Discussion How do you plan when writing a novel

Discussion in 'Novel General' started by 911, May 7, 2019.

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  1. 911

    911 [Officer][Official Police][Tag me when needed]

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    Kinda feel like i need to take a lot of time to get a good plot, and story while simultaneously making a progress in the same time.
    How do you even do this?
    Any thoughts for senpai that has a lot of experience in this type of thing.
    Any challenges while making it?
     
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  2. Bad Storm

    Bad Storm no thought, head empty

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    I stick to short stories to lessen the planning and effort involved.

    But a technique would be having a general direction and watching out your pacing, whether you're going too fast or too slow in your plot progression.
     
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  3. lnv

    lnv ✪ Well-Known Hypocrite

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    There is a section for that:

    https://forum.novelupdates.com/forums/author-discussions.1057/

    (and if you want less readers and more actual authors: https://forum.scribblehub.com/ NU sister site)

    And what do you mean how do you make a plot and make progress?

    Personally, I plot out the major events, then make the MC's personality to match the events. From then on the story just flows as I fill in minor events in between.
     
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  4. 911

    911 [Officer][Official Police][Tag me when needed]

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    Ohh nice,
    What i mean is, how the plot progression is made. Was it planned or just adaptive
    It's those little thing that i wonder about.
     
  5. Bad Storm

    Bad Storm no thought, head empty

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    It mostly depends on the author. Some likes writing on the fly while others makes a careful planning.
     
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  6. listener

    listener Tony's Friend

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    you must create the plot first, after that it's easy to make story of that plots.... the story will just came to your head,
     
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  7. Madoqua

    Madoqua Well-Known Member

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    I always start by making a rough time table of the events I want to happen in my story. I'll add to it while writing. This gives a good overview of the story while avoiding plotholes and weird timeskips. After this I'll make a relationboard thingy of all the characters I want to put into the story, who knows who and who likes who etc. After this I make a character description of each character. The more precise the more time you'll save later on. Then the writing starts. (Sometimes I do a world building, class ranking, magic description, item description too, but this depends really on what kind of story you write)
     
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  8. lnv

    lnv ✪ Well-Known Hypocrite

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    I personally prefer planned for major events and for the minor events, some are planned, some are not, depends.

    A lot of web novels are written completely adaptive for obvious reasons, but that is precisely why a lot of them lack consistency and contradict themselves the longer they go on.

    That isn't to say that novels that contradict themselves can't be a fun read, but personally these things get on my nerves. So by planning out the major events, I can be sure that there is as little contradiction mid novel or end of novel.

    But at same time you can't plan everything, and new ideas pop up all the time. So I just backfill the minor events. If I want to get to a major event faster, I minimize the minor events, if I want to stall things out then I fill in more minor events. (I say fill, but even minor events should contribute to the story as a whole, even if it doesn't contribute to the plot, aka, comedy, character building and etc)

    One thing I will say though is avoid the urge to give the reader too much information. I'm not saying leave the reader in the dark, but give them information little by little. The more information you give the reader, the more you limit your wiggle room. By only giving readers what they need to know, you can make modifications at any time without contradicting yourself.
     
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  9. GoldenGoddess

    GoldenGoddess ^.^

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    I never plan, that's why I'm stuck at chapter 1. Maybe i should plan..
     
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  10. Faye

    Faye Well-Known Member

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    I usually make a short note of short idea/plot that comes to mind and keep them somewhere in my gadget

    When I start to make a story
    1. I will laid out all the major event and make a straight time line from one event to another
    2. Character building, his/her personality, soft background, motive and purpose [I planned at least 3 characters with complete background]
    3. Then I start to fill in the time line from starting point to a major with my short note [the so called short idea i stored]

    There you have it. I always have the number 2 stored in details for 1 reason
    action and reaction, and how a certain personality will behave when faced with a certain event

    so when you want to write what the x character do in reaction to something, you can try to trace it from his/her personality and then by logic/reasoning, you get what his/her action will be
     
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  11. Ddraig

    Ddraig Frostfire Dragon|Retired lurker|FFF|Loved by RNG

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    I stick to zero word stories to lessen the planning and effort involved :p
     
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  12. GoldenGoddess

    GoldenGoddess ^.^

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    dearest you are lazy
     
  13. Bad Storm

    Bad Storm no thought, head empty

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    I would have already died if not for writing so yeah, there's that...
     
  14. GoldenGoddess

    GoldenGoddess ^.^

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    i write when I'm inspired or super depressed. Those two things hasn't happened yet for 2 months...so yeah.
     
  15. Ddraig

    Ddraig Frostfire Dragon|Retired lurker|FFF|Loved by RNG

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    >.> I dont think my language skills are good enough to even bother trying. Besides while I might have good, vague ideas for stories, I dont think I will be satisfied with it unless I create a whole living, breathing complex world to go with the story.
     
  16. Bad Storm

    Bad Storm no thought, head empty

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    I'm constantly shifting between those two. It's really hard sometimes. Writing is a good outlet plus it is less destructive than what my impulse suggests.
     
  17. GoldenGoddess

    GoldenGoddess ^.^

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    the living breathing world you're talking about is built one word at a time..you are a wonderful wordsmith dearest.
     
  18. GoldenGoddess

    GoldenGoddess ^.^

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    Do not give in to that impulse...tune it out..
     
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  19. Simon

    Simon [The Pure One's Chief Steward][Demon Beast]

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    Don't forget relationship mapping it's just as important. Make a spider web with the main characters forming a ring in center, have strings branching out to side characters, locations, resources, factions, and so on.
    E.g. Romeo and Juliet would have a string to their families and there would be another string between the families to denote a blood feud.
     
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  20. GDLiZy

    GDLiZy Wise Deepsea Mermaid

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    For me, I created the beginning, the end of the arc, the ultimate ending, the crucial plot points. Then, I go and find the story, connecting the dots and putting in an interesting situation.
     
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