I hope this is the right forum to post this in (couldn't tell if it should be in here, or plot development). Anyways, I've been working on a book series, and I'm constantly wondering when the time to actually start writing is? I've heard some people say to figure out everything in advance, to just get the basic down, and about everything in between. I don't think I'm at the point where I can write out a first draft, but I admit that I'm not sure how to tell when that point is. To any writers out there, how do you know when you've planned out enough to start writing? For further context, I have a basic outline of the series (and I do mean basic), and I have a pretty good grasp on the mechanics of the world (mostly because that's where most of my time has been spent). The two main characters are fairly developed, and I have basic ideas of roles that other characters will play. As for how many books I plan on writing, that I'm not sure of. Really depends on how long I make each book. It's sort of an overarching story told through several story arcs.
I'm revising a novel set in the ancient world. It's easier for me because I took a couple classes on Greek and Roman history / literature in college, so I have a leg up on the casual reader. I studied for about a month before I started writing, and focused on painting a picture of the world. How poor, middle and rich people lived, dressed, and decorated their homes, how hunting works, bow making, horse and oxen care, religion, politics, I just sort of read and watched videos until the picture of the place was clear. My plot outlines are pretty bare bones - maybe a page with details relating the story to a three act structure. I end up changing what's on it while I write, so it comes out like I'm half writing by the seat of my pants. I know people that do just the opposite of me - they outline everything and detail the total internal and external character arcs, then figure out the world as they need to. Like I said, I think a month was good for me on this project, but only because I was already familiar with the material. If I were going to write something set in the warring states period of Japan or something like Romance of the Three Kingdoms, it would take me a lot longer.
This is one of those things that varies a lot from person to person, and you just have to figure out what works for you. If this is your first novel, I'd be wary of getting stuck in an eternal planning phase, i.e. using planning as an excuse to avoid having to start the actual writing. But maybe that won't be a problem for you. For me, the answer is I don't start writing until I'm so excited I absolutely can't wait anymore. Usually, that's a couple months from initial idea to first sentence. I think the shortest I ever waited was a week, and the longest was six months (that story changed a lot before I ever wrote down a thing). By the time I start I usually have a very clear idea for the first chapter, pretty solid plans for the first half or so, and a vague idea of what will happen in the second half. My planning mostly just happens in my head with a lot of scattered notes and crossed-out ideas in my notebook. Heh, just writing this post got me hyped. Nothing gets me giddy like starting a new project I'm really excited about. Oh, I also often do some pre-writing, where I try out characters' voices, maybe write some backstory. You could try doing that to get a feel for whether you're ready to dive into the real thing.
First question to ask is, "How much do you need to plan?" Is your series a fantasy series with world building? A period piece with world recreation? Is it a romance novel about two star crossed lovers where the setting is merely a backdrop? How about retelling the American civil war in a fantasy setting with a Gandalf version of Lincoln? How much time do you have to write? An hour a day or only on weekends? That said, it sounds like you need to get a grasp on your story before you begin planning/writing. I suggest writing a simple draft of the story. Don't do anything overly detail, just start at the beginning and see where it ends. Then, take that story draft and plan from it, or write your first draft from it. Godspeed!
You must have a very fast mind. I couldn't imagine writing that fast. If it works for you, I'm quite impressed. Speaking of character voices though, I don't spend much time on that, because it usually comes to me pretty easily. Not a full character, but a general idea of how I want a character to sound like. As for backstory, I have a general idea of that for my main characters, though there's a lot of details to fill in. I have a pretty good grasp on the setting, which I probably should've mentioned. It's kind of a mix of a fantasy series, and a period piece. Essentially it's the 1930s before WWII, with the major change being the various gods of mythology are serving as dictators of empires. I essentially wanted to explore what the world would be like if these various figures of mythology were real, and actually running the world. As for writing time, I write (or I suppose plan/research is the more accurate word) pretty much everyday except Saturday.
I came up with the idea for my story in 2005, and only just started writing my first draft last year! It was always there in my mind but I just never had the conviction to do anything about it. As Dragon Turtle says, I was stuck in an eternal planning phase and kept coming up with excuses why I wasn't ready to start the actual writing process. But one day last year I started writing and now I'm 20,000 words into my first draft. Chances are it won't lead to anything, but I've got a better chance now than I had when it was sat there in my head gathering dust. It was like a piece of clay that I kept re-moulding until it almost had no shape at all. Just write. You'll plan as you go and then re-plan when you start editing.
