What to write next?

[UnexpectedLuggage]

So I've realized that I have like five or six stories in the hopper right now, not including the one I'm currently writing.

I'm curious how other people here decide what to write next. Most all of my stuff is one-off stories, so it's not the obvious "just write the next chapter" like it is for my other writing stuff.

Do you guys just go with whatever appeals to you most in the moment when you finish something? Tru to go with what you think followers might like most? Just pick one at random?

 

[StillStunned]

Do you guys just go with whatever appeals to you most in the moment when you finish something? Tru to go with what you think followers might like most? Just pick one at random?

Whichever of my WIPs I feel most like writing. Sometimes I'll switch after half an hour, whether I've actually produced anything or not. Sometimes a new idea will spawn and I'll just write that until it's finished.

Life's too short to be writing anything that I'm not in the mood to write.

 

[NuclearFairy]

Yeah just whatever I'm in the mood for/have the clearest mental image of. Although I think when I finish the long story that I'm currently writing, I'll probably pick the long story that I've gotten the furthest in with that approach to bounce back to whenever I'm not particularly inspired.

 

[iwatchus]

I was fighting with a story last week. I was in a pretty dark mood and it was a story that needed to be light and airy. It was fighting me tooth and nail. I set it aside for a day and then wrote a nice slow burn romance, which fit with my initial mood and helped get me out of it. I came back to the first one today, and it was easy to write. I just had to delete most of what I wrote last week first.

 

[M_K_Babalon]

Either I wait until inspiration hits, or I look over stuff I already started... until inspiration hits.

 

[Nynah]

Do you guys just go with whatever appeals to you most in the moment when you finish something? Tru to go with what you think followers might like most? Just pick one at random?

I think you have to ask yourself as an author what you want out of writing. Do you want to write for the sake of it? Or are you chasing the dopamine of getting engagement from your followers?

Both are valid! Being honest with yourself is a decent way of untangling what you need/want out of the craft.

 

[TiberiusPrime]

I have something like 10 WIPs currently. I tend to work on them when an idea pops into my head.

 

[crookedletter]

I have a lot of things in progress, and my jumping around on a whim is a big part of why I've only posted one story here in the yearish I've been around.

I'd say I'm split between a couple impulses. There is an element of what I "should" be working on, what I've put a lot of time into and want to finish. I've been trying to write a novel for a while and if I don't sometimes force myself to work on it when I'm not really feeling it it'll just never get done.

Then with erotica especially there's the impulse to just work on whatever I'm feeling most excited about when I sit down to write. Which is well and good, except when I go quite a long time time without actually finishing anything...

 

[AG31]

Unlike most authors here, I only record my fantasies. I don't "craft" or "pants." At age 81 I haven't had any new fantasies in over a year (I think). I've declared my writing days over 2 or 3 times, but I think it's true this time. But I still enjoy reading good stuff.

 

[UnexpectedLuggage]

I have something like 10 WIPs currently. I tend to work on them when an idea pops into my head.

Oh man, I couldn't do that! I need to focus on one story or I'll never get anything done.

Ran into that problem with my regular fiction work, too many ideas I tried getting on paper at once and now they're all only like 20% done.

 

[iwatchus]

Recently, I have been keeping the first 300-500 words of several stories written. The basic story and first pass character introduction. They stew for a while and when I am ready to write them, they just flow.

 

[ronde]

I don't usually try to think of a story I want to write next. I do make some notes about something I've seen or heard, so I suppose you could call them works in process. I revisit them from time to time to see if they show promise of going anywhere. I don't try to write something just because I've finished a story. I have to be involved with the characters and plot before I feel like writing. Sometimes that happens before I finish a story and sometimes it's quite a while after I've finished a story.

Some of my stories originate in something I've read, seen, or heard followed by the questions to myself of "What if" and "How could this end". Others start out with a personal experience and the same two questions.

 

[SinclairGroupLLP]

Other than my series, which has a life of its own, I usually just go with whatever the next theme is in terms of contests or author challenges.

