I used to outline every chapter before writing a single sentence, now I just dive in and fix it later

For three years I planned every plot beat in advance, like a roadmap with no detours. Then I wrote a 50k word novel that felt dead on the page, nobody cared about the characters. Last November I tried NaNoWriMo with zero planning, just a vague idea and a timer. That mess turned into my best story yet, full of twists I never saw coming. So now I write the first draft like I'm throwing spaghetti at the wall, then edit it into shape. Anyone else find that overplanning kills the fun of discovering a story? What's your process look like these days?

2 comments

2 Comments

claire_butler19d ago

Read your post and felt it in my bones. Spent two years mapping out a trilogy down to the chapter level, then scrapped the whole thing because I'd become a cartographer, not a writer. My NaNoWriMo disaster draft had characters who actually talked to each other instead of hitting plot markers. These days I start with maybe three scenes I'm excited about and a vague sense of where it might end. The rest gets figured out in rewrite number four, which is somehow way more fun than trying to be perfect from the start.

butler.abby9d ago

Three scenes and a vague ending is exactly how my best project came together. @claire_butler1 I used to outline until my notebooks were full of arrows and crossed-out notes. What finally clicked was writing one character's voice first, then letting the plot catch up. Now I just ask myself what this person would actually do next, not what the story structure says should happen.