In general, I’m a planner. I like to think about what I’m going to do and tweak the plan before I do it. I would not describe myself as spontaneous, and I like a drama-free life. When I write, though, I find over-planning bores me. One of the reasons I’ve taken a break from my first story of the year was that I knew exactly where it was going and I didn’t feel like writing my way there. Now I’m at the point with this story where I think I should do some planning.
I’ve written the opening scene (which still days later I think is really good) and the next scene. There are only two characters in those scenes, but I’ve now opened things up to more characters and to keep everyone straight I’m inclined to make character notes or even write complete character studies for some. That’s a lot of work, most of which won’t make it into the story, but I know it will make a difference in my brain. I also tend to forget a lot of details as I go along and writing everything out will give me something to refer to later for consistency.
I also need to do some minor world building, mainly to establish the “rules” of this particular story. I’m not writing any kind of epic fantasy, but there are some unusual aspects and I need to know where the boundaries are so everything makes sense.
The good thing is that is all the fun part. The problem is once that’s done I have to get down to work and get it all on paper, or screen. Without doing all that planning things are likely to be a jumbled mess and that will frustrate me. With all that planning I often feel like I’ve written the story in my head, enjoyed it, and who cares if it ever sees the light of day. Well, obviously I care so I need to get over it.
Okay, decision made. Do the planning. Grow up and do the hard work after.
HourADayWriter 