WriYe Blogging Circle: Planning Or Pantsing

If you are a planner, what part of planning is your favorite? If you’re a pantser, what is your favorite part of pantsing?

Bonus: Show us your NaNo planning - handwritten or computer screen!

I love planning out my novels. A lot of people don't enjoy this part of the process but I do. Getting deep into my novels is probably one of my favorite parts, aside from writing the actual novels. I love building my own worlds - which I do a lot.

My favorite part about planning is probably the outlining portion. I like knowing where my novel needs to go. It also helps me consider things I need to discover about the world I'm planning for. It's good to know where I want my story to go, too. The world slowly builds itself as I outline or even as I write.

Building Your World

World Building is a pretty important part of writing a novel, especially, if you've created your own world. You have to basically build up your world from scratch which is fun and addicting (if you are me and many other people I know). Even writing a novel in the modern times will need some world building. Knowing your settings is important so it will remain consistent throughout your novel.

The thing about world building, it that people take it too far and they end up losing sight of their novel. It's happened to me and my friend does it all of the time. I'm trying to get her to tone it down a bit because she goes nuts with world building. It tends to make her unmotivated to write.

Remember, you only need to know the important things.

This is more for the Fantasy/Sci-fi people but they can also work in other styles.

• What kind of government does your world have? This might be important because it can change the way the world functions. You've got to keep in mind how different governments work and how it effects the community. 

• Does your world have magic? If it does, how does it work? What are the limitations? Magic needs limitations. You can't have save your character from everything. Nothing is more annoying that limitless power.

• Where does your story take place? I feel like this should have been one of the first bullet points but I'm just going to go with it. What the name of the place your story take place in? What's it like there? Describe, briefly the place in which your story will be.

• Do you have any strange creatures? If it does, list a few and a brief description only if they are important to the story.

• Is the world part of the plot? Meaning, is the world falling apart, dying, being destroyed and your character has to save it or seek refuge somewhere else. You know, things like that.

• Only add important detail. You don't need to know everything about your world before you start the novel, just the key things that are important.

• Build the world as you write. You are going to come up with new material for your world as you write. It's okay to learn about your world as your character shows you.

This is as basic as I can get the list. Just remember not to over-build your world and allow for some room to play with it. You can add further detail as needed.

If you novel deals with military, you might want to know a few things about your military. Or if your story has to deal with slavery, you've got to know the system. Things like that. Ask yourself a lot of questions that will help improve your novel and make it seem like a real place.

Take what you need and go from there.

Introduction to Planning a Novel

It's October. Just a little under a month away from National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). I figured it would be the best time to do this kind of post. It's a planning post, kind of. It's more like an overview of what I'm planning on posting this month. Since it is close to NaNoWriMo, I've decided to do a planning series where it goes through basic points of planning.

What is planning in a novel? It's where you figure out what your novel is going to be about, your characters, and your setting. It's simple. There are various ways to go about planning, but these are some of the key things that are consistent for me when I plan.

Things I plan on covering:

• World Building. World building is essential to a lot of writing even in contemporary settings. You've got to know key/important places and why they are important. 

• Character Building. This is also important since characters are kind of needed to tell a story, whether it be human or non-human. You've got to have some kind of information down about them.

• Plotting and Outlining. I'm a huge supporter of outlining. It's a good way to track what you are doing in your story. My reasons are in a different post that I will link HERE.

Unfortunately, there are only enough weeks in the month for three more posts but these are the bare essentials for planning a novel. Especially if you writing for NaNoWriMo. It's easy to lose motivation during the month it's best to know where you are going with your novel. 

But the one thing you need is an idea. You've got to start somewhere. If you don't have an idea then you need to get one. How you go about getting ideas for novels/stories is up to you. I can't tell you how to generate your ideas as they vary from person to person. Do some exploration, you'll find something to write about.