How I Should Have Planned My Novel | The Five P's of Planning a Novel

[@DeborahPettit]

I used to be a pantser, but I outline all my books now. I love outlining, and I find it doesn’t take away from my creativity at all. I just hold the outlining loosely.

[@theelliotchan]

Truly! That may be the best way to use an outline. Thanks for sharing your experience

[@lyndonkessler4766]

Consider the 7 P's: Proper Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance. Start with nothing and end with success. Or, end with failure if that is the goal. Build a Skelton. Put some meat on the bones. Add skin until you have something whole to work with. The final step is Quality Control (QC). Hey, it's all Rocket Science. Your Space Shuttle will fly, or it won't. My Space Shuttle flew and sometimes blew up.

[@DeborahPettit]

I chose to rewrite my children’s book completely again because my POV was all over the place, and an author encouraged me to pick one or two perspectives to focus on. It was worth it

[@liweiming6788]

Thanks for sharing this! (Now I kinda want to know what happens after the protagonist bites his opponent X)) I struggle to pick/ finish my stories. I tend to plan too much (I have adhd). get struck by inspiration and plan the whole thing, know exactly how to write it but I just don't wanna do it because I don’t even have to feel sad about not writing it because I'm already planning out another story. So I guess I'll just force myself not to plan that much and see if it works. Anyways, congrats for writing 300,000 words ❤ (Sorry for any mistakes. English isn't my first language)

[@theelliotchan]

Glad I got you hooked! lol Whatever gets you started writing is probably the way to go. Once you gain some momentum, it's a lot easier to keep going. Thank you so much for the support! Don't worry, English isn't my first language either.

[@forayjumpman]

Wish me luck. I'm currently working on my series that is 15 novels long.

[@theelliotchan]

Love that!! Good luck! 🚀

[@MOONSUN4Life]

Solid plan! I used to be a so-called pantser, but realized after I DNF'ed several of my projects that a little planning might go a long way. Now I'm what some might call a "plantser": I won't start working on my first draft until I've figured out all the main points of the story. As I start working on my first draft and flesh out the main characters, I often have to go back to my plan and change things because I can see that the choices I had made in the planning stage either don't make sense for the character or are just not as interesting as I thought they would be. I find it really difficult to know what my characters' wants and needs are until I've spent some time with them, which means until I've actually started writing the story, so I've come to accept that I'll have to write several "first drafts" before I'm comfortable with the direction the story is taking. "The Endurance Sport of Writing", that was well said! 👍

[@theelliotchan]

I have such similar experiences! I just keep finding ways to go back and rework stuff - or... start something new 🫣. But not this time ~ We are going to finish our projects!!! 💪 ✍️ Thanks as always for the comment!