How do you write: Planning and plotting stories

[madelinemasoch]

I just go where the ideas take me. It’s such a rich medium and deep connection that I now have many notebooks full of things. I also have many documents on my computer full of things as well. Thank God for the inspirations. They have bestowed upon me many an idea.

One of the things I do is I have a list of all of the ideas I’ve had (even something as simple as a title sometimes if nothing else comes out of it), finished projects from 1-2 years ago, and works in progress. The whole list numbers at something like 120 different things right now. That’s not even it because those are just for this website. Let’s just say I’ve been planning for my grand return to publishing here for a long time and thoroughly.

I also regularly make other lists (priority lists) of around 30 different ideas and works in progress that I’d like to do this year. The reason why I have to do this more than once is because I’m developing as an artist and a human being at a rate faster than ever before, and things change as far as which of the 120~ ideas I’d like to actually take on and finish. New ideas come up rather often as well. Like I said, it’s a rich wellspring.

 

[Rob_Royale]

Normally, I've got the whole story pretty well laid out in my head. But lately I've been writing in blocks or scenes. I'll compete a scene with only the faintest notion of what comes next, then spend a few days thinking about it. Then I'll write that next scene and then do it again. Since my writing time has shrunk by 75%, it's not working out too bad.

 

[kitmarlowe]

I've always preferred character driven stories rather than plot-driven. A book that really helped me was James Scott Bell's *Plot Your Novel From The Middle*, the principles of which I've also had good success using in short fiction.

The focus is on figuring out who your character is when they start the story, who they are at the end, and what the middle of that journey looks like for them emotionally. With those bits of information in place I then start plugging in scenes and character moments around them to flesh out the story.

My manuscripts usually begin life as bullet point lists of single sentences describing each scene or moment. Then I expand them into paragraphs explaining each scene or moment, and then those paragraphs get expanded into Actual Prose.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

I've always preferred character driven stories rather than plot-driven.

If your plot is driven by the motives of the characters (so long as those motives are more than "I'm horny") then character driven and plot driven are the same thing.

 

[SamBomb]

I come up with an idea. I write a chapter, and in a doc i list any characters, or facts about them that come up or times or anything, that could affect future chapters. Then I write another chapter or two, then I rewrite all three, because I've come up with better ideas. Then I think about where I want to get to and plot out the rest of the story beats that are needed.

Then, I may abandon it, because I can't get it to work, or I go through with it if I can get it to work.

Then I rewrite it a few more times.

 

[Jay142]

I write a synopsis of the story and especially plan the beginning and the end. Writing the synopsis is pretty much a seat-of-the-pants experience, but when I get down to writing the story itself I mostly fill out the synopsis.

How well that works depends a lot on how good my initial concept is. If I can dash out a good, detailed synopsis, then the final story will be easy. If I can't then the story bogs down and sometimes I find myself back at square one, looking for a better idea. At least I can get to that point without knocking myself out.

I write the same way. I write down some ideas and scenarios I want to include in the story, then build around them. I love writing stories for other people where I can put their fantasies into a story. It takes the pressure off of me to come up with original ideas while I bring their ideas to life. I don't work with people who simply ask me to write a story. I work with those who will work with me. It keeps my writing from becoming redundant, and I can spark a couple's love life. I've gotten some great amateur pictures as payment for some of them, too.

 

[SpermBankHoliday]

Or I could just use AI. : P

You could. Sometimes it's good to know where you don't want to go.
It's easier to clean up a mess than to conjure something out of thin air.
If the muse ain't home, keep writing. When she comes back, she'll fix it.

 

[ShelbyDawn57]

Or I could just use AI. : P

I kinda thought you were AI…

 

[pink_silk_glove]

I kinda thought you were AI…

I'm not, but one account in this thread is. ; )

 

[YmaOHyd]

I'm not, but one account in this thread is. ; )

Wonder if the other one will join.

 

[KittyOfSteele]

I kinda thought you were AI…

I'm not, but one account in this thread is. ; )

Wonder if the other one will join.

RESISTANCE IS FUTILE. PREPARE TO BE ASSIMILATED.

Anyway, in a more serious note, bots aren't anything new. AI just improved them, but at least they're still obvious.

 

[THBGato]

I think, OP, that what you should do is what you want to do. Your stories, your rules. As I say to everyone I beta-read for, at the end of the day you the writer are the most important reader. The story has to be what you want - and that includes the world you set that in.

Personally, with the exception of my sci fi story, my settings are very real. Real companies, real places, real music, real books, real TV shows (except when they are invented adaptions of my favourite literotica stories), even occasionally real people (though never as important characters). I get lots of compliments for that in feedback and comments.

But, hey, maybe there's a load of readers who start my stories and give up after the fifth paragraph, grumbling that "it's too real, I want escapism." Who knows? Those people never leave comments...

