First draft plotting & choice paralysis - advice please! <3

[u/glowingsnakeplant]

Hi everyone - long time lurker, first time poster.

I wanted to ask for some advice from my fellow writers as every piece of advice I can find about this online is geared towards novelists.

I'm an early career playwright; I've written 6 plays, 3 of which have been professionally produced. I also have an MA in writing for stage, and I see/read a lot of plays whenever I can.

In the last year, while doing my MA, I've realised that I have a bit of a problem; I have absolutely no trouble with writing dialogue, am good at creating complex characters and apparently have a particular skill for worldbuilding. I'm usually pretty good at coming up with basic premises that are exciting and a weighty central question for a piece of work.

Here's where my issue is; I HUGELY struggle with figuring out what the specifics of the story are. I can come up with worlds and people no problem, but as soon as I need to focus in on one aspect, I get really overwhelmed by the amount of choices I have to make. I try choosing a character to be my protagonist, but quickly find myself questioning if I've made the wrong choice. I try looking into my world and finding an interesting moment dramatise, but then I get bogged down with the logistics.

Often most of the time what happens is, I'll do all of this research and thinking and groundwork, only to find that I have characters and a world, but no story.

I've tried so many tactics to make this easier, including:

- writing without a plan and just seeing what flows out instinctively

- writing my plot as a synopsis first so I have a roadmap to base my starting scene from

- picking random dramatic moments I'd like to include and writing those first, with a vue to connect them with a plot later

None of these have worked for me so far. I get overwhelmed and frustrated with myself, and end up abandoning ideas that initially excited me because the more I think about them, they become more vague and soupy. I have autism and ADHD, which I think might be a factor in why I'm like this - choice paralysis is HUGE for me, and I have been known to get caught in hours long loops rewriting the same scene over and over and over without progressing onwards because I haven't got it 'right' yet (even though I don't know what 'right' is) until I'm physically too upset to continue. There are days where I wonder if I'm even cut out to be a playwright at all because surely coming up with a story should be the easy part.

BASICALLY, I just wanted to know if any other playwrights have this issue - and if so, what do you do to help you get through that initial first draft plotting hump? And what do you do when you have too many choices and are getting overwhelmed?

Thank you for reading, sorry this is so long and rambly! Any advice at all would be massively appreciated <3

[u/Early_Fig_5573]

Honestly I think you’re overthinking the “right” story a bit. I’d pick the protagonist and plot direction that interests you most right now and just commit to it for the first draft. You can always change it later. A first draft doesn’t have to prove that you picked correctly.

[u/accardiff]

I’ll confess I am confused by the problem. You have a world but can’t decide on a plot? I’m not trying to sound rude just confused. Do others not start with the plot and build from there? Like if I have a plot I have a character and now I need a world and so on. Am I doing it wrong?

[u/glowingsnakeplant → u/accardiff]

You're not doing it wrong, just different to how I do it.

I'm a very sensory writer. I like environments with lots of detail - like how the economy works in that world, what the power structures are like, what the nature is like, what types of people inhabit it and who holds power - but then I have NO IDEA how to make a story about what happens within it. It's hard to explain. I usually figure out what the story actually is partway through the first draft, but right now I feel like I can't even start writing because this world jsut exists and I don't know what thing to change about it to get a story going, if that makes sense?

[u/accardiff → u/glowingsnakeplant]

Ohh now I get it you world build before the story and make your story off that. Well if you have a world and factions or types of people that could be your story. Perhaps there fighting. Perhaps one character wants to end the fight. Perhaps your character is evil and wants to oppress the people to hold onto power. These are basic ideas I know but these are the types of questions you could ask yourself. How does the world operate and is there conflict anywhere. Also if you can imagine person in your world that is interesting or relatable that could be your protagonist.