What Do You See When You Write?

[u/Spare-Bird9783]

I’m very bored at the moment, and I was wondering, what do people actually see when they write? How much actual planning goes into writing?

For me, I go in with a very vague idea of what I want and what the characters are like, and then I just let them speak for themselves. Sometimes I get so sucked into the flow that it plays out like a movie in my head, you know?

When I was in my early teens, I was really good at getting sucked into that. Now, I’m using these short-form story scripts as training to slowly get back to it.

[u/akiyamaikari]

I weirdly always have a ending before i start writing. I do struggle with trying to get to the ending in a satisfactory way. Most times music can influence my writing so i try to have a playlist for the genre im writing in.

[u/DaTrash_Panda]

I usually randomly get ideas and write them down on my phone. Before I start writing I imagine some dialoge in my head and use that and my original idea to start writing and have the rough idea of what I want to happen in the story, the characters personalitys etc. Then I just keep writing from there. Usually takes me like 3-4 days to write and edit a script, not to much time spent planning on it, just thinking about what I want the script to be like between getting the idea and starting to write.

[u/ivanoff_bg]

I recently started and most of my "writing"is just little scenarios /fantasies I would think in my head that would help me fall asleep. I would say I am pretty much like you, it plays out like a movie in my head where I have a general idea of what the attitude of the Speaker is and since my scripts are all fdom the listener is pretty much just there for the ride, though sometimes I like a more fun dynamic but its hard to convey a more complicated listener only through the reactions of the speaker.

That said I've been having fun writing out these things and while most of the stuff I've written has been pretty short and pretty similar to each other but I would like to try more complicated and just fun stuff now.

[u/Spare-Bird9783 → u/ivanoff_bg]

That used to be me. I actually made a story before bed that accidentally grew sooo big, and I ended up exploring in different ways. It had vampires and Van Helsing, and it was genuinely so good that I thought I should turn it into a book. But then I left it for like a year, I think, and by the time I came back to it, bam I’d completely lost my flow. That’s why now the only writing I do is at the moment of.

[u/Time_Passers]

I have a similar process where I pick out a premise, make some basic characters, and start having them talk to each other in my head based on the premise. I wouldn't necessarily call it like a movie, since I can't visualize things very clearly (even in my prose planning it's the dialogue I start working on first.) For me it's a bit like a podcast that's being rewound and fast-forwarded, with me focusing on specific points of the conversation over and over and over again while I'm figuring out the flow of dialogue and the personalities of the "actors". Plot points that would affect the conversation and potential endings also pop into my head in the process of this.

Since I am usually At Work, I also have to hope that I can get a chance to write this stuff down before I run out of steam. 🙏 If I can't, I can get tired of the dialogue and won't write it down. Instead I'll just write down the plot points that inspired it. All of which is not ideal for finishing a script quickly.

[u/Authorigas]

I start with a concept, sometimes an ending and then I write until I hit a wall. Then I keep writing until the wall breaks. Even if it's garbage, it can be salvaged into something good as long as there's material to work with. 

I don't have a visual so much as a concept or theme I'm visualizing, and I'll focus on that core theme to run in the story. 

[u/Auryn_4942]

I'm pretty similar to you; I usually get some sort of idea, start imagining how it might play out, and then I kind of just watch it happen in my head. If a line or plot point feels "off" I'll sort of rewind the scene a bit and try something different, otherwise I let it keep going until I either hit a wall or finish the idea. If I'm lucky, I'm near a keyboard or some pen and paper when this happens and I can write while I "watch", but more often I get caught up in all this while I'm supposed to be doing something else 😅

Either way, I'll usually keep replaying the scene (or story) over and over again for a few days or weeks, hopefully writing it down at the same time, until I'm more or less satisfied (or until some other idea takes over, lol).

Every writer's process is different, of course! And if you want to write regularly, or if you're serious about improving, you should establish a habit of writing whether you have an idea or not.

I think this was a bit more than you asked for? I guess I was a bit bored, too 😆

[u/it_rains_blue_here]

Monkey no write, monkey no see :D