#its just NOTE JOTTING in which it turns to incomprehensible squiggles

[toastytoaster22]

How do you plan out your stories/form an outline for what you’re gonna write? Any advice for it?

Hi Hello! Thank you for the ask! I love talking about my weird process for writing long fics. Hopefully you find even a bit of this helpful. Everyone is different and my process isn't going to be the same as what might work best for you.

I went through part of this a while ago for a different ask, so I'll reblog that after I answer in case I miss something (my head isn't really on today) Forgive me if there's overlap.

OKAY!

The first thing I do once I've got a good idea in my head and its fleshed out enough that I think "This is good! I will actually write this!", I start a new notebook (if the fic will be long) or grab a couple pages from a partially filled one (if its going to be shorter). I am a visual person when it comes to writing, so I like to see my story built out in front of me. It helps me organize, plan, and keep track of character arcs/specific events/details I want to include.

Issho's original story map got nearly destroyed with the amount of edits and notes I added over the course of writing it, but here it is in it's delightful, disgusting glory:

As you can see, I am a messy person. This works for me. I am sure some people will see this and want to scrub their eyes out of their heads.

But the important thing is that I have noted down where events happen across the timeline, where the chapters are marked, the three main arcs (if you can see them, good lord) and have a note at the top about what the main theme of the fic is, and Points to Make. Below are some notes on Toichiro and Serizawa that should have been on another page but ended up there somehow.

I tried to be more ... legible... with Nightjar's story map, and even color-coded it by location. It keeps track of each group of characters, when they interact, when the big events happen in conjunction to those meetings, and bc i am like this, the weather.

Nightjar has a lot more moving parts, so I just put a couple words in each spot and wrote the notes for those events in full on another paper. Nightjar has a very organized notebook with labeled tags and everything, with sections on Character Arcs and Emotional Progress, The Government's Response, Counter Attacks by Claw, OCs, and a whole back section of maps that correlate to where in Seasoning they are.

When I have a basic idea of what I want to happen and when, I go ahead and get a word doc going with the whole outline in one place. I just shorthand write down everything I want to happen as messily as I want. It doesn't matter what it says so long as i know what it means. If i get an idea at any point that i want to include, I throw it in the appropriate place asap. It could be a cool scene, a specific line I want, or a point of progress I need a character to make. Anything. The Outline Doc gets LONG. like 30 pages.

When I sit to write an actual chapter, I go to the outline doc and copy/paste the selection of events I want in that chapter into a new doc and work from there. I keep both docs open so i can throw ideas in anywhere or move events around if I need to change where the chapter ends.

I try to be open minded and flexible with my story construction. And I sure do call it Construction. I tend to change events and move chunks of story and plot around like puzzle pieces until it feels Just Right and makes the most sense.

Sometimes I do this more on paper than on the word doc bc my brain likes seeing things a lot less... up and down? Than a computer can provide. Like this section of notes I have on Issho Teru's emotional state after his parents leave:

I wanted to have a map of Teru's 5 Stages of Grief along with events that move him along toward accepting Reigen into his life and which chapters those events happen in. This got abandoned before I ended up writing any of it, so the top part about him acting out against Reigen never came into play. Originally he never went to the Children's Center, but I couldn't pull that off, so i had to send him away for his Angry period. It worked better.

Obviously not every story needs this level of attention and mapping! My Issho side stories get a few notes in the notebook and then go straight to a word doc. Anything that's only a couple chapters tends to go right to the computer bc I don't need to move events around or map out arcs.

My brain has run out of juice at the moment, but I got more out here than I expected. If you have any follow up questions, feel free to ask!