When I write now, I do a basic story outline, with highlights of the story and make notes on the possible things I could put in there. I briefly set up a few characters and then hop into the story. I think of it as setting up the basic path, but making it a wide one with the possibility of detours. Then, when I start writing, the ideas just come as you make the situations and characters real. This is how I've been working with my latest story and it's turning out great.

But its just what I'm finding I like. Now you just have to go fin d how you best like to plan.

Posted by pixydust (Member # 2311) on :

quote:
but the experts seem to disagree.

Not all of them. It's all a mixed back of chips. You have to do what works best for the story, and for you, as the writer. The reason why this question is hard to answer is because of this. It's very personal.

I personally do a mixture of both. I plan a bit, but leave things open for exploring. Just because you make an outline, or jot down a few notes, doesn't mean you have to stick to it like gospel.

Play around, use this time in class to experiment and try things you normally wouldn't. Free-fall one story, and plan the next. Skies the limit, cause it's your ms.

Posted by autumnmuse (Member # 2136) on :

It depends on the length for me. For the past year I've focused on shorts. I don't need a lot of outlining, usually don't write much down ahead of time. I do however have at least a vague idea of where I'm going before I put pen to paper. On anything up to about 10k, that's all I need.

The longer the story, the more planning I do. I tried to write a novel for Nano 2004 and got 40k in before I realized I hadn't done ENOUGH planning. I'd thought about key points but I didn't know how to get to them, and I was totally off track.

I plan to rewrite that novel this year. I've chosen a different ending spot, and with that end in mind will bulk up the beginning a little, add a couple characters to help with subplots, and try again. By not planning enough last time I lost control. I hope that this will help. But take that with a boulder of salt because so far I've yet to actually finish a novel length manuscript.

Posted by Survivor (Member # 213) on :

It depends on what works for you. Frankly, there is about zero chance that a "spontaneous" unplanned writing session will produce a publishable or even coherent narrative. So "writing from the seat of your pants" is simply another way to produce an inital outline of a story, which you must then write.

That's the way I see it anyway. Personally, I keep a continuously revised plan in my head when I'm writing (most of the time, at least, I've tried other methods). It may sometimes look like I'm writing from the seat of my pants since I don't usually have written notes or anything, but I always have an entire story in mind.

Posted by krazykiter (Member # 3108) on :

Just to tag on what everyone else said, the amount of planning will also vary depending upon how familiar you are with the elements of your story.

Maybe you're using an historical era as a backdrop or setting. If you're very familiar with it, you might plan less. If you're only passingly familiar, I would guess that more research and planning would go into it.

Your mileage may vary.

Posted by pantros (Member # 3237) on :

Classes should be arranged to give you a chance to try several different methods of planning as well as the just write it out method.

Give several a try and stick with what works best for you.

Personally, I put more planning into my 2nd draft and just let the first draft write itself.

Posted by Robert Nowall (Member # 2764) on :

My method varies from story to story---sometimes from day to day. Lately...with short stories, I usually know what I intend to write at the end, so I try to let what comes in the beginning and middle work itself out. Even if you change your mind about what happens before you get there, it's better to have something in mind.

Novels, though...it's probably better to outline it more thoroughly, to have some idea of what's about to come up before it comes up on you...but it's a rule I don't always follow. I recently relaunched a novel I rigorously outlined and backgrounded several years ago---but I've discarded all that and I don't really know where it'll wind up, assuming I ever finish it. I hope to write some kind of outline when I get *some* idea...

Posted by MaryRobinette (Member # 1680) on :

Before OSC's Bootcamp, I did not plan my short stories. Now I do, and I'm writing much stronger stories.

But planning a short consists of writing a basic structure which shows beginning middle and end. My Bootcamp story's outline originally said this:

quote:

Colonists settle on a planet, much like Earth, but with a crucial difference. There is virtually no sodium on the world. It is reclaimed from urine while living, and from the body after death.
A salt merchant is accused of harvesting orphans for salt.
His daughter must find the real murderer, while battling low-blood pressure, before her father is rendered for salt himself. The trail leads her to a rival whose salt mine had petered out. There's a thrilling climax in a salt factory amid the rakers and dehydrators.

