I only figured all of that out on the second draft

The trick is to except that all of this should not be done during 1st drafting.

Make notes about the things important to you, themes, ideas of any kind and implement them into your finished 1st draft.

1st Drafting basically means that you are taking all of your story clay and throw it onto the turn table.

Then you fumble with your hands here and there to give it a rough shape that roughly presents the story that you would like to sculpt.

When that pile of rough shaped clay sits firmly and you have no clay left - your 1st draft is done.

Now you start to sculpt.

Somebody else said it - by the end of your first draft you should have a much firmer grasp on your characters and plot beats; what motivates everyone; what you would really like to say with your story or certain parts of it.

So you start to rewrite, revise - implement the stuff that you want to transport.

That is the moment you take out your notes and analyze. Soon you will find the spots where you go "Aw yeah! Person B has to say that stuff in order for the thing in chapter 28 to hit harder/not come out of nowhere". Just as an example.

Suddenly you will find yourself rewriting dialogue or entire scenes because, especially in early written chapters, your characters just sound wrong and not at all like what they sounded like when you 1st drafted your epic finale.

Go for it.

First get the story, the general plot, the things happening on the page. Breath life into your ideas and characters.

Tell the story TO YOURSELF.

THEN start and make it the story that you tell to someone else.

Just

Fucking

Write

I am a pantser so I figure things out as I go.

I recommend writing a chapter or a scene, any chapter of scene. Even a plotter will get ideas as you write.

I often don't know what my characters will say until I start writing their line.

Just start writing. These things can be collected as you go and refined when you have finished. It's hard to plan out every small detail when your story hasn't unfolded. Spending too much time planning can lead you down a path of never writing/finishing. I learnt to jump in. Keep planning and thinking about these things but don't feel like you need to have it all figured out before you start.

Agree with everything here, and will also add that organically written, realistic characters, whether protagonist or antagonist, will consistently break the constraints you put on them during planning.

Even if you're a hard plotter, during the process of writing a character who really lives in your imagination is going to do something you could not have predicted, and you're going to feel compelled to put it on paper as you realize it's absolutely true to their nature and their voice.

I've had to come to terms with this, and it helped me loosen up on the reins and feel more comfortable "just writing."

I am only able to sort out my ideas by writing them down. Trying to figure it all out in my head means I just keep going over the same information. Once its on page, I can add or subtract from the idea. If it never gets on the page, it never goes anywhere.

You don't have to do all of that. Just start somewhere & go from there. You're clever enough to figure it out as you go.

Start writing. Voices will come. A scene will be painted. Soon, your first chapter!

Keep writing a few, then return to the start. You know your characters a lot better than when you started, so you tweak a few things.

The longer you keep things in your mind, the more you will learn as well. But there’s loads of things you’ll never know if you don’t write it down because it’s just not the same.

TLDR: Just write!

Not really?

You can just write. Pantsers exsts for a reason. If you need to plan, that is your style. There is a lot that can be figured out as you write.

1. Write down everything you currently know. Don’t hold it in your head. Then, brainstorm more ideas.

2. Organize that stuff into something more or less coherent and (hopefully) vaguely story-shaped.

3. Figure out the basics of the characters and plot. Try to have a semi-decent understanding of the characters. Plot might be as simple as X deals with Y in parts.

4. Write a basic outline so you have some idea where you’re going.

5. Set your characters loose in the world and start writing.

6. Plot, story, and character voice will evolve and fall into place as you go. Update your outline/bible/wiki as things change.

7. Theme usually becomes clear at the end.

8. Go back and revise/rewrite.

Read On Writing by Stephen King. His free writing approach really helped me stop over analysing and start writing. I still do an outline, but it’s written in short hand (mostly dot points) and used as a guide.

choose a type of ending you want and write toward it.

I felt like this when I first started writing. IMHO, it's natural. But the more you do it, the more you get used to doing it, and the better you'll get at doing it. The reason it's overwhelming is it's unfamiliar. You're treading on unfamiliar ