unexpected twists

It depends, again...

It depends on the story. My longer stuff - yes, I do have an outline of sorts. The long term bits tend to be a bit fuzzy, the near term is fairly detailed and in between, well it's in between. With most of my short stories the plan was the story, with very little mapping needed. So, it depends.

I know other authors have no idea where their stories are going - they just write what comes to mind when they're writing. Some that do this, are quite popular.

Anne

I know how it will end

I know where my stories will go, its just getting there that takes the time. In Show Me The Money, i knew Jennifer would get her car. In Runway I knew Dirk wouldn't care to transition even with the carrot of fame placed before his nose, whereas Brenda would. I know where Assassin will end, but there's still much story to be told. The only stories I was a little hazy about were my first ones and they were the typlical TG tales and we all know where they end, Arecee

I constantly have the

I constantly have the feeling my stories have a mind of their own. I don't have an outline of what will happen or how do I want it to end, I just have vague ideas about some key elements. Constantly my stories end up going a direction I never planned on before starting to write that particular chapter.

When I write I get into an almost trance like state, almost unable to stop writing until I finish the chapter. I guess there is a downside by not having a clear plot outline but I feel it is easier for me this way and a lot more fun. Comments do have power and they do influence my inspiration and the story sometimes. There is a development going on San & Jess and on Joan that was inspired on a very short comment.

Hugs,
Andrea

Well...

On a short story, I don't have any outline or plan. As I've said before, my stories frequently come to me in a dream. I just write it, then go back and see what I need to change.
However, when I started writing Unexpected Attractions,my editor, Angela Rasch, asked me to write a sort of overview or summary, something to show where I planned to focus in each chapter. It needed to be changed as I wrote, but it did give me a way to see what I wanted to do in each chapter. The overview was only a few words for each chapter, and was easy to write. It did help!
I hope this helped you!

Wren

Living Things

While I always have a clear idea of where my stories will go and how they will end before I begin, I never 'Map' out the story in detail, for my characters always take on a life of their own. Instead, I simply set the stage upon which my story will be played, introduce the various characters and drop them into the soup. From there we, my characters and I, set off on an adventure together to see how they will respond to the crisis I have conjured up for them. It is a journey of discovery and at times high adventure for both myself and the characters. This is what makes writing so much fun and exciting, for I never know with any degree of certainty what my characters will find tomorrow or how they will react to the next twist and turn in the story line I throw at them.

My advise, let your imagination and characters run free.

Nancy Cole
www.nancycole.org

~ ~ ~

"You may be what you resolve to be."

T.J. Jackson

Tough question!

Okay, I'll tell what works for me. Like most others, I was taught the old story outline method. The problem was that it never worked for me. By the time I finished the outline, my interest in that idea was dead. Just taking off writing didn't work too well either as I tended to wander into dead ends and again couldn't finish. What I've found does work is to imagine what would be the coolest ending for my basic idea. For Heroes of Justice it was everyone riding off into the sunset together after they met up again. Or the Final scene in Once the Hero where you don't meet the real villain until the very end.

I might jot down some ideas about great scenes that occur to me and try and include them as I write, but pretty much I start writing to meet up with that ending. The ending doesn't stay the same as I envision a lot of the time, but since I already have a good idea of what it is, filling in the middle, (Just like jelly donuts, the good parts are in the middle!) is fun and I can let the characters run wild, gently guiding them to where I want to go. It doesn't always work. That's why I have so many incomplete stories, but mostly it works better for me than any other method.

Hopes this helps!

Hugs!

Grover

Sometimes I have a map, but

Sometimes I have a map, but when I do, the characters almost always get in the way and say "I'd don't want to go there." Stubborn types they are, too.

Here are two epigraphs, written respectively by Kafka and Kierkegaard, that I came upon in my youth, in J.D. Salinger's novella "Seymour, an Introduction", that I think sum up the problem. If you take as long to write as I do you become very familiar with your characters, and therein lies the problem.

"The actors by their presence always convince me, to my horror, that most of what I've written about them until now is false. It is false because I write about them with steadfast love (even now, while I write it down, this, too, becomes false) but varying ability, and this varying ability does not hit off the real actors loudly and correctly but loses itself dully in this love that will never be satisfied with the ability and therefore thinks it is protecting the actors by preventing this ability from exercising itself."

"It is (to describe it figuratively) as if an author were to make a slip of the pen, and as if this clerical error became conscious of being such. Perhaps this was no error but in a far higher sense was an essential part of the whole exposition. It is, then, as if this clerical error were to revolt against the author, out of hatred for him, were to forbid him to correct it, and were to say, 'No, I will not be erased, I will stand as a witness against thee, that thou art a very poor writer."

not as think as i smart i am

Definitely

It happens all the time for me. I try to map everything out way ahead of time and try my hardest to follow that plan. I'm kind of anal that way but every once and a while something just doesn't work.

With Best Served Cold, for instance, I had this plan worked out in my head but as soon as I started writing I realized it was never going to work. So I abandoned the whole thing and decided to do something completely different. I always planned on doing what I am doing but never with this story. It just goes to show that some things can't really be mapped out and sometimes you need to be a little spontaneous with your work to get something that you enjoy.

The biggest thing is the gamble...will people enjoy what you've written or would they have enjoyed what you mapped out better?

EOF

It starts with an idea...

...I then give the idea its freedom and watch where it will fly for a while. As the core of the story builds I develop a sort of skeleton which gives me my starting point, my destination and a lot of the points of interest in between. As I write the story, sometimes the detail suggests a different route, sometimes new ideas crop up in comments, conversations, other stories, sometimes out of nowhere to give me a slight change. Only very occasionally will I end up writing a story exactly as I planned in the first place.

'Way into Wonderland' was a bit like that, but then the story spent over a year in my head before it found its way onto paper and had ample time to settle before I put pen to paper. 'Santa Baby' I started writing with a wholly different and much sadder outcome for Karen and Jen, but the story wouldn't let me go down that route. 'Too Good to be True' was like a fish; wouldn't stop wriggling right to the last.

You have to listen to your stories while you're writing them. You have to let the characters be real and allow them their say. Creativity is one of the few things in this world that genuinely benefits from external input, even if the external input comes from somewhere else inside (say what!??)

I just start with an idea,

I just start with an idea, and then develop the story as I type. No outline, or map. I've not had any new ideas in a while, though.

Donna Williams

Donna

I usually at least have some

I usually at least have some kind of outline in my head of where the story is going. Sometimes it's pretty detailed. I rarely write it down, though, so it can change quite often. With some stories I go beyond what I've planned and mostly wing it from there, like with VC. Sometimes the story changes so much on me that I want to go back and rewrite the whole thing, but I'll only do that if I haven't posted any of it yet.

Saless

"But it is also tradition that times *must* and always do change, my friend." - Eddie Murphy, Coming To America

My characters take over the storyâ€¦

My characters take over the story, so that I have to run behind them with my pen to chronicle what they do. Then I can try to write the more interesting things down.

For example, in La Suite Danse Macabre, Danny saw his psychiatriast who talked about giving himself permission to have fun dressing up, even as a girl, for Halloween. So, he called up Vanessa and asked her to get him a costume, "the girlier, the better." I had planned for Erica to talk, or even to trap, him into crossdressing, but Danny's proactive choice to do so grew out of the dialogue with his psychiatrist. That completely changed what would have happened in Chapter IV. I had intended for Chapter IV to complete the story, but it now requires at least one, maybe two more chapters to resolve.

In contrast, in To See Through a Glass Darkly, the storyline has followed very closely its original plan, although it's unfolding more slowly than I had intended due to the natural behavior of the various characters, especially Sasha's. There have been a few slight deviations from the original idea but only one important one, so far, although I did set up another potential significant change in Chapter 13. But I may not use it unless it advances the story somehow. It only advances the story if it helps move the plot along more quickly, or if it would bring out an important trait of a character. So this story will most likely continue to unfold along its intended path.

A good story needs to flow more from the logic of its characters' past actions and inner experiences than from its author's pen. Else, the author risks losing continuity in characters' behaviors. In genres like fantasy or science fiction, suspension of disbelief is already needed for the plot and setting to work, so consistency of character becomes even more important than in other genres. As a case in point, Sasha will need most of the story before he learns the full nature of his shifting perceptions. By the time he does, they will have left their impact on his self-perception and perhaps on his gender identity as well.

The Rev. Anam Chara+

Anam Chara

I tend to write stream of

I tend to write stream of consciousness without much if any planning. Generally this ends in long stories. (My 2005, 2006; and 2007, 2009 Nano's are examples of this) All four were meant to be standalone stories, but the characters told me I needed to keep going to finish the story. The only time I seem to have gotten it in one shot was my 2010 Nano, which sits here as I keep picking at it. Something about the lack of a deadline makes me slack off...

Kayla