This month, we're talking about planning. I'm also doing the One A Day WriYe video blogging, so this goes hand in hand with this about plotting. The questions are as follows:
- What's your favorite planning method?
- Do you prefer to plot by hand or use the computer?
- What part of planning do you hate the absolute most?
- Or do you hate all planning and pants your novel?
- And the most important - why?
I'm going with the question that is the easiest and simpler to answer first - the plotting by hand or computer. I like to plot by computer because I either misplace the notes if I write them by hand - I have a million and one journals - and I can better organize myself by knowing where things are. Plus, all of my planning stuff is up on Google Docs, which means that I can be on any computer and work on my novels. Or, you know, have Google Docs up on my phone due to the internet being down and use Word to write. It's a win-win, honestly.
My favorite planning method... well, it's outlined in the WriYe Basic Stats document. You put in the title, how many words you want to write, a summary, and then follow the links in the other sections to create a novel. Before there was this amazing document, I tried to outline first and then create the rest with the outline. Or have the characters down and then try to outline. The linked document just makes things a lot easier for everyone, including me.
If you noticed, I didn't include world building in that paragraph. That's because I loathe world building. I really like using the Earth and cities that we have - it's probably why I took like a duck to water with all the urban stuffs. It just makes it easier with writing to have a city already set up and you just put what you want to happen in there. It's a lot like roleplaying in a way, which I also do, so yeah. I do not world build all that much. Or, if I do, I pants the world building. In the novel I'm going to be working on in February - Prelude to a Heart - I have a very basic world build going on there. It has to do more with the characters than any sort of shape the world has. I figure that I can work up how the place looks as I go because I really don't care how it looks right now. I might change when it is the 31st and I'm freaking out about it, but for right now, I'm okay with not having a good map in my head.
As for the why - I'm not sure I can answer that. I'm comfortable with the way that I create my novels before I dive right into them. It's taken some trial and error - like failing NaNo a few times - but this is good.
