Are You Confident?

[suspensewriter 5,690]

Recently this question was asked on a Story Embers post:

 

"Are you confident that you know exactly what each plot point is designed to accomplish from an emotional and story perspective?"

 

So are you confident?  Are you far enough along in a novel to even tell?

[Shamrock 1,870]

Woha!  No - I tend to do the action stuff first and then go back and ask the question - So, what does the mean to my character emotionally?

 

Obviously there are some obvious situations - death of love one, romance, threat of life - that you can work out at the time but I often find I go back to a scene and put in the emotional tweaks in after the first draft.

 

[suspensewriter 5,690]

22 hours ago, Shamrock said:

I tend to do the action stuff first and then go back and ask the question - So, what does the mean to my character emotionally?

 

Really, now that is very interesting, @Shamrock.  I never thought of doing it that way. (then again, I'm brain dead from just being on hold for Google for one hour and fifteen minutes!!)

Edited March 31 by suspensewriter

[Zee 2,293]

I don’t find myself consciously choosing/using every single plot point for every single story. Once I learned about them, I thought I would, but I find myself often just “writing what feels right.” It’s actually easier for me to go back and identify them after the fact.

[HK1 2,126]

2 hours ago, suspensewriter said:

So are you confident?

Nope! I just write the story

[Grey_Skies 333]

In a word?  No. 

[suspensewriter 5,690]

How do you write, then, @Grey_Skies?

[Grey_Skies 333]

@suspensewriter It usually starts with just a good story idea, or an idea for a character I'd like to write about.  And then I get started and see where the story takes me.  Sometimes I get stuck and give up on it, but other times I will go back to it later when I feel like I know what should happen next.

 

I know my answer was pretty hopelessly vague, but I guess I don't really have a sure-fire system in place.  Not at this point anyway.

[suspensewriter 5,690]

No, not at all!  I was just curious, that's all.  By the way, that's the way I write, too.

[Ky_GirlatHeart 1,935]

I honestly don't know. Hah! I just get an idea for a story or a character based on something I thought about or saw somewhere and start typing away; then I'll go back to it ever so often and add to it. Hence, I have plenty of documents on my laptop...*nervous chuckle*

Edited March 31 by Ky_GirlatHeart

[EBraten 1,527]

23 hours ago, suspensewriter said:

"Are you confident that you know exactly what each plot point is designed to accomplish from an emotional and story perspective?"

Yes. I outline extensively. Before I begin my first draft, I work out what emotional and story beats I want to hit, then craft the plot points to achieve those results. Once I start writing, I might sometimes tweak a plot point so that it will more effectively do what it's supposed to do. But I always know beforehand.

[Accord64 2,258]

29 minutes ago, EBraten said:

Yes. I outline extensively. Before I begin my first draft, I work out what emotional and story beats I want to hit, then craft the plot points to achieve those results. Once I start writing, I might sometimes tweak a plot point so that it will more effectively do what it's supposed to do. But I always know beforehand.

 

Ditto. I couldn't have put it better.

 

But I have to admit that on a couple of occasions I ended up adding in a scene (or two) to enhance the result(s), mainly because not all good ideas hit me at the same time.

[suspensewriter 5,690]

We seem to be so far evenly split between plotters and pantsers!

Edited March 31 by suspensewriter

[Zee 2,293]

The funny thing is, I used to think I was a serious planner (maybe I just liked to think I was?) but the more I write, and talk to others who write, the more I realize I’m really not...I’m a dot-to-dot writer.

[suspensewriter 5,690]

Huh, you know, I always thought I was, too.  That is, til I got to writing!

[carolinamtne 4,837]

99.9% pantser here!

[suspensewriter 5,690]

All right!!  We're one up!

[Johne 2,125]

On 3/30/2021 at 11:15 AM, suspensewriter said:

"Are you confident that you know exactly what each plot point is designed to accomplish from an emotional and story perspective?"

 

I get what they're going after here, and I am a growing fan of story structure, but I think it's possible to over analyze a story. At a certain point, I'm just making sure that the prose flows well enough to keep myself and my readers engaged.

[Jeff Potts 632]

On ‎3‎/‎30‎/‎2021 at 12:15 PM, suspensewriter said:

Recently this question was asked on a Story Embers post:

 

"Are you confident that you know exactly what each plot point is designed to accomplish from an emotional and story perspective?"

 

So are you confident?  Are you far enough along in a novel to even tell?

 

 

No.

 

But then again, I don't care.  When a sculptor goes at a piece of marble, he doesn't put his or her ideas into the stone, the stone will tell the sculptor what to make.  In the end, the story tells you where it is going, and how it gets there.

[suspensewriter 5,690]

48 minutes ago, Johne said:

At a certain point, I'm just making sure that the prose flows well enough to keep myself and my readers engaged.

 

Well said, Johne!