For a series, you get bonus points if something that appears in Book 1 pops back in Book 2 with a surprise twist. Lea was Luke's sister sort of thing. But if you had Luke and Lea have three kids in Book 1, that would be more Game of Thrones instead of Star Wars. Unless, of course, you had it all planned in advance, so you didn't write about them having kids in Book 1 because there was that big revelation waiting for Book 2. Readers love surprise twists. It makes your series look more interconnected, and readers love that too. Pulling those is much easier with planning. Otherwise you have to be really clever to come up with a believable solution. Oh, those kids? Adopted! But you described how Lea was pregnant in Book 1. Lack of planning complicates things later. Consult a horoscope? Wait for the muse to land on your shoulder? An hour from now is as good time as any other. Give it a try, see what happens. If the scenes are not coming out well, then stop and try to see what needs to be worked on. Did you notice I mentioned "scenes"? Nope, nope, nope. That's a rabbit hole. People get lost and wonder there for years. You only need to create as much as it's needed for the story. There's a galaxy far, far away. Ok, somebody has to rule it. Let's have an Empire. But that's boring. Let's stir things up. Ok, so we got a rebellion, too. Sure, let them do something. They have a plan to overturn the Empire! Ok, but we need to keep them going for 300 pages. So, let's have those plans stolen and even lost! Hmm... Here's a character I prepared earlier, he could find those plans and help the rebellion defeat the Empire. But he's a peasant and not really a fighter. Ok, let's make him have a special talent that will help him become a fighter. Great, great, great. But how do we begin? Ummm, let's have a scene where the plans are lost. Maybe a rebel spaceship is chased, and has to eject the plans and they land on a random planet. We're gonna use that peasant character, too. That's his planet. Wonderful. Add a pretty princess, might come in handy later. I mean, she'll pair nicely with that other character. Tee hee. So, we have another scene where our peasant dude finds the plans. And sees the princess. But how would he get the plans back to the rebellion? Oh, well, let's add a wise mentor, who can explain everything and connect our peasant with the princess. Here comes another scene. And that's how you begin. You come up with scenes. Situations. Character doing something. Stuff happening.
I started with a shabbily dressed girl, a tall man, a cat, some rosemary, and a notion that the ocean was nearby. I might have known that the girl had red hair and the man had a beard. Admittedly, I don't know where I'll end up. I'm just saying, I started writing pretty early in the world-building process.
My current WIP is a reworking of the 'Forgotten Realms' series I began based on the Time of Troubles. The premise is there was a war between gods. In the aftermath of that war a group of children are born. But this one child, the protagonist, is marked for death by all the combatants. -First off, I had a massive world building project on my hands. Not only did I have to replace the 'Forgotten Realms' setting with one of my own, but the story scope covers the history of my fictional world, Triskele, and the personalities involved in the God War. I had major characters who come from all over the world, so I had to populate the world with different people and lands. Magic systems were created and so on. -Second I had to rework the story. I had originally planned on a trilogy. During the reworking of the story I changed to a five book series. The story had a beginning, middle and end. But, keep in mind that this was the start of the project and not the end. Everything changes. -Now, I plotted the story and started to create the characters, events and places. Added a lot of new material as everything fleshes out. Change, change and more changes. Lots of changes and killing my darlings. Now I have the bones of the series' story. All five books are plotted. This was the most fun and frustrating part. I just remember a line from a move,"I'm fine. I always am. Sometimes even irritated, sir." -I created a four act structure for the first book. Yep, you guessed it, more changes. -Finely, the scene list. I believe the first book had 54 scenes. This is also where I narrow my research to scene specific needs. -Began writing the first book. In the above line I said the book had 54 scenes. Well, that is changing as I write. I've already added a transitory scene and the current scene I'm breaking into mini-scenes because of having two POV's. In researching the location of the opening scene, I added a lighthouse that has changed how the invasion event of the first act plays out. Planning places me on the right road and points me in the right direction. But, it doesn't tell me how to run and doesn't show me the curves and dips of the road ahead. Hope this helps and Godspeed!
