Planning, Plot Twists, and the Reader/Writer Bond
Ranting & RavingPlanning, and the Reader/Writer Bond
I respect the hell out of writers that can wing it. I really do. The ones that sit down and free write, and a beautiful story emerges. I think that's awesome, but I can't do it. I plan, I plot. I know the beginning, the end, the characters, the conflict, the resolution and most of the details in between before I ever type a word. I have to do it this way and some of you should as well. Otherwise, you could end up writing yourself into a corner and not be able to get out of it. Due to your lack of foresight, you've set up the circumstances where you only have cliche in the path of your characters.
Plot twists: If you could have ended the story at more than two plot twists ago, you should have. Stories have a beginning, a middle and an end. They don't need to have five potential endings before we find out that they were vampires all along.
Planning is also important because of consistency. There's a story I finished last night(because I HAD to finish it. Even though it's the main cause for this rant you are being subjected to) that started off simple enough with a vampire being in love with a girl, so he became her teacher to get closer to her. Okay, a bit over done, but fine. There was the requisite love triangle with a guy who turned out to be a vampire as well. Oh, and her bestie was a vampire too. And she didn't know any of this. Still okay, though.
And then there began a clan war, and a ball of power that the girls soul needed to be added to in order to increase the power of the clan. And then she was in danger, so they moved her into the clan mansion where the teacher came out about his vampireiness. And then a fourth guy used a spell to make her forget about the teacher/boyfriend so that he could have her all to himself and/or turn her over to his master. Plan gets thwarted and she goes back to boyfriend/teacher. But then, the head of the dudes clan, his father, took all his money away and disowned him because he wouldn't kill her and take her soul. So they go to live with her mother, And her mother inexplicably was revealed to be a vampire hunter, and then the girl was suddenly under age(1
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