What's your process for planning a story? Do you know what will happen in the beginning, middle, and end of the story before you start writing it? How about in each chapter? Do you do any kind of outlining or just fly by the seat of your pants? If you do outline, what does that look like for you? Do you ever write scenes in advance or visualize them in your mind? Do you change your mind often, or do you usually stick to your plans? Does the way you plan vary from story to story? Lots of questions, but they all go together - just describe your process!
I would love to say I have this really incredible thought process complete with outlines and story boards and soundtracks and research pages etc... but truth is, it goes something like this:
Step 1: Mare gets a random idea! Usually they come to me in my dreams or in the shower for some reason.
Step 2: Mare tries to ignore the idea <-- I really do. I try to put it out of my mind. Since I have such a bad memory, the bad ideas usually filter out really quickly. When the idea won't go away then I'll jump to step 3.
Step 3: Mare tries to write her first chapter. <--- this is really an audition process for my idea. I write the first chapter or at least try to. If I can churn an entire chapter out without having to stop because of running out of steam, then I know it's a keeper. If I struggle with the first chapter, then I know I'll most likely struggle with the entire story. (One shots are just that, one shot and done! No need for following steps!)
Step 4: The actual writing process itself begins <---Now that I have one chapter down, the entire story usually unfolds in my head like a movie. I think I've mentioned before how visual of a writer I am which is funny because I hate banners etc... I should be on a Skittles commercial! <-- losing focus happens a lot as well! BUNNIES!! <--- see? Like that! If that happens too much it also tells me that maybe this particular story isn't one that's ready to be written. Anyway I'll go through my writing process for the last thing I wrote, my epic romance! LOL
When I came up with the idea which was shortly after we were discussing this on the forum where a few people said they'd like to see what I'd do with a romance, I knew I wanted mine to be different and not told from the female POV. I also saw it in three parts clearly. The family happy together telling their little girl the story, the fantasy of the two of them meeting and falling in love and then the reality of the actual situation. A beginning, a middle and an end. Which to me is what all stories really need. No fluffy middle or filler scenes which I think is a trademark of so many romance novels. I knew how I wanted it to end and I had already written the beginning so at that point all I had to do was fill in the missing pieces.
For other stories, I sometimes do change my mind when it comes to aspects of the story or characters but I very rarely change it that much. There have been instances where I've let a character live that I wanted to kill or kill a character I had no intention of killing, but the beginning and the ending usually never change.
The only time I've ever had to honestly think things through, was with Whatever the Night, because I had intended it to be a choose your own adventure at first so I needed to know what I was going to do and tried not to stray too far away from that! Also the going back and forth between past and present made the need for a tiny outline necessary.
So there you have it! Mare's thought process! LOL TADA!!! *bows* :'( that was beautiful!!!
Author
Topic: Question of the day part 9 (even though days go by lol) (Read 137855 times)