Normally I would agree with you on this point. The problem is a lot of the plot ideas I have involve the mechanics of the world. I just want to make sure I understand them, so I don't end up contradicting something later.
I second this. You may be able to get away with limited planning and everything be great, or you may not. In my experience, I need to have some outline to go off of, but I don't need every single thing on that outline. (Basically just a few sentences describing what will happen in each chapter)
Ahh, so, if this is your issue, then I have a different suggestion. The problem with the approach you're describing is that the more you put down in stone ahead of time, the more chances you have to contradict yourself later. Whereas if you worldbuild as you're writing the story, you have more freedom and flexibility to make it fit as you go. I sort of think of worldbuilding as standing in a dark room with a flashlight--when I need to look at a certain part of the room, I'll shine the light on it. But everything else can stay in darkness for the time being. That way I'm not going to commit myself to something early on that I end up not liking later. Like, let's say you make up two towns, Village and Hamlet. Your characters start the story in Village, but you're going to have something going on in Hamlet a lot later on, like in the last third of the story. Then let's say you planned so extensively that you decided Village and Hamlet are twenty miles apart, and the terrain is rough, so it takes people three days to travel between them. You even mentioned this early in the story. Now, you get to the last third, and your characters have to travel to Hamlet, but crap! They're on a strict time limit and need to be there in three hours, not three days. Now you have to decide whether to make up some work-around or if you should just go back and revise all your references to Hamlet being three days away. However, if you'd taken the lazy [wo]man's way in the beginning, and simply established that a town called Hamlet exists and it's somewhere in the general vicinity, you suddenly have all the freedom you want to make its distance fit the demands of the story. So, in short, I'm a big fan of don't-plan-it-til-you-need-it worldbuilding. Now, my plots do tend to depend a lot on worldbuilding, so that means I worldbuild a lot early on. But always, I'm planning things so that they serve the story, not the other way around.
I certainly don't intend to come up with every single country, or town before I start writing. However, and this is something I should've been more specific on, when I said mechanics of the world, I mostly meant the physics part. Essentially, how magic works, and how the universe came to be (as that plays a big part in the story). I more or less have that part figured out, so I don't think there's much more work to be done there. Regardless, you make some very good points on world building, and I'll be sure to keep them in mind. Thanks.
Yeah, I figured you meant magic and physics. The town example was just easier to generate. I use the same process and philosophy when designing magic systems. If anything it's even more important for me to avoid overplanning magic, since I think that tends to be harder to fix in hindsight than things like geography and culture. Good luck!
Planning is a tool for creating what you will be writing about. A certain amount of content is created while writing. But, if you're creating the majority of your content while writing the story there is a chance that the first half to three thirds of that draft will be developmental material that will have to be reworked or junked. Now, a developmental draft is not a bad thing. There are many who write that way. That said, what works best for a single novel may not work for a series. Writing a developmental draft for an entire series doesn't seem to be as efficient as the various ways of developing a story via some form of outline.
There are so many ways of outlining that it’s impossible to say what exactly will work for you. But, I can share how I approached the challenge. My issue was that the story I wrote for my ‘Forgotten Realms’ series fell apart as I tried to rewrite it to fit my new series. In the end I had only fragments of scenes, plots and characters. Now, I’m the kind of reader who loves immersion and continuity. It’s hard for me to ignore gaps of logic and plot holes, so I write from this perspective. So, you can see where a broken multi book story would challenge me. But, I had a starting date for the story along with some characters, plots and scenes. So, I started with a time line: 6313Z Spesius(March) 15th-Asylyn leaves Tumulus Now, I began to bullet point where, what, when and who for the entire story across all five books. Here’s an example from a late draft: Book 2-Sight of the Serpent Raised · Day 9(23rd) · Crossing over into Andorra, they are met by an Andorran patrol led by Garrocha Hernan