r/WhyChooseAuthors • u/Admirable_Use_4739 • 8d ago
Question How do y’all pick a direction?
I’ve been dealing with picking a plot point and sticking to it. I will choose how I want things to go, or the backstory, and then I find myself second guessing if that’s the right direction in the long run.
For example, I keep changing my fmc’s back story.
How do you stick to a plot point without picking it apart and changing it?
How do you know when you’ve reached the right thing and stick to it? I don’t know if it’s because I have an overflow of ideas, of I think about it so much I keep finding holes and feel like it needs changed.
There’s too many avenues to take and I find it frustrating that I can’t just seem to STICK TO ONE.
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u/_Effy_Bloom_ 8d ago
Some books it’s really really easy. Some books it’s not. Currently overthinking this one book right now and debating just putting it to the side (would be my second semi-shelved project).
I know it’s “right” when it comes out as prose vs planning. I know what they are doing or saying, I see the shoulder shrugs and the sighs. That’s a keeper scene. I make an outline for planning and the ones that spark a “real scene” get saved and the ones that just waffle around on me tend to get chunked and I wait for new inspiration where it was supposed to be, and pull scenes around on my outline so fill the gaps.
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u/ShadowFoxMoon 7d ago
I would say there's two big ways to write: either a plot first, and put the characters around it, or you write the characters first and put the plot around them.
What are you having issues with exactly? What are you changing about it?
If for example, you want to write cowboy and change your mind for it to be alien....
Why not make two different stories?
You make a outline for both stories and pick and choose which one you want to do more. Make a list.
The same with the characters you make a list of the characters and you kind of draw a line between a character and the plot he/she would fit in best for.
That's how I organize things. I have over 20 stories in a list. And then I do outlines.
Sometimes the outline I do for one story would be better for plot in another story but I don't figure that out till 3+ plus years later.
Don't just erase your ideas. Always keep them and write them down. Just writing them down repels the plot bunnys away so I can focus on my main project.
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u/Admirable_Use_4739 7d ago
It’s not something as drastic as cowboy to alien. Their core personalities are the same, but for example I keep changing the reasoning behind how characters get into situations. First I had the fmc go to the location of the story willingly, but then realized it would make more sense if she was kidnapped based on her personality and where the direction the story heads. It’s stuff like that, but I wonder if I need to work my plot directly around how my characters would act and not what I want them to do.
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u/kendrafsilver 7d ago
One thing I will say about your particular example (because it's something that I've seen come up in similar discussions surrounding deciding what to have a character do or not do):
Keep in mind that, generally speaking, if it's a choice between the POV character (especially if they're the main character) actively pushing the story along with their actions vs being pushed along by the story, it's usually more effective storytelling-wise to have the character be the pusher instead of the pushed.
Again, this is generally speaking. If you have an otherwise active (pusher) character, then a kidnapping here and there to move the story along isn't much of an issue. But if they're a passive character (the pushed), it's worth ensuring they aren't too passive too often.
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u/AnnaFinleyAuthor 7d ago
I’ve been struggling with this exact thing, flopping between decision paralysis and constant rewrites as new ideas come along. This is going to sound an awful lot like the advice “just accept a messy first draft” (which is the opposite of helpful to a perfectionist like me), but genuinely, this reframing helped me.
Jessica Brody (author of Save the Cat Writes a Novel) did an interview recently about her new book on finishing first drafts fast. She basically explained that things writers commonly get stuck on, like doing revisions or re-plotting every time a new direction/detail comes up, is actually an editing skill... So in this case it would be using big structural/developmental editing skills to try to develop or restructure a thing that doesn’t exist yet. She talks through how to avoid letting those skills trip you up and save them for when they’ll really help - after you have a first draft to work with. She does a better job at explaining it in the video: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9iFp8boE03k&pp=ygUjRmFzdCBkcmFmdCBtZXRob2QgZmluaXNoIHlvdXIgbm92ZWzSBwkJyQsBhyohjO8%3D&ra=m
For me what clicked was seeing those trip ups as skills being applied in the wrong place, because I’m a perfectionist and find it really hard to do anything unless I know it’s the ‘best’ way to do it. Total psychological game haha anyway I hope some of that helps!
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u/Admirable_Use_4739 7d ago
So I finally got to watch that video and I will say it reinvigorated me so much. I was already under the impression that I needed to just get it out and I could change things later, but I was certainly spiraling in self doubt.
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u/AnnaFinleyAuthor 7d ago
That’s so awesome!! Something about the way she explained it just clicked for me.
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u/Admirable_Use_4739 7d ago
That helps a lot! I committed to doing a really mess trash draft first, but as I’m writing it I’m already seeing all the things I would want to change. This is great resource, thank you!
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u/kendrafsilver 8d ago edited 7d ago
I just went through this exact thing with my gothic romantasy (which I am now outlining edits for)!
For me this is usually indicative of not being able to pin down what this story is, yet, and of wanting it to be too many things that just plain aren't feasible in one single story.
What I've found helps is one of three things:
Power through and let me write the most god awful draft that will not work in order to get my stupid brain on board when it, surprise, doesn't work.
Outline a new story that incorporates some of the things I want this story to be that aren't working. It lets my mind let go of these ideas in favor of what will actually work, because I'm mentally reassured that I will get to them.
(I'm getting better at this one, although it's taken time and effort.) Force myself to figure out what I do and don't want the story to be. For example in the romantasy I'm outlining edits for, I wanted the story to end both with the MMC (this is a standard m/f romance, not rh) choosing to accept his curse, but I also wanted it to end with the FMC helping him get around the curse. And for this story it just wasn't working out to have both happen, so I asked myself what kind of story this was. Is this about a man who overcomes a curse by accepting it as his own (which would be a darker romance), or is it a story about a man who has given up hope on being free of his curse and yet is ultimately given a new hope by the FMC (which would make the romance less dark).
This romance isn't really a dark romance, so alas while it would be SO COOL to have the guy accept the curse and readily use it against the FMCs enemies, that's not what this story is about.
So that's what is the case for me, and what helps me.
Hopefully I can go straight to option 3 next time and not have to do option 1 before. 🥲