I’m curious as to how other writers pen their stories… Do you plan it down to the Nth degree, the plot, the characters etc or do you write like me? I have to say I have never actually met any other writers who creates a story the way I do.
I know what the beginning of the story is, and I know the ending, not necessarily exactly the ending I originally envisaged… Once I have these two points in mind, and I will have to really like the idea, I sit down and write. The story is finished when the outcome is achieved. Thus, I don’t know when I start writing how long the story will be. A short story, a novella or a full-length novel.
There was, and is, an exception to that rule and that is a saga I am writing called “The Laissez-Faire Inheritance”, a Sci-Fi Saga… I’ve been writing that now for about ten years, it will eventually run to three books and covers three centuries. Because the whole thing is plotted and planned, (I had a whole wall covered with the timeline and incident points) I don’t have the characters saying to me “I wouldn’t do that, I would do this…” The result is I’m dissatisfied with the story as I have characters coming out of the woodwork saying no. no. no…. I’m considering (eventually) scrapping the story and restarting using the method I am happiest with, after all I do know the beginning, and the end, and have the idea for the story…
So, how do you write?
Kenneth J. Matthews 
I use detailed Outlines to structure the first draft for each scene. I then expand on the individual parts of the chapters through letting the characters interact with the scenarios. This is like “winging it” but I end up scrapping it during the second draft. The second draft I clean up the unnecessary parts and usually it is those that were written spontaneously. A good outline is more important to me than writing unstructured scenes.
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Hello Vincent, In all honesty I expected people who outlined their stories to be the majority. It stillmay turn out like that but, thus far, the ‘wingers’ are carrying the day…
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