Poll: Story writing methods

[_Janny_]

Well, for me, planning equals zilch. I noticed that if I just start writing as I go along I get much further than if I plan it beforehand. I find it more productive to just write, without worrying (yet) exactly where I'm going or if this or that chapter is okay; and this way you won't end up bored by your own ideas because of some silly planning.

But hey, that's my method. Whatever you choose to do, good luck and happy writing!

 

[EAS_Suit]

Well, I know its irrelivent, but my stories about Demons and humans and these elder guys
The only difference between the three races is the eyes (and the obvious immortally, mind powers and elemental powers crap) The first story is hell (which is a nonbiblical version, but more of an excuse to say the bibles misinformed) taking over earth and a demon and a few other ppl getting together to tell them to toss off. The second is 1000 years later where the demon from the first one is a king and his antitraditional ways create rebellions/civilwars and there getting really bad now. The third is a direct continuation of the second which i'm not telling you about. And the fourth is just starting planning.

Whats everyone elses?

 

[DethVanXan]

A misanthropic, introverted, sarcastic metal-head has his mind powers awoken after a bash to the head. He is picked up a group of other "psykers" and taken to their base in the sewers. He only has one ability, Telekenisis but he is nearly the best at it. The group that picked him up are at war with another order of psykers that wants to conqure humanity. But our hero really doesn't give a flying shinola and travels the world with his friend.
When they return, they find that both orders have nearly been destoyed by a new third group. Our dude is nearly kiled by them so he sets out to destroy them.

This is the heavily refined version, I could turn this into a 100K plus book in about 8 months. Then there's the sequel, which i won' get into.

 

[EAS_Suit]

I'll tell you about my first one abit more (if I haven't said enough mindless crap on this topic)
The main character is a prince of hell but is overthrown at a young age by his little brother for the reason that his modern ways would disrupt the balance of things. He is banished for hell and after 1200years on earth his brother turns up there and is giving away a device (EAS Suits) to"Help humanity" but soon reveals his plans of mindcontrolling and dictatorship(sp?) and The main character could careless, until his house is raided by the EAS armed platoon on a patrol. He then goes off and finds a few friends among the Crap and fights back, mainly for revenge but also to help the humans. The trip takes them to Europe then America, Australia, then finally Russia before the climax is reach.
Blah blah blah done.

Sorry about the crap/spam

 

[ma55ter_fett]

I usually start with a plan but often it will change when I start writeing, sometimes the end product is completely diffrent from what I first invisioned the story being.

 

[dududf]

I'd probably make a general outline of what will happen in each book, and then beef it up then make the stories.

 

[DemonicVixen]

Well when i write stories i usually just write. I don't bother planning or sorting things out. Then, when i get in a fix, i print, read through and edit as needed.

 

[dsmops2003]

Learn these:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Story_arc
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Character_arc

 

[Quad08]

Depends. Sometimes I just write whatever comes to mind, see what happens.

However, I find most of the time, the better results come from planning beforehand. This way you have a solid foundation on which to build your story on

 

[Wutaiflea]

Most of the stories I've written have come from having either a particular character concept or having a particular "scene" I want to write about.

Although I'm a great one for writing lists etc, I really don't plan out my stories on paper. I find once I get to writing, I tend to deviate a lot and will often write massive spontaneous sections much better than anything I planned.
For example, I once wrote a story purely for the sake of a female character I'd thought of and yet throughout the course of writing I ended up becoming more interested with the other characters, who were effectively footnotes in the beginning stages.

That said, I don't necessarily think this the perfect way to write- when Ian McEwan wrote that godawful Enduring Love book, he claimed to have started writing a scene which is actually near the end of the book, based on a random idea he had about some guy obtaining a gun, without knowing anything else about the story. When I actually read the book, I found this "starting scene" completely irrelevant and out of place in the story and it stuck out like a sore thumb.

I remember being told by a teacher once that everybody writes a story in a different way and you shouldn't really be too worried about criticisms of your creative process as long as you keep perspective on the whole story throughout.

 

[Ben Jamin]

I usually get and idea, write it down, elaborate on it add some little tweaks, and then draft a first few pages.

 

[k-ossuburb]

I barely pre-plan anything, I like a more "organic" flow with my work, I'm writing a stand-alone novel right now (for fun, I don't intend to publish it) that may or may not become a series. But if it were to become a series I'd rather see how the first one pans out and how the characters develop before I consider writing a follow-up.

I don't know how this may apply to you but my method is to figure out the main characters and their environment then just see what happens when I introduce them to one-another. It makes it a little more exciting for me to let the characters decide where the story goes, I do this by basically introducing a scenario into the environment and then just think "how would they deal with that?", logical progression (with a little creative input from me) normally dictates the outcome if your character is well-written enough. It works for me, but everyone has their methods.

 

[BaldursBananaSoap]

I'd just do it as I go along, go with the flow. There's no point limiting what you want to do by pre-planning it.