Planning and Preparation

So, bloggers, when you've got an idea for a new story, how far in advance do you plan things out? A few entries, the entire thing, or do you prefer to just wing it all? What method meets with the most success in completing a storyline? I'd like to hear different writers' takes on it in order to see how things work out best, and maybe give some aspiring bloggers some encouragement in their endeavors :]

I tend to create a beginning middle and end and work out all the little shades in between after I start.

This has varied greatly between pretty much every blog I've ever made. With Jordan Eats Normally Now, I had almost nothing planned other than the rough premise: A blogger chronicles a bunch of fallen blogs. Then I winged it for the entire 230+ post story. This happened to be basically one of my least-favourite stories simply due to how it kinda really had no plan whatsoever.

But then, on the other side of the spectrum, we have Testing in Progress, which I had almost entirely planned out and, as a result, was able to get alliterator to provide voice clips for stuff! This one, coincidentally, turned out to be one of my favourites.

And then there's every other story I've made falling in the middle. The way I generally tend to write is figuring out the rough themes I want to convey or the rough premise, and then I'll figure out a lot of events I want to have happen or what characters I want to have in the story. Then I'll write, letting characters develop along the way. A lot of good writing can come from winging it, but it always helps to at least know what direction you're going in.

I had some ideas in mind for Blank Space, but didn't really have a plan.

For my newer blogs, I have started to make plans, but not for the entire blog. Pretty much, I separate it into "arcs" or "episodes", plan those out first, then begin planning for the one after that.

I often go back and edit things, though, so as to prevent a horrible rough draft from getting through (aside from posts that I write on the fly, usually in response to comments).

I generally start by winging things for a bit, and then figure out the direction I ultimately want to take with it. Once I've got a vague idea of the ending (which is usually subject to change), I plan about an arc in advance, brainstorming for future arcs as I write the current one.