I consider myself a good writer when I write in my own language. But all I do is to get a vague idea, and from that idea I start writing. So I never have a goal, and I usually stop writing in lack of inspirational milestones. How do you build up your sketched storyline before you start writing? How do you design it, what is important to have in the sketch, do you have any kind of template you follow? I usually don't even know how the story will end when I start writing to be honest, so I'm far behind in my writing when it comes to whole-story-creativity.
I haven't even written a whole plot outline...I just have ideas floating around and somehow they have turned into a plot. Most of the time, I just summarise the chapters as I go but I never stick to them. Just get brain storming and jolt down some ideas (such as conflicts, goals, characters). Then try form them into some kind of outline (don't worry if there's plot holes, you can fill them later).You can just make up a random ending, it might not even turn out like that as you write. If your falling behind in terms of creativity, watch things, read things from different genres. Books, cartoons, films. They can give you ideas. Hoped this helped in some way.
I occasionally outline a chapter as I am writing that is about it - when I am rewriting I use a spreadsheet to keep timeline straight.
with me it can work two ways: start with a rough idea and the story just comes from there, or have the whole story planned out and then write it. i often, though, have the story in my head and think about it during the day when im not writing. maybe if you have an idea just go with it-try using a template once you've done 1 chapter or so. its also a good idea to write down any notes on the plot or characters, and keep a notebook for writing down any spur of the moment stuff.
All of my plots are about some philosophical point, in other words, some idea about life I think is important. When you have something important to talk about it's if you're explaining it to a friend who doesn't know. You start out small, build the intensity of the arguement, explore some problems with your argument, and then resolve the problems and show that you're correct. Let's say you're writing about Vampires and you want to show that some could be good. The common thought is the creatures are monsters. You could introduce vampires being monsters and killing, then show that one doesn't like it, he tries to avoid killing but has to eat anyway, and so he decides to fight crime and kill only very bad people. That's been done before but I used the example to illustrate the idea that "bad" people can be used for good purposes. Having something to say makes the writing effortless, sort of, because your story is always going somewhere.
I'm the kind of "dive in at the deep end" writer. I'll get the idea for a story and my imagination creates characters and scenes for me and I just have to string them together to form a reasonable plot. Don't overthink it too much, just go for it!
I've only had one story where I knew the beginning and end. Even then, I didn't know all the things that happened in between. If I got bored, started slowing down in my writing for that story, or hit a block, I started challenging myself with the story. I mean, if a character in a scene negotiated his way passed another, I changed it so that he was forced to kill the other character to get passed or find a completely different way around. It actually helped me develop several characters more and kept me interested in what was going on because I was surprised by the new path the story took.
I usually use the Snowflake method when I don't have ideas on how my plot works. I normally use a spreadsheet that contains a list of scenes on each role. Then I would skech out the conflict for that scene. If it doesn't have a conflict, I would delete the scene from the spreadsheet and come up with another one. Then, on the other side of the spreadsheet, I would write a breif description of how the character would handle the plot. If she can't handle it, it makes the plot stronger and perhaps harder to come up with ways to fix the problem.
To me the most important thing to get going and stay going is the theme. Even if its not a question or an argument but just an examination of how one thing effects people's lives. Like forgiveness as a theme. How does the inability to forgive effect Therese Defarge or the people around her? How does his ability to forgive save Dr. Manette? And so on. Usually for me this is at the top of the page and everything - plot outline exc flows from it. And if I find myself not interested in continuing I know that I have not chosen a theme that meant enough to me. Hope that helps.