Canillo, a prince of Andorra. He escorts them into Arinsal. · Hernan takes Beltran and Mahtaur to the Keep. The women go into the inn. They’re attack by a Voboran assassin named Idoia. Asylyn kills her and then becomes violently ill. · Lilibeth tracks the spell scroll used by Idoia to Djad, a D’mtan magician who was following Amandla and M’alx. The two left Arinsal. There were still glaring plot holes, for example, my primary villain could not do everything I had him doing. I did research into my own world lore to see who else could be playing a role. That’s when I started bullet point plotting for all the major characters, even if they were ‘off stage’ so to speak. Here’s an example: Book One-Of Sins and Shadows · Nychthemeronn sends Sish( a hound) to trail Asylyn. She sees him entering the alley where the assassin awaits. · Sish then guides Asylyn out of the fortress and warns her at the trading post. · Day 5(Act Three) · Sish appears in KJ. Kuttuvāl sees the hound. Maybe Urraca? Eventually, one villain split into three. Now, I have three antagonists working against and with each other across the story arc as the protagonist journeys to complete her quest. Plot holes were filled and plot opportunities were written into the story. Here’s a look at the final draft: Story Plot Points Book One-Of Sins and Shadows ACT ONE · Day 1(15th Spesius-March) · Nychthemeronn sends Sish to trail Asylyn. She sees him entering the alley where the assassin awaits. · Asylyn is attacked by and assassin and the Rir invade Tumulus. Guillaume is killed by Kainark with a decoy Asylyn while she escapes with Lilibeth. Sish guides Asylyn out of the fortress and warns her about the stragglers. · They encounter stragglers from the battle. Asylyn reveals her streamer swords. · Kainark meets with Urisk. Urisk insists that Asylyn must be killed. They decide that Guillaume and Asylyn will be declared traitors and agents of Byzas. It bothers Kainark that Urisk declares that ‘at all cost’ Asylyn must be killed. How does she threaten him? He begins to distrust Urisk. Guillaume was an agent of the Night Herons, but why are they interested in Asylyn? Kainark decides to have Keusaek investigate Asylyn. From the story plot points outline I was able to build a scene list: Scenes List Setting the Stage 3-4 Scenes Tumulus sits on the coast of Aguyenne at the mouth of the Musscadet River. Its pre-dawn and a seabreeze is beginning to blow. After talking with Pashmi Ansari when he finds her sneaking out to meet Simonides,she goes to the meeting place but discovers the assassin Boy Connor. She kills him, but is wounded. Ansari comes to her. As dawn breaks, the fighting begin as Rir infiltrators attempt to seize a gate. Ansari helps to get to the Mac Lynch manor and inn. Scenes: 1-Ansari catches Asylyn sneaking around. She tells him that Guillaume told her that they would be leaving Tumulus today and that she recieved a note from Simonides to meet him. 2-Asylyn catches a glimpse of large,long hound (Sish) as she goes into the Private Place (tbd)to meet Simonides. 3-Instead of finding Simonides, she finds Boy Connor who to stabs her. She pushes him away, stealing his knife. She then stabs him in the throat. 4-Ansari finds her. He decides to take her to the Lynch Manor. As they leave the Private Place, they hear the sounds of fighting in the fortress as dawn breaks. 1st Scene (Opening) Asylyn is caught by Pashmi Ansari sneaking through the streets on her way to meet her ex-boyfriend Simonides. WHO: Asylyn and Pashmi Ansari, a Derakhman disciple. WHERE: Tumulus Citadel TIME & WEATHER: Predawn, around 7am.The sky is overcast. OPENING: “The man told the girl to stop, but the she chose to stop.” PEAK EMOTIONAL MOMENT: Asylyn reveals that she is leaving Tumulus today. ENDING: Asylyn catches a glimpse of a long hound disappearing in the direction she is going to meet with Simonides. RESEARCH: The area of the Tumulus Citadel where Asylyn is stopped by Ansari . Drakhman and Imperial Calendars. Weather , time of sunrise The Drakhman organization and orders. Pashmi Ansari’s clothing (something woolen). Walking Speed- 1.4 m/s (5.0 km/h; 3.1 mph; 4.6 ft/s) Notes: The man said “stop!” and the girl stopped. The plot outline does not write the story for me. It tells me what is happening. I decide what to tell and how. The same with the scene outline. I’m an organic writer, so the writing ‘grows’ from the characters in the scene. But I like knowing what is going on behind the scenes. For example, who is behind the assassination attempt on Asylyn and why do they want her dead? Why are they hiding that information from Kainark? I know those answers. While the telling of the story changes, the story hasn’t. I know this is a long winded post, but I hope that by showing you how I approached the issue of planning it will help you find our own solution. Check out my progress journal. I pretty well document all the steps I’m taking in writing my series. Godspeed!
