Plotting

[cfnmchap]

Hello all,

Wondered how the various authors here work on their plots. I came to my first downfall halfway through my first book when I realised that I had no idea where I was going. From that point on I tend to work on a plot/outline often alongside my first draft.

I find that although my plot changes as my writing progresses, it does help a lot to get an idea of where I am going.

Interested to hear other views.



Paul

 

[sr71plt]

Depending on the anticipated length of the story, a broad brush of a plot (not necessarily all of the plot that materializes eventually) is just in mind. For longer pieces, I try to have some notes--again incomplete on plot--written. The joy in writing for me is seeing where the journey is taking me, not plotting out every ten minutes of the journey before I actually take it.

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JAMESBJOHNSON, 6/26/15: I've been bombing the shit outta your stories just for the fuck of it. Youll never see a 3 again!
http://forum.literotica.com/showthread.php?t=1197987, post #26

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

What I do is assemble stories in chunks, like monuments. Something old, something new, something stolen, something true.

 

[cfnmchap]

What I do is assemble stories in chunks, like monuments. Something old, something new, something stolen, something true.

That's an interesting approach. Kind of like a jigsaw I suppose? Nice one.

 

[cfnmchap]

Depending on the anticipated length of the story, a broad brush of a plot (not necessarily all of the plot that materializes eventually) is just in mind. For longer pieces, I try to have some notes--again incomplete on plot--written. The joy in writing for me is seeing where the journey is taking me, not plotting out every ten minutes of the journey before I actually take it.

-----

JAMESBJOHNSON, 6/26/15: I've been bombing the shit outta your stories just for the fuck of it. Youll never see a 3 again!
http://forum.literotica.com/showthread.php?t=1197987, post #26

Yeah I'm in agreement with you. I use the plot to give me a general idea, from which I can then change direction.

 

[PennLady]

I usually have an endpoint when I start, even if I don't know exactly how I'll get there. Several times I have written about half a story, then I hit a bit of a wall and so I sit back and outline what I have so far. This gives me a chance to review and process what I have, and then I can see a way (or a couple of ways) to get to my endpoint. My endpoint may also change a bit, depending on the story I have so far.

I've tried outlining from the start, even a broad one, but it doesn't usually work for me.

 

[sr71plt]

That's an interesting approach. Kind of like a jigsaw I suppose? Nice one.

Sounds nice, but it's the usual JBJ nonsense. Try that combination and let us know how it worked for you.


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JAMESBJOHNSON, 6/26/15: I've been bombing the shit outta your stories just for the fuck of it. Youll never see a 3 again!
http://forum.literotica.com/showthread.php?t=1197987, post #26

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

That's an interesting approach. Kind of like a jigsaw I suppose? Nice one.

Stories should be interesting, the pieces logically related, and all of it fit together into a whole or gestalt.

 

[HeyAll]

Ask the simple question: What would logically happen next?

OR

Where do you want the story to go?

Obviously the end result is sex, since this is an erotic stories website, so the final destination is already clear.

I also try to think "what's a hot scene?" or "what kind of erotic things do I want to put in the story?" and I try to weave it in somehow.

Use the dialogue and plot points to get from A to Z. Before long, you have a complete erotic story.

 

[sr71plt]

Obviously the end result is sex, since this is an erotic stories website, so the final destination is already clear.

There's no "obvious" that the end result for me is sex, and that might be the same with some others. I was already writing stories when I came to erotica. All I wanted in writing erotica was not to close the door or have to go hazy when I got to the sex in stories. I wanted to continue with graphic storytelling at that point. I don't even think about sex being the "end result" of any pf my stories when I write them. Sometimes it is; sometimes it isn't. I start with a sex scene more times than I end with one, I think. The storyline has priority; not the sex.

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JAMESBJOHNSON, 6/26/15: I've been bombing the shit outta your stories just for the fuck of it. Youll never see a 3 again!
http://forum.literotica.com/showthread.php?t=1197987, post #26

 

[49greg]

I winged it in my first stories, and sometimes came up with what I thought of as a gem, even if the voters didn't. But other stories went rogue on me and got too twisted. That's when I started thinking of outlines, although they've never been detailed.