This bears almost no resemblance to the story I actually wrote. As I talked with OSC before starting the story I mentioned a news report I'd read about a child who had been killed by salt overdose. Bing. Things changed so I replotted. And that's the key, an outline only locks you in if you are unwilling to change the outline.

Posted by quidscribis (Member # 2240) on :

I plan. In detail. In nauseating detail. I've learned that, for me, and the way my brain works (lousy memory, can't hold on to details), the more detailed the plan before I start writing, the better my writing goes. I iron out all logic problems before writing, I make notes of POV for each scene, I plan times and locations when necessary (as in my latest novel, where the timing and location had to be hammered out for logic purposes), and so on. My outline for a novel has been as long as 45 pages.

My first novels I didn't plan so much, had logic problems, and the characters surprised me, and unplanned twists happened. I know now - for me - that that means that I didn't know my characters and story well enough. Those novels aren't very good (first novels rarely, if ever are) and I need to replot to fix logic and consistency, which means deleting scenes, and rewrite.

Granted, with planning in detail, I still have some surprises when I write, but not as many and they're much smaller and tend to not change the plot or skew logic.

This doesn't mean that writing is boring and that the life is taken out of the story. It means that the story is much more coherent and fleshed out. Plotting in detail allows me the freedom to concentrate on telling the story rather than trying to figure out all the logistics, characters, setting, and everything else as I go.

It also means that, when I sit down and write, there's no (generally speaking) block. I have written a first draft (350+ pages) in less than three weeks.

My husband, also a writer, doesn't write out any plot outline. He works out bits and pieces in his head, plans scenes, and writes things down pretty much fully formed. He's got a much, much better memory than mine, so for him to hold all that in his head is no problem. He looks like a pantser (seat of the pants writer), which he sort of is, even though he has some ideas. But he can only write around 8 pages a day at top speed, 4 pages a day on average. He doesn't think he can write any faster - his brain needs time to figure out what happens next and form the next bits.

I know pantsers who can write 30+ pages a day, but those are also writers who've been doing it a long time, have already written a lot of novels, have the story structure already internalized, and know *how* to make their brains and muses give them the page counts.

YMMV.

Posted by Spaceman (Member # 9240) on :

Mary,

Your "outline" looks a great deal like the premise section of the beat sheet method that DG taught me last year. Interesting. In a short story, sometimes that's all that matters, though I find the character sketch portion also useful.

[This message has been edited by Spaceman (edited February 18, 2006).]

Posted by MaryRobinette (Member # 1680) on :

That's funny, Spaceman. This is just the text off the story card that I did during Bootcamp.

Posted by trousercuit (Member # 3235) on :

For short stories, I don't plan much until I have a page written. By then, I've tested at least the POV character to see if he or she is going to work for me, I've tested some of the setting, and I've tested some of the flow. Then I start planning, mostly in my head. (I've found long walks help flesh out a story more than anything.) I do keep a separate file full of notes, personal Q&A (why are they at war? why does the POV character care? etc. - things I'd expect a reader to ask, mostly to keep consistency in check), and a brief story outline so far.

Half the time, I scrap the story idea after the first page (for a while, anyway), and for half the rest I rewrite it. I find it's a nice way to test the water.

For novels - I don't know. I've only ever started one. It took the same route as the short stories, but with a longer opening that I still need to rewrite.

Posted by Spaceman (Member # 9240) on :

Now that you mention it, the text does have an echo of familiarity.

I mention the similarity to the premise section of the beat sheet because I thought it was interesting, but on further reflection, I think what is happening is that the beat sheet actually has the index card imbedded within.

[This message has been edited by Spaceman (edited February 19, 2006).]