A Simple Way to Plan A Story

[AixenPixel]

Ok, Hi you guys!

I love talking about how to plan a story, and I noticed a lot of people have different ways of doing it! However most of those ways seem a bit complicated and confusing so let me enlighten you!


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwXw-9nk71E Use this as a guide to get a feel for your general overall story line and conflict! Remember, you never have to stick to a format, make it work for you!

Lastly, pull it all together using this From Imran!
http://www.imranwrites.com/2013/07/2...n-my-chapters/

I've done this a lot and as a victim of CONSTANT writers block, I have to say these two links alone have helped me to the brink of nirvana!!! <333

Enjoy and tell me what you guys think of the links

[crich70]

Another that's good is Dan Wells Story Structure videos. Story Structure I based my 7 point spreadsheet on the same idea.

[dgatwood]

I kind of do the same thing, only less rigorously. When I start out, I:

• Write the first section of the first chapter.
• Write the last section of the last chapter (or epilogue, where applicable).
• Create a very coarse plot point list containing key events that I expect to write about.
• Delete the bullets as I write, adding chapter breaks wherever it seems natural to stop.

I don't attempt to think about chapters while planning, and I don't typically include side plots as part of that list—only the main plot. Secondary story arcs tend to just spring up randomly as I'm writing, and I weave them into the story wherever I can make them fit. I doubt more than half of the plot points ever actually make the list.

Often, my coarse plot point list doesn't even go all the way from the beginning to the end. It might initially cover only the first and last couple of chapters. What matters most is knowing where you are and where you're trying to eventually be. As I write towards the destination, I'll randomly think of an idea for a direction that the story could go along the way. When that happens, I add it to my bullet point list and keep writing. Eventually, I reach that plot point, and I write about it, then start writing my way towards the next point.

Of course, I don't always go directly from one plot point to the next. Often the path from point A to point B gets long and circuitous—I think the longest unplotted run in Beyond the Veil was approaching twenty pages—but I know that eventually I must reach that next plot point (somehow), so I'm always writing with that next goal in mind.

With that said, sometimes a better idea comes along while I'm getting there, and I delete an existing plot point and replace it with something very different. This sometimes requires tweaking other future plot points, but eventually the basic story gets back on track. Thus, the plot point list is a living document up until the moment it ceases to exist (when I finish writing the last chapter).

[crich70]

I made a epub/kindle file with the video info (in Andy Heath's youtube vid)in it so I could always read it when I wanted to review the info.

[gmw]

Originally Posted by dgatwood

[...] What matters most is knowing where you are and where you're trying to eventually be. [...]

This is very much how I feel about it too.

And in the early development of the story I often don't even know where I'm trying to be. I'll have an idea of some characters and a setting, but I don't know if there is real story in it until I explore. I do that partly in my head and partly by writing some of the initial scenes and background. From that come ideas about what it means and where it might be going. In general, the more I write the more ideas arrive and the more the story starts to take shape. I see this as a response to learning about the characters and setting through writing them, you get to see what sorts of connections make sense. It's why I tend to sound like a broken record in my posts on this list - for me, at least, the way to write a story is to write: write anything, write something, and the rest follows.