Please forgive the next paragraphs of self-indulgent rant.

I've always been a bit of a fly-by -the-seat-of-my-pants writer. Characters come and go, plots unfold (better know than before) and somehow it all comes together in the end. However, knowing plotting is my weak spot, I though I would follow quite a meticulous plot plan before embarking on a new book. The plan said all I needed was the beginning and the ending to start with and everything else in between could be planned. Except that this week, all I've done is stare at a blank piece of paper with the beginning and ending written on it. I cant' seem to do any character sketches because, apart from a couple I know already, they are all a bit indistinct and I don't know how to get at them, apart from by writing (as opposed to planning) this book from the beginning.

Does anyone else do this?

Or do you all draw up beautiful plot graphs etc and know exactly where you are going with a novel before you type 'Chapter One' ?

I am worried now that I will prove to be a useless planner and, as a result, won't be able to think up a really good story.

Sorry for the Friday witter...

I've recently come to think that the mistake is to think of it as "planning", which implies that you draw the whole map, and then have to follow it. I think it works better to think of it as imagining, but just imagining which you do before you start writing the actual prose, and make notes about.

I know very, very little about the characters - a small handful (say, two) of adjectives, a name, a job, relationships to each other (as in, sister, friend, dad...) and that's it. The rest emerges as I write. I do slightly more working-out in terms of plot/structure, because like you I know the beginning and the end. But of the immediate stages, I know more about the beginning, and very little

The closest analogy I've found is of building a bridge:

http://emmadarwin.typepad.com/thisitchofwriting/2009/01/building-the-bridge.html

If you were looking at my novel planning grid here:

http://emmadarwin.typepad.com/thisitchofwriting/2010/05/help-yourself.html

what you can't see is that I absolutely don't fill it all in at once. If I did a time-lapse series of photographs you'd see that at the start the early chapters have more in them, and the later chapters may have nothing at all, if I can't see how the moves will go while I'm still standing on the near river bank. It gets filled in as I go (an often not at all, if it's bleedin' obvious).

The other thing I do, thanks to this post:

http://emmadarwin.typepad.com/thisitchofwriting/2011/12/dreaming-the-map-the-efficiency-of-magic.html

is to do a bit more imagining-in-notes-on-paper before I start each chapter: the stages of the move from where it starts to where it ends...

I agree with Emma, it's not planning as such, more like visualising.

I just try and imagining it as following someone with a camera. It's like someone does or says something slightly interesting or unusual and I think what if they did this or that or went over there ... and then I try and follow them. The rest tends to unfold from the initial writing, if I'm lucky, including the ending. Just an initial sketch, and you soon get the inkling of wether it's got any juice in it for you.

I agree with Emma, it's not planning as such, more like visualising.

I just try and imagining it as following someone with a camera. It's like someone does or says something slightly interesting or unusual and I think what if they did this or that or went over there ... and then I try and follow them. The rest tends to unfold from the initial writing, if I'm lucky, including the ending. Just an initial sketch, and you soon get the inkling of wether it's got any juice in it for you.





<Added>

* sorry for the double posting, my computer did a back-flip

Oh, funnyvalentine, I'm so with you on this one. I write the same way as you, and I agree that more planning will make the process more efficient. But it's true that a lot of the ideas don't come until we start writing.

There must be a happy medium - let me know if you find it!

One thing I will say, though, is to allow yourself ample time to dream around the edges of the story. I know what kind of thing I want to write after this wip, but the current one is taking so darned long that I've had more than a year to jot down little snippets and ideas about the next one. It's my guilty pleasure, when I'm fed up of the current wip, to allow myself a bit of daydreaming time about the next one. Hopefully that way, when I do get round to starting, it come out much more formed than the usual vague effort.

I was quite worked up about planning or not planning my novel last autumn. The scenes I tried to write according to a detailed plan were born dead, and I gave up on 'the plan' after that, although I still worried about it for a while.

I'm not sure if it'll help you, but one thing someone (a tutor) said which has helped me a lot is not worry about the detail or even the events in the early stages, but instead to simply visualize an image of where the main character is and what they are doing at the start, midpoint and end of the novel. Just focus on developing the image for each point, and then maybe write a couple of words or a phrase for each stage to help it fix the images in your mind. The idea is that this helps give an overall arc to the narrative and a sense of direction, without tying you down to working out what exactly will happen when or how before you've written much.

I do now try to imagine individual scenes before I write them but I normally only really see a few glimpses of moments I know belong to it, along with a start point and probable end point. While imagining I make a few very quick notes - snatches of something that happens, or of an emotion, or a sensory perception. I don't think that is really planning though, is it?

