Goodreads Authors/Readers discussion

how do you layout your stories before you write them? As in story boarding? do you write each chapter and layout what's supposed to happen for the entire book then write the book.

Good question, I've been writing a novel for five years, never happy with it. At first I did a loose layout of what I wanted, and then I tried an outline so I wouldn't forget key points. Neither of those worked so well for me.

I tried flashcards, so I could tape them up and move them around as needed, but ran out of wall space. What I've found works best for me is, I get an idea. So I just start writing until I hit a wall. I let the whole thing simmer and go onto another project.

Then I go back to the original, re-read it, and usually by then I notice parts I don't like. I'll start re-vising them, get some more ideas, and write those until I get to the ending I have in mind.

For me, the only parts I normally don't change is the beginning and the end, the middle just flows as it will.

I like this new method, as I've been able to finally finish the book I've been laboring over and send it off to an editor.

I don't. I usually have an idea of the first scene or two, the turning point, and a possible ending, and then I just write. I find some of the best ideas have come to me while wiring, so I don't tend to plan much.

when you use the flash cards do you just put the main ideas on them and characters etc.

I use a series of notebooks. One of them is all character profiles, another is a collection of loosely arranged plot points and settings and finally I have a notebook where each couple of pages comprises a specific chapter and a list of what will occur in linear order. I have trouble getting going if I don't have a well laid out plan in hand.

Oh VanessaI am a piggy rooting in the muck tossing up ideas and haring after them! I am quite pantster(Writing by the seat of your pants)
I have gotten more organized as Ive gone along.
And what has helped me most? NaNoWriMo..national novel writing month which is November
You need to write 50,000 words in a month by hook or crook..about 1768 words I believe a day.
And even with extreme drama in my personal life I have stuck to my deadline.
And I only start out with a vague idea of what and where to go...but at the end I have the bare bones of a novel.In a month.

I grab a big sheet of A3 paper and start drawing on it. Characters, items, dates, connections. It kind of all comes together like a flow diagram and gives me the broad structure to fill in.

A.W. wrote: "I grab a big sheet of A3 paper and start drawing on it. Characters, items, dates, connections. It kind of all comes together like a flow diagram and gives me the broad structure to fill in."

That used to be my approach for all sorts of documents and presentations. I then used Writers Cafe software for a while but never really got on with it. Recently I've started using Scrivener and Aeon Timeline. Scrivener in particular has replaced Word and I now do all my writing in it. Strongly recommended especially when it gets to formatting for submissions - it has built in templates.

Before you ask I don't get any referral fees.

I do a lot of world-building first and history-coming-up-with... then I start to create characters... then there's a lot of thought/effort that goes into plot and figuring out what story the characters are a part of in this world. I keep notes in journals/folders/on my laptop... there is an organization to it, but don't ask me what it is...

Eventually, though, I just have to start writing. I don't know what's going to happen in each chapter, and I don't want to know until I get there. My outline is very loose, because I like to give my characters room to surprise me (they often have the best ideas, anyway) LOL

My books go through 70-100 drafts. First I lay out the grand lines of the story, then go back and flesh them out, then work on linking stuff from ch 2 to ch 8, etc. Lots of work, but it gets me best-selling books!

I manually write out the outline. Like Nancy, I have written and rewritten my book almost a 100 times. When I thought I was 95% done, it was still another 6 months of revising. I keep notebooks in almost every room, ideas come at the oddest moments. The very last portion I wrote? The very first page. Go figure.

Vanessa wrote: "when you use the flash cards do you just put the main ideas on them and characters etc."

I did at first, but then I started added side plots and after awhile it just got to be a big jumbled mess, which is why I eventually abandoned them.

I do have character sheets, with in depth info, and then just a basic list of names with their occupations in my world, as I tend to go, what did I call the minor character five chapters ago who now has a bigger part?

Plus, I free draw a rough map of the world I made up, with key areas colored in.

Stacey wrote: "Good question, I've been writing a novel for five years, never happy with it. At first I did a loose layout of what I wanted, and then I tried an outline so I wouldn't forget key points. Neither o..."

Sounds a lot like me. I might outline a few things and make some character notes, but I don't know what's going to happen in the middle until it . . . happens!

I also sometimes do drawings, I even did a CAD drawing of a house for my second book because what people could see and hear from a room and outside was critical, I wanted to know what the house looked like in and outside.

Just want to make enough money to build it now...

I also do the same thing as Rinelle mentioned! I published an inspirational book titled Win No Matter What: A Guide to Hyping Up Your Life just a few months ago and I kind of just started writing.

Currently, I am also starting on a new historical fiction thriller. I thought about the plot, events, and ending. Then, I just write and see what I can come up with. You can always change up stuff.

Anyways, that's just how I do it!

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