Out-lining, story-boarding and character sketches...

Hello everybody,

As so many of you I am also rather invested in writing - but I have been in a bit of a problematic patch for quite a while.

When i was younger I would just start writing, it would flow out of me and I loved and enjoyed it. Nowadays I think I have read so much theory and so many people have told me that I have talent and should earn money with this that I started over-thinking the whole process. And then again maybe not.

I remember that when I was jut writing into the blue - frequently I wouldn't actually finish the stories because I wrote myself into situations that didn't really make sense or didn't work or just completely stumped me.
I wanted to change that and I read a few books on writing and right now I am working on doing all the preliminary work for a potential novel I'd like to write. I worked out the theme and the characters, I wrote up long character profiles and am now working on a detailed story-board with each scene mentioned in a little paragraph etc.

So far I feel both good and bad about it. The good parts are that it allows me a much better overview and it is easier to sort out ideas that don't work early on. (I would, e.g., have probably used third person p.o.v. if I had just started writing it, when I now realize that the first person first the story a lot better.)
On the other hand it does take a bit of the joy and the adventure away.

I was just wondering who of you uses all or some preliminary techniques? How do they work for you, what do you do? Do you use them for any story you write or just for 'serious' works that you intent to publish some day?

Thanks so much for all your help and ideas!

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Originally Posted by Laila

Hello everybody,

As so many of you I am also rather invested in writing - but I have been in a bit of a problematic patch for quite a while.

When i was younger I would just start writing, it would flow out of me and I loved and enjoyed it. Nowadays I think I have read so much theory and so many people have told me that I have talent and should earn money with this that I started over-thinking the whole process. And then again maybe not.

I remember that when I was jut writing into the blue - frequently I wouldn't actually finish the stories because I wrote myself into situations that didn't really make sense or didn't work or just completely stumped me.
I wanted to change that and I read a few books on writing and right now I am working on doing all the preliminary work for a potential novel I'd like to write. I worked out the theme and the characters, I wrote up long character profiles and am now working on a detailed story-board with each scene mentioned in a little paragraph etc.

So far I feel both good and bad about it. The good parts are that it allows me a much better overview and it is easier to sort out ideas that don't work early on. (I would, e.g., have probably used third person p.o.v. if I had just started writing it, when I now realize that the first person first the story a lot better.)
On the other hand it does take a bit of the joy and the adventure away.

I was just wondering who of you uses all or some preliminary techniques? How do they work for you, what do you do? Do you use them for any story you write or just for 'serious' works that you intent to publish some day?

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My personal answer is: that depends ;)

For longer fics, I always draw up at least a basic story board and profiles for the main characters. After I'm done with the basics of the profiles, I work out the exact propositions for my characters so they fit with the main plot, before going into the details. One thing I've learned in the process is to not let my creativity be hindered by the story board. When I've got a flow, but I'm not sure if where the scene's going fits the plot, I still keep writing till it runs dry. Sometimes it's exactly what I needed there, other times I cut it out and file it for later use. Sometimes I even give the whole story setup a work over so it fits in. It's still a bit tedious, but also rewarding, especially in those moments of bliss when you look at a twenty page chapter that really propells the story and is catching and funny, and you ask yourself: 'was that really me who just wrote that brilliant piece down in little under two hours?'

I'm not as straight when writing short fictions, but I've noticed that though I don't consider the "technically written" stories to be my best pieces, those nevertheless are the ones that win contests or get published.

From time to time, I've got a story in my mind that tickles my fingers so much I just have to bring it to paper without consideration for the plausibility of the plot or character development, but I've started to always put them into the folder for 'ideas to incorporate somewhere else' and let them rest a few weeks before looking at them again. They tend to need a lot of finishing :)

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Originally Posted by DarkPoet

I'm not as straight when writing short fictions, but I've noticed that though I don't consider the "technically written" stories to be my best pieces, those nevertheless are the ones that win contests or get published.

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That's an interesting insight actually.
I think there is still something in me that wants to push the planning and the scheming away even though I can clearly see the benefits.

I've never written outlines except for works that never got beyond the outline. If it doesn't have enough push to get me writing, it won't happen.

The farthest I've got with "planning" is that after a certain point of a long work, I feel confident enough of the shape of the story (and impatient enough with the pace of the work!) to write the ending. Then I work in both directions till they join in the middle.