Planning vs. Living

[trolls' bane]

In my other thread, Diminishing Interest, I mentioned how, rather than planning ahead, I make up a story as I go. Other's thought planning ahead was better. What's your opinion? Not that I'll change my mind .

Like I said, I like making up the story as I go, because I feel I don't have as much to remember from the start: no deep history (yet), etc. It also serves me a purpose because it's almost like I'm reading the story with a short foresight. I know what happens, that goes without saying, but even my own story isn't ruined for me, at least not more than a few in-story minutes or at most, hours at a time.

[Bombadillo]

Planning ahead definately has its advantages. You know ahead of time which parts of the story should be emphasized, what themes you want to stress, and things like that. A quick chart or jotting of notes helps you to remember how you want your piece to flow, and then even as you write it, more ideas will come so you'll ultimately get a lot more written, with minimum writer's block too. Then revise and revise to perfection...

But I know; that takes too long. If I'm writing something that I don't plan on being a great work of art, I won't bother about advanced planning.

[Earniel]

I suppose it depends on the personality of the author. I myself always plan out stories to a detailed degree before writing them down. It makes it easier for me to decide how much background I will eventually weave into the story and which scenes or dialogues are important enough to get centerstage.

Basically I plan ahead because I don't want to waste time simply sitting behind a computer and typing something of which I will undoubtedly have to delete more than half of it. I don't want to sit there for over half an hour wondering how I go from this scene onwards. I want writing to be more of a quality time, ergo I need to know what I'm going to write before I sit down and type.

I enjoy going over stories in my head and smoothing out problems and paradoxes in them. It is less forced when I can do that while doing other things instead of sitting behind the computer waiting.