1. How much planning do you do for your stories? Do you like to outline, or improvise? Do you fill out character sheets, draw maps, or do other story planning? Tell us about your process!
It varies a lot! 20k, which is what I am aiming for on this exchange, is not long enough for me to feel that I need an external outline (especially as I'm going for fewish scenes described in fairly high detail). I have the full storyline in my head, and whenever I get an idea for specific phrasing or some other detail I jot it down in a jumbled ideas document. (Likewise, I have an approximate map of story livsstils in my head.)
When I do outline, I usually do it by drawing stick figure representations of different scenes on business card-sized pieces of paper, a habit I stole from my best friend. It gives me a quick visual overview of the story, and I can rearrange the scenes as needed without hassle.
For actual novels or novel length stories (of which I have finished 0 this far) I go for more detailed outlines following the story structure beats laid out by the writing guide KM Weiland. Which brings me to...
2. Do you find writing or art advice helpful? Tell us about your experiences with tutorials, guidebooks and classes, or recommend your favorite writing, art and comic resources here!
Yes! The best writing teacher is viscous reading, but second best (that I have found) is the aforementioned KM Weiland. I follow her podcast, Helping Writers Become Authors, religiously, and have also read a few of her writing handbooks. Her Story Structure Database is also really helpful for learning how to sort structural beats in the stories you read/watch/listen to. You can find her at https://www.helpingwritersbecomeauthors.com/
I've also taken quite a few writing classes – at gymnasiet, the Swedish equivalent of highschool, I a writing focused programme, with classes in fiction and nonfiction writing every week. And I met my best friend (the one with the stick figures) at a writing summer camp for teenagers!
I've tried taking more writing classes as an adult, but whenever I do it feels like they just repeat things I've already learned, which is why I felt so delighted when I found KM Weiland, who actually taught me new things.
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It varies a lot! 20k, which is what I am aiming for on this exchange, is not long enough for me to feel that I need an external outline (especially as I'm going for fewish scenes described in fairly high detail). I have the full storyline in my head, and whenever I get an idea for specific phrasing or some other detail I jot it down in a jumbled ideas document. (Likewise, I have an approximate map of story livsstils in my head.)
When I do outline, I usually do it by drawing stick figure representations of different scenes on business card-sized pieces of paper, a habit I stole from my best friend. It gives me a quick visual overview of the story, and I can rearrange the scenes as needed without hassle.
For actual novels or novel length stories (of which I have finished 0 this far) I go for more detailed outlines following the story structure beats laid out by the writing guide KM Weiland. Which brings me to...
2. Do you find writing or art advice helpful? Tell us about your experiences with tutorials, guidebooks and classes, or recommend your favorite writing, art and comic resources here!
Yes! The best writing teacher is viscous reading, but second best (that I have found) is the aforementioned KM Weiland. I follow her podcast, Helping Writers Become Authors, religiously, and have also read a few of her writing handbooks. Her Story Structure Database is also really helpful for learning how to sort structural beats in the stories you read/watch/listen to. You can find her at https://www.helpingwritersbecomeauthors.com/
I've also taken quite a few writing classes – at gymnasiet, the Swedish equivalent of highschool, I a writing focused programme, with classes in fiction and nonfiction writing every week. And I met my best friend (the one with the stick figures) at a writing summer camp for teenagers!
I've tried taking more writing classes as an adult, but whenever I do it feels like they just repeat things I've already learned, which is why I felt so delighted when I found KM Weiland, who actually taught me new things.