Not sure I'm qualified to comment, as I'm only on my first novel, but here goes:

I had the beginning and end in my head before I started, plus a few key scenes - I saw it a bit like a film or TV series. I wrote down the key scenes and looked at where I felt they should happen in the novel.

Next, I worked out a couple of things that needed to happen to move the book on from the beginning to that first scene and wrote them down. Working like this, from scene to scene, I had a basic structure to use. Once I got into the novel, I just kept adding to the plan as necessary developments occurred to me - and if anything looked tricky, warning signs started flashing for me to look at the story so far and see if I'd gone off course/forgotten something crucial.

Now, because I'm nearly (four chapters still to do) at the end, my plan is much more detailed, because I'm still checking for problems and making sure it all hangs together plausibly. The plan definitely evolved and changed as the novel evolved, though - apart from the beginning and ending and my main character, nothing was set in stone.

Does this help?

Thank you so very much everyone for replying to this.

I think it works better to think of it as imagining, but just imagining which you do before you start writing the actual prose, and make notes about.

I think this is the crux of it. I was being quite strict with myself about keeping to my plan, and yes, seeing it as a plan, rather than 'imaginings'. Then I was worried because so many of my characters have just turned up (this sounds so naff), rather than having been thought of sooner and have not suffered from being late arrivals, but almost been more useful as (it turned out) they often had crucial parts to play which I couldn't have planned if I sat here until Christmas.

I love the blog about writing being so dynamic, Emma. I couldn't agree more. I especially like the bit about standing on the bank, because my far side is really just full of old muslim clerics with beards with a couple of battles thrown in. The last book I wrote was a thriller so was tightly plotted in the second half and I did find that my writing slowed when I didn't know where I was going. I think the worst block took 3-4 days to resolve itself, but surely that was just part of the process? I think I had hoped to avoid that happening again, but actually just need to get over myself.
I love Rachael Aaron's posts - she's very sharp (and organised).
I like, Emma, the idea of the chapter notes though - a bit more baby-step like.

Hopefully that way, when I do get round to starting, it come out much more formed than the usual vague effort.

I actually think I've got more in my head than I think about this book - being the sequel to the one I've been toiling over for what seems like my whole life!!!!

The scenes I tried to write according to a detailed plan were born dead

Thanks so much for this MPayne, such a good way of putting it - that's exactly what was happening and I like your tutor's idea of the key points - very helpful

Congratulations Astrea on nearly finishing! Yes, that is exactly what happened with my last book - very scribbled on plan at the end, though I think you have a little more structure than I ever did to start with - which I think is a good thing and something I will aim for. But I am not going to sweat it - just because it didn't work for me. I am feeling much better now.

Thank you so very much for all your incredibly helpful advice and have a good writing weekend. The sky here is now very overcast - snow is on its way!

I had another thought about this yesterday when I was working, because what kind of planning are we talking about? The physical, practical story, or the emotional one? I frequently know what needs to happen in the emotional plot, without a clue about what's going to happen in the physical plot. But that has a way of solving itself, if you know what the emotional structure of the plot needs to be.

For example, yesterday, at the beginning of the day's writing my MC had just said to the man who's asking her to live with him, "Go away, I need to think, I'll give you an answer soon". And I needed to get to the point where, just as he's actually leaving she turns round and says, "Yes," almost as surprised as he is to find herself saying it.

I didn't know how I was going to build that - what was actually going to happen so that it would be surprising but convincing - but I started them off, heading for the station, and found that the business of getting there and buying a ticket and so on supplied me with all the moments I needed to nudge the emotional situation forward.

(I'm afraid I can't remember who on here drew an analogy with the way that when you're riding a horse, you need to look the way you want to go, as well as doing the right things with the reins and legs and so on.)

I frequently know what needs to happen in the emotional plot, without a clue about what's going to happen in the physical plot.

Yes, I really relate to this. The emotional journey (sorry for the cliché!) is the thing I'm most in tune to within my writing, much more than the 'what actually happens' level of events, which get worked out in the writing.

This reminds me of another thing I've found really useful to think about. I recently read 'From Where You Dream' by Robert Olen Butler and one of his key concepts is yearning. To put it at its most simple level, it is the main character’s particular yearning that drives the plot, and the most crucial thing you need to do before writing or in practise writing is to intuit/work out what the character’s yearning is. Once you’ve got that, everything follows on from it - that is, while as you write you don't know exactly what you’re creating (don't know all the details, don't know everything that happen, are exploring as you write) the character’s yearning grounds all the details and carries the story forward.