 

[GraiceeGirl]

I wanted to write one story at a time, but that has never happened since I started here. Right now, I have three unfinished stories, one of which is part of a series. My stories are also taking longer than I expected to get published. I have two pending. I don't want them to all come out at the same time. Whether I want to or need to write the pending issue has dampened my spirit to write.

 

[VallesMarineris]

Do you guys just go with whatever appeals to you most in the moment when you finish something? Tru to go with what you think followers might like most? Just pick one at random?

I do have deadlines that I pay attention to. I just pushed out a story for Geek Pride; I'm releasing a novel at the rate of a chapter every week or two and I want to keep my loyal readers interested. Those external requirements keep me working when I'd rather space out.

For the bulk of my writing, I work on 3-5 stories in parallel. Sometimes I get stuck on a character or plot problem. In that case i study it and then move on to another story. I trust my subconscious to figure out a solution when I come back to it the next day. Seems to work for me.

Re what I choose to write: I write what I write, and I've developed a small but growing group of readers who seem to like it. So there's not much tension between whether I write for myself or my followers.

 

[TiberiusPrime]

Oh man, I couldn't do that! I need to focus on one story or I'll never get anything done.

Ran into that problem with my regular fiction work, too many ideas I tried getting on paper at once and now they're all only like 20% done.

I tend to come up with an idea of a story that I need to get started on as soon as I can, otherwise I'll forget it. Once I start it and get the initial idea "on paper", I then flesh things out a bit by creating characters, descriptions, etc. For example, I have a time travel story I'm writing where I need to be very meticulous with who the characters are, when they exist, and so on. Otherwise, it wouldn't make any sense. BUT I started writing it long before I knew who a lot of the characters were going to be. I wanted to get the set up written and then I went back to the additional characters other than the main one. For me, that's what works best, especially my longer stories.

Also, I thought I only had 10, I actually have 15 WIP apparently

 

[SimonDoom]

I wrestle with this all the time! I've built up a stash of about 50 or 60 unfinished stories. Most of the time I go with my gut, whatever seems most appealing at the moment. Sometimes I choose to write something new, like challenging myself to write a story in a new category. Right now I'm working on finishing a fairly short incest story, the second and concluding chapter of a story I published last December. It did well and I've received many requests to publish chapter 2, so I want to get that one done and out of the way. I should be able to finish that one within the week. Then I'm going to finish a longer exhibitionist story that's about 2/3 done and that I will submit it for the Nude Day contest. After that, who knows?

 

[TheRedChamber]

When I first started writing, for the first six months or so, I worked only on one draft at a time. That was very important to me because I was new to writing and wanted to focus on actually finishing something. Once, I'd gotten about ten stories under my belt, I was more comfortable with the idea that I was able to finish things and that it was perfectly fine to write down something I had semi-planned even though it may or may not get finished. And writing stuff down when it was relatively fresh and exciting was much better than sitting staring blank at a screen writing the thing I felt I should be writing.

Generally, I get absorbed in a story, in the process of writing and solving plot issues and thinking of fun things for characters to say to each other (and, this being erotica, do to each other). When I'm in that kind of zone, one story tends to take up my attention until a) I burn out on it or b) I finish. It's very easy to get 'knocked off a story' If I have a busy week at work or miss some of my usual semi-scheduled writing times, sometimes when I go back I don't always have the same drive to get that story finished. Usually, if the story is 50%+ complete, I usually force myself to find that drive (which can be like trying to start a flooded engine). A lot of drafts end up with 3k-5k words of something which is probably 10-20k and they can sit on my harddrive for years. Which is not to say that one day I won't open up a dusty old file and suddenly get the same zest for it I had the day I first thought it up, but it's rather unpredictable.

At the moment I've got a lot of half-finished stuff I should be working on, but this past week I suddenly had the urge to write a 2.5k short sweet lesbian piece and a (eventually) 6k Star Trek fanfiction piece more or less out of nowhere. And I did because I could. The words came for those ideas quickly and both were done in two shortish sessions.

For me, stuff gets finished, but it's almost impossible to say what will get finished when.