To Infinity and Beyond

Do not question the second title, I just wanted to write that. Don't mind me. Anyway, this chapter is actually about Planning. Personally, I usually skimp out on planning and try to memorise everything in my head or splurge it out when writing. With one shots, that's acceptable and they usually turn out okay but when it comes to a full out story with chapters and everything... Not so much. 

Planning, is quite difficult...for me. I don't know what it is, but spoiling my own story for me is just a no. Don't laugh. So I did a little research. A little  last minute reseach, but that doens't matter, and I found quite a few useful sites and will not only guide me but you as well. Yay, learning together ljdlkjdflgkjdfg.

Basics of a Story

I should have prooooobably mentioned something like this in the very beginning of this..."story". Lack of words, I'm sorry. But yes, as we all know there are the basics of a story and because I am a jumbled up mess, there are alread a few of these badics of which I've already spoken of. By a few, I mean only one because the rest of them are sort of referring to aff.

So with the basics of a story, we have

Characters - We talked about this in chapter 5. Who is your main character? What are they like, what are their hobbies and don't forget about their past. Seriously, just go back to chapter 5. Characters are the only thing I know how to do for sure. 

Setting - We have yet to talk about this, but what is a story without a setting? Obviously, your story has to take place somewhere. Make up places in your head and sketch them out so you have a better idea of the phyical settings. Or, look up pictures online and use those as references instead. Don't limit yourself! Create a whole new world as you please. Look out for a future lesson on settings-- it's most likely going to be chapter 9

Plot - Another one that has yet to be talked about. Most likely will be chapter 10 and really we can go on and on about this. Plot-- not plotting. We will be talking about plotting in the chapter, but not the plot itsself. Plot is pretty much the storyline, or the intention of the story. The plot is obviously pretty much the story, but how can you plan out a plot?

There are multiple ways, you can plan out a story. Of course, the way I learned in school wasn't really efficient because I had no idea how to start a story or really end it. The way they gave it to me was; plan the beginning, the middle and end. Which in my translation; just write the whole story but in a summary. Yeah, I tried doing that for a rather recent story. Never liked it.

Or, rather in a more formal way of explaining that would be; the Set Up (beginning), Conflict (Middle), Resolution (end). I got that off wiki, I don't think my teachers actually explained this to me. 

Another form of that was planning out every chapter. Like 

In chapter one; HyunA meets up with Gina after years of lost contact. They decide to meet at a mall and later on meet up with a few more friends for a night out.

Chapter two; Doojoon and Yoseob stumble across the two while they were doing their night out thing and friendship is re-kindled.

Something vague like that. Or you could go into more detail, that was just a quick example. Personally, I never like that either. But hey, if it works for you, then keep going on with that. 

The problem was, I never actually knew how to properly plan. Of course, the suggestions or rather forced planning that teachers in school give you don't exactly help either. In grade 7, even though I had a wonderful english teacher; she forced us to make a mind map for our very first narrative assignment. For some people, this works wonderfully. The only problem I found with this was that I never had enough room. So a solution to that (if you're having the same problams I was), is to use prezi. Although it's more for presentations, I found it very similar to a mind map and I haven't tried using it for planning, but I feel like it would be a good tool.

And so, I stumbled across a wedpage by terrible minds. 25 ways to plot and I'll name a select few that I personally do sometimes. Go and check the site out for yourself, it's a great resource of ideas c: I haven't actually checked out the rest of the web, but I'm sure it's just a nice.

Reverse Outline - When you write the story backwards. From ending to beginning. Another thing that my grade 7 teacher taught me and that I remembered really well, was that if you had a set ending, your story will come out better. For example, if you were to write a drabble and I said that your last setence ABSOLUTELY HAD TO BE "I'm sorry, I did it!" your story will come out alot better than if you wrote without an ending in mind. I say try it out, write a drabble without a set ending, and then write another one with a set ending and note the differences.

Tentpole moments - this is a personal favourite of mine, and I just do this for pretty much all my stories and more of the ones that I have no intentions of actually writing a full out story. This method, is pretty much where you write only the significant parts of the stories, hence, tent pole. Of course, later on you'll go back and tie strings between the significant part. Because the significant parts are the fun parts to write.

Dialogue pass - Where you simply let your characters talk and anothing else. My recommendations is though, add a few actions here and there so you don't forget what you want. It's  a simple and easy way to give a skeleton to your up coming chapter.

Visual storyboards - Not actually a personal favourite due to the same ela teacher that I've mentioned all throughout this chapter has also forced me to do this. Only I had to do it with a set scene that I was not allowed to change and things that I was not able to work with. It's a bit self explanatory though, you have a story board and you visually plan out your story. You can draw out your scenes on sticky notes (that way, you can easliy re-arrange things) and plan out your story like that.

Anyway, those were just a few of my favourites. Go on ahead and try them out, and see which ones you like, and don't forget to check out the rest of the list. A rather short chapter, but there's really not alot to say. I mainly just write whatever and then try to weave everything through.

There's also yWriter5 to help keep track of your story when you're writing it. You can keep track of settings, items and characters. It's a real convenient tool, I recommend you to use it.

References:

25 Ways to Plot, Plan and Prep Your  Story

Narrative Structure

How to Plan a Story