I have started all my stories as a spark of an idea, usually some hot sounded sex that comes to me and I've tried to build around it. Other times it's just a neat non-sex related piece of action or situation between two people that I then build a story around and find places to insert sex scenes into. The latter are the ones that I have enjoyed the most.

Due to several series that I have not been able to end - even if it's be years since I've worked on them - I started working on an ending, and exit strategy if you will, as soon as I come up with the initial idea. I've also backtracked and started finding endings on the stories I have working but not finished. This has given me a goal, how to get to that spot that has made things easier. Although since I haven't completed anything I want to post here in months and months.

 

[2Throwed]

I'm not sure there's always a method to the madness http://www.photography101.org/images/xCyz77aF.jpg

 

[ElectricBlue]

Sounds nice, but it's the usual JBJ nonsense. Try that combination and let us know how it worked for you.


-----

JAMESBJOHNSON, 6/26/15: I've been bombing the shit outta your stories just for the fuck of it. Youll never see a 3 again!
http://forum.literotica.com/showthread.php?t=1197987, post #26

Fuck me, Biggles, gets your head out of your ass. Just because something doesn't work for you doesn't mean it doesn't work for someone else. Hemingway's answer is actually a good one (sometimes works for me, sometimes doesn't).

And before you say, get my head out of Hemingway's ass, have you had your treatment for priapism yet? From what I can see right now, you're the one with the hard on for JBJ, or is your latest footer observational comedy, wry cynicism, or just for the record? His ass must be sore, all the attention your giving it.

Fuck mate, you make it so difficult not to join in. You give us more set-up lines than Margaret Dumont ever gave Groucho.

 

[ElectricBlue]

back on topic

I rarely have an outline, or if there is one, it's flimsy as.

I often get some way into a story before I find out what it's going to do, who is going to be in it, even. Sometimes I'll start a paragraph not knowing where it's going to end, fifty words later. When I'm on a roll (or my characters have taken over) I'll get to the end of 1k words, read it back, and think, wow, did I just write that?

Having said that, I was three parts into my long EH story cycle before I knew where it was going, and then took another 22 parts to get there. Including a major plot re-set right in middle with a whole new set of characters, and I have no idea where they came from. In that one, I just had the last line, and then had to figure out how to get to it.

I reckon a solid outline would kill my writing - it's the threads and glimmers I go for, that's where the magic is, for me.

That's why there are so many different styles and so many fresh looks (and so many stale ones). What works, works.

Keep writing, even when you can't, would be my suggestion. You might throw away a thousand words, but you might write ten absolutely brilliant ones that bring it all ravelling back (if something can unravel, it can ravel - on my page at least).

 

[sr71plt]

Fuck me, Biggles, gets your head out of your ass. Just because something doesn't work for you doesn't mean it doesn't work for someone else. Hemingway's answer is actually a good one (sometimes works for me, sometimes doesn't).

Speaking of taking one's head out of one's ass . . .

As I already noted, why don't you take that idiotic formula for writing a story, try using it, and tell us how it worked out for you? I'll wait until you do--and in the meantime I won't use the nasty language you have.

JBJ was just being cute and diddling everyone. And you obviously like being diddled by him.

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JAMESBJOHNSON, 6/26/15: I've been bombing the shit outta your stories just for the fuck of it. Youll never see a 3 again!
http://forum.literotica.com/showthread.php?t=1197987, post #26

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Fuck me, Biggles, gets your head out of your ass. Just because something doesn't work for you doesn't mean it doesn't work for someone else. Hemingway's answer is actually a good one (sometimes works for me, sometimes doesn't).

And before you say, get my head out of Hemingway's ass, have you had your treatment for priapism yet? From what I can see right now, you're the one with the hard on for JBJ, or is your latest footer observational comedy, wry cynicism, or just for the record? His ass must be sore, all the attention your giving it.

Fuck mate, you make it so difficult not to join in. You give us more set-up lines than Margaret Dumont ever gave Groucho.

I rejected his marriage proposal. I move about a lot to keep it overheating from his obsessive attention.

 

[sr71plt]

I rejected his marriage proposal. I move about a lot to keep it overheating from his obsessive attention.

Perhaps you can point to one of your stories here where it can be discerned that you've constructed the story on "something old, something new, something stolen, something true." That should be easy enough as you identify it as your usual plotting device.

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JAMESBJOHNSON, 6/26/15: I've been bombing the shit outta your stories just for the fuck of it. Youll never see a 3 again!
http://forum.literotica.com/showthread.php?t=1197987, post #26

 

[rjordan]

I often get some way into a story before I find out what it's going to do, who is going to be in it, even. Sometimes I'll start a paragraph not knowing where it's going to end, fifty words later. When I'm on a roll (or my characters have taken over) I'll get to the end of 1k words, read it back, and think, wow, did I just write that?

My stories nearly always start with a single scene of dialog. I might be in the car at the time imagining a conversation. When I get a chance I write it down and something pops up in the conversation that gives it direction. Out of that, I have no idea how exactly, a story idea develops and I start to embellish around the original dialog.

My plots, such as they are, always seem to develop out of the characters, not from any plan I might have. When it gets to a couple thousand words, I write an outline to see what I have and proceed from there.

One of my stories, Telemarketing, started as telephone dialog and never advanced beyond that. I had no idea where it was going, but I recognized when it was there.

rj

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Perhaps you can point to one of your stories here where it can be discerned that you've constructed the story on "something old, something new, something stolen, something true." That should be easy enough as you identify it as your usual plotting device.

-----

JAMESBJOHNSON, 6/26/15: I've been bombing the shit outta your stories just for the fuck of it. Youll never see a 3 again!
http://forum.literotica.com/showthread.php?t=1197987, post #26

A fools errand for you, Chubby.

 

[cfnmchap]

I usually have an endpoint when I start, even if I don't know exactly how I'll get there. Several times I have written about half a story, then I hit a bit of a wall and so I sit back and outline what I have so far. This gives me a chance to review and process what I have, and then I can see a way (or a couple of ways) to get to my endpoint. My endpoint may also change a bit, depending on the story I have so far.

I've tried outlining from the start, even a broad one, but it doesn't usually work for me.

That's actually how I ended up focusing more on plot, as I wrote a story but didn't know where i was going. So I went back and did as you say, review what I had and then developed from there. I now tend to write a plot, start writing and then revise as I go alone. That seems to work for me.

 

[cfnmchap]

I winged it in my first stories, and sometimes came up with what I thought of as a gem, even if the voters didn't. But other stories went rogue on me and got too twisted. That's when I started thinking of outlines, although they've never been detailed.

I have started all my stories as a spark of an idea, usually some hot sounded sex that comes to me and I've tried to build around it. Other times it's just a neat non-sex related piece of action or situation between two people that I then build a story around and find places to insert sex scenes into. The latter are the ones that I have enjoyed the most.

Due to several series that I have not been able to end - even if it's be years since I've worked on them - I started working on an ending, and exit strategy if you will, as soon as I come up with the initial idea. I've also backtracked and started finding endings on the stories I have working but not finished. This has given me a goal, how to get to that spot that has made things easier. Although since I haven't completed anything I want to post here in months and months.

Thanks for your post, interesting to read. I had a similar start with a story, though I lost my sense of direction, and that's what made me start to focus on plot, not as the be-all, end-all, but as a method to keep an idea of where I was going and what I was trying to achieve in the story.

 

[sr71plt]

A fools errand for you, Chubby.

Yep, I knew you were just diddling us with that idiotic approach to plotting.

Maybe those who attacked me for disagreeing that that was a seriously offered approach will now go look at your stories and post on how you used that approach for them--and then reconsider their attacks on me for being serious about writing here.

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JAMESBJOHNSON, 6/26/15: I've been bombing the shit outta your stories just for the fuck of it. Youll never see a 3 again!
http://forum.literotica.com/showthread.php?t=1197987, post #26