Post by canvid on Feb 9, 2020 18:23:33 GMT -5
I've decided to kick off 2020 in this public thread of Stringing Words with many writers' favorite question: Do you like to plan out your manuscript in advance, or just write! The planners are often known as Outliners while the people who write without planning are the Pantsers or Discovery Writers.
Personally, I like to do MAJOR amounts of planning. I use software, known as mind maps,to simulate what some writers do with a stack of index cards and a cork board. I think of the index cards as little soldiers I'm sending out into the world to bring me back a story.
I organize my index cards using a system called the W plot. To see a description of this go watch the following YouTube video:
youtu.be/pMhLvMJ_r0Y
The W plot, like many similar systems, (Eg. Story Wonk's 7 Anchor Scenes) has certain story structural points, such as, the inciting incident: The event that kicks off the main character's adventure. This typically involves a disaster of some kind.
The bottom line is, you figure out what these structural points are in your story then you look at your index cards happily.
The down side of this approach is obvious. The resulting story seems like it was determined by a formula...because it was! But here's the rub. People who just write without planning often have these elements somewhere in their story. It may not be in the same order but they're often there by the time the discovery writer feels a sense of "completeness" about the story.
Anyways, that's my take on it! Let me know what you think!
Personally, I like to do MAJOR amounts of planning. I use software, known as mind maps,to simulate what some writers do with a stack of index cards and a cork board. I think of the index cards as little soldiers I'm sending out into the world to bring me back a story.
I organize my index cards using a system called the W plot. To see a description of this go watch the following YouTube video:
youtu.be/pMhLvMJ_r0Y
The W plot, like many similar systems, (Eg. Story Wonk's 7 Anchor Scenes) has certain story structural points, such as, the inciting incident: The event that kicks off the main character's adventure. This typically involves a disaster of some kind.
The bottom line is, you figure out what these structural points are in your story then you look at your index cards happily.
The down side of this approach is obvious. The resulting story seems like it was determined by a formula...because it was! But here's the rub. People who just write without planning often have these elements somewhere in their story. It may not be in the same order but they're often there by the time the discovery writer feels a sense of "completeness" about the story.
Anyways, that's my take on it! Let me know what you think!