Happy writing!

 

[mildlyaroused]

I personally don't plan for the first draft. Aside from having a general internal picture of where things are going, what moments are likely to appear, and in roughly what ways the characters are going. I can initially be more creative when I'm not adhering to my own guideline (though if the writer's block sets in, it sometimes helps me to plot out the next couple dozen pages just to get the wheels turning again).

In larger works, like novels, I'll often write a sort of analysis of my own work once I've finished a full first draft - like I'm a critic - forming connections for characters and themes across the breadth of the story. This lets me unpack what I was trying to say and better integrate it into the second draft (and beyond). If I look at a finished draft in its entirety, patterns start to emerge that I sometimes didn't even [consciously] intend, and I can flesh them out more.

 

[Lord_Buckethead]

I never plan a story. Initially I have an idea for a scenario and then just start writing and let it go where the flow takes it. Sometimes things don't actually work out as I anticipated they would but they normally work out how they should. Every now and then I hit a wall, when this happens I just leave the story and come back to it. Usually I just read through the last few paragraphs I've written and away we go again. No idea if I'm any good as an author but I think erotic writing has to have an energy and vibrancy that doesn't come through over thinking, as one author rather graphically wrote in their biography if she hasn't got one hand in her knickers as she writes then it's not working!

 

[FidelityBoss]

For my brief career as a writer, about six years, I've been a gardener, a pantser, writing with the flow of the story. I've let my stories and characters lead me where they wanted to go and, so far, it's worked just fine. A problem I've noticed is that on days when my muse is at the beach and I'm stuck at home, it is very difficult to find that flow. I've also noticed that it doesn't seem to work very well for larger works(I have three non-erotic novels wallowing in despair as I write this) with multiple characters and varying POVs.

So... My question is this; For those that actually take time to plan out your stories, how do you do it? What tools do you use to map your chapters, to keep track of your POV characters?

Please make specific suggestions or just talk about your process. I feel that this is a topic we can all learn and benefit from. I mean GRRM claims to be a gardener but GoT is 60 chapters and close to 300K words with I think 20 - 25 POV characters. I could be wrong, but there's no way he keeps all that in his head.

Sounds like you've got a strong instinct for storytelling, but yeah, when projects get bigger, a little structure can go a long way. Even if you're mostly a pantser, having some basic notes like a rough outline, character timelines, or even just a list of key plot beats can help when the muse decides to take a vacation. Some writers use Scrivener or Notion for organizing POVs, while others just keep a notebook or a simple doc with character arcs. Even a loose roadmap can make diving back in easier when the flow isn’t cooperating.

 

[FidelityBoss]

I think, OP, that what you should do is what you want to do. Your stories, your rules. As I say to everyone I beta-read for, at the end of the day you the writer are the most important reader. The story has to be what you want - and that includes the world you set that in.

Personally, with the exception of my sci fi story, my settings are very real. Real companies, real places, real music, real books, real TV shows (except when they are invented adaptions of my favourite literotica stories), even occasionally real people (though never as important characters). I get lots of compliments for that in feedback and comments.

But, hey, maybe there's a load of readers who start my stories and give up after the fifth paragraph, grumbling that "it's too real, I want escapism." Who knows? Those people never leave comments...

Happy writing!

Blending real-world elements can make a story feel immersive, and clearly, your readers appreciate it. But yeah, every choice will have some people vibing with it and others bouncing off. At the end of the day, the best stories come from writers who stay true to what excites them the most.

 

[ChuckWolf]

For erotic stories, I usually have a sexy scene in mind and everything else is building to and after that scene.

One example is an idea I had in mind where a woman at a party find's the hostess's super-advanced, high-tech vibrator, decides to try it out and gets so lost in an extended orgasm that she's unable to stop herself even as other partygoers barge into the room.

This is the first and middle part of the story and from there it's about the main character arguing with the hostess (who is mortified & furious that someone is using HER vibrator) & other partygoers (all coworkers), while she is having the longest and most intense orgasm of her life and then the social awkwardness, post orgasm.

Initially I was going to add a paragraph that would really go into detail about the vibrator's backstory, but I didn't want the story to get bogged down; I didn't want to be the Tom Clancy of erotica.

Sometimes I'll base a story around a concept, like Thorvik Kabot - Succubus Slayer, who is based off of the then-trend of the time, of how fantasy novels of the 70's and 80's, could be VERY misogynistic (especially John Norman's terrible GOR series) and I wanted to play with and reverse that trope.

With his stories, I decided my formula will be pretty simple: lots of fantasy-trope, world-building infodump BS and building up Thorvik as a big larger than life character, followed by his getting easily defeated and then sexually used and humiliated and ending with an epilogue, where he gets more sexually-used and humiliated.

Not sure if this actually answers the question you were asking, but I hope its helpful to someone out there.