Question for authors: How do you usually go about writing a story?

[RejectReality]

I've been doing the same job for over 20 years, and been in the same industry my entire adult life. I can do it on autopilot most of the time. All those hours when my brain is an unnecessary organ get spent musing. Once I have a decent mental outline and the opening scenes, I start writing, and move forward in the story the next day at work... as long as other ideas don't intrude and eat that bandwidth up.

Every so often I'll create an outline document or just a wall-o-text made up of clipped sentences if something hasn't congealed enough to start writing yet, but I don't want to forget what I have.

 

[Emilymcplugger]

I don't put much thought into it, I let the story write itself. I hammer out a very rough outline and don't worry about it when it goes off course. When you see my stories become a series it's generally not because I like the story, it's because I love the way the characters evolve.

I love the way the characters come alive in your head.

They start off like this free-forming shape in your head, but, by the time you’re a couple of parts in and you’ve started your plot moving with them they are then driving the plot with their own thoughts, feelings, kinks, wants and needs and they start telling YOU how the plot moves.

I think that’s the best bit.

 

[wws_wws]

In general I am the opposite of most here, as I plan a lot. I normally have an idea of a story, and then I:

- take notes on things I want to write about

- start an outline and sequence my notes in a first draft order I want them to occur

- research a lot of things

- update notes and sequencing if need be

- start to write.

Note: I am newer and I haven't written the longer types of stories A the others here.

Yup! Same here.

I send myself dozens of emails and take lots of notes. I've even eavesdropped on people's conversations to harvest "real dialogue" for my current contemporary romance. Now that I'm on a paying site, and readers demand a story with higher quality, I feel I owe it to them to be more deliberate in plotting out my story.

 

[FluffMeatsStory]

I am more of a pantser. I will have 2-4 scenes planned, and write mostly start to finish with a stream of conscious style, but with a goal of going through the planned scenes. Sometimes, I will have to go back in the story to add plot hooks I find I now need. I have to blend in the addition, so it is seamless to the story part I insert it into. My reference material is mostly a cast of significant characters, their relationships to others, and their main characteristics.

Any number of times, I have looked into a previous chapter to look up a character I want to re-use, or check where something happened. I also usually use a name list to come up with ethnic names. Usually I go for common, but occasionally go for rare names. I also look up exotic places, so I can describe them in story. I use myth also, so I look them up to get characteristics, and ideas, to make the action more like reality since I use real myth and places. I shy away from modern specifics, unless it is throw-away, like being on the cover of Playboy, or getting an Academy Award. These I use as plot color more than as plot points.

When I complete a story, I wait a day or two and re-read it. This often shows typos, misspellings, and such, but it also shows me writing that does not flow. I will rewrite small parts to make it flow. It also often tells me where I need to add plot points I forgot.
Then I wait another day or two, and edit again.

At this point, the story is fairly well written, and the majority of typos and misspellings fixed.
Then I send it to my editor.
From the editor's viewpoint, having never seen it before, more writing issues are caught. The most common for me is a lack of commas. While I may disagree here and there, I mostly agree that the edit is appropriate. The ones remaining, I send back to the editor with why I think the original is better or both are bad, and another way is suggested or sought.
Once these are ironed out, the updated story is posted.

So far, I have only hit one story that wasn't accepted. I knew I was pushing boundaries, but it needed several rounds of revisions before it passed. No problems since.

 

[Phantom300]

I'm a "pantser" writer. I have a glimmer of an idea and start writing. I don't write outlines or plans, nor do I have a pre-conceived plot. Characters can arrive within the length of a paragraph, and sometimes take over a story. It's mostly stream of consciousness which luckily comes pretty much fully formed. I don't edit much. It works for me.

This is mostly me. I will have a vision of a scene or plot nugget and start writing, letting the story go wherever it takes me. No planning, no outlines. One scene or nugget usually leads to another, and I keep going.

This is in TOTAL contrast to the rest of my actual life, where I am very detailed, organized and hate winging things. But it seems to work for me here. It gets the ideas out of my head so others can fill the space.

Sometimes the muse gets off track and I have to wait until she re-calibrates. Might take an hour, might take 6 months. Some of my stories have odd little side tracks that seem to go nowhere. I often reread them and wonder where that came from.