Planning a Story - Comments

I just wanted to say that this has helped me SO much when it comes to writing. You have some REALLY good ideas, and I've bookmarked this page and I visit it often! So thank you for writing it <3

@ FrankinGerard
I'm sorry if that came off a bit...offensive (I'm not sure if that's the right word to use.) I don't think there's anything wrong with asking readers things and tossing ideas around, I think almost everyone does it. What I was implying is that if you can't come up with a concept for the next chapter without your readers and really struggle with that, then you probably haven't planned and should consider doing that, therefore leading into the topic of my tutorial. Looking back, the way I phrased it probably wasn't the best, but I didn't mean it out of snobbery or anything like that. I mean some stories' purposes are to be interactive, of course.

This is just one suggested way to go about planning a story. If you don't want to fully outline your story before you write, that's totally your choice. There are tons of different methods out there and it's important that you find the right way for you.
I've always been taught to plan (except by brainstorm, which I hate with a passion). I rejected planning altogether for several years, and it just didn't work out for me. All the stories I've planned, I've completed (or am in the process of completing) and the stories I haven't...they didn't come up to standard or went off on weird tangents, so I scrapped them.

I forgot to put in my follow-up sentence about titles However, I think I explained why I prefer to title before anything else. I don't think I worded that properly either, but again, this is basically an opinion piece and I know a lot of people wait till later to title. For me it just feels like I've created a baby and now I get to give it its birth certificate, if that makes any sense?

Anyway, thank you for commenting and critiquing! I think I picked up on a couple of errors I didn't when I posted this.

There are two things that I don't agree with.

1. What's wrong with asking your readers things? Personally, I do it all the time with one of my stories. I don't always use the suggestions they give me, but they still help me out.

2. I've always been told from both of my Literature teachers that you should wait to come up with the chapter. I fully agree. In my opinion, it's silly to just ponder on what to call the story, so I plan, then title.

Other than those two minor things (that nobody cares about), this is great!

Thank you sooooo much. I am definitely one of those people who say they don't need to plan but then end up unable to get past chapter 3 without making the entire story seem poorly thought out and inconsistent. xD I will definitely try your methods and hopefully I can actually get some novels written. ;3

Thank you very much. I'very often had problems with writing a story, even from the begging, but thanks to these steps I might avoid writers block... Well at least for a little wile.

I like your methods or steps when it comes to planning. It's one of the things that I'm not very good at when it comes to writing. My plans are usually very basic. I come up with characters or situations then go from there as inspiration hits. But I never make a summary or chapter outlines. I either figure out everything I need to about my characters (doesn't matter if the skeleton of the story was thought up first or not) and build around them. But I think I'm going to try using your methods to help keep me focused on what I'm working on. My family knows how much I get distracted if I don't set things up for myself.

Cheers to you for writing this!

Bookmarking this page because is so helpful my ideas are always so disorganized so I often forget them and end up using them for another story and it ends up not fitting in with that...ANYWAY, thank you thank you thank you for posting this

Thanks for this :)

I really have to try this, I never plan anything and I've never gotten past the fourth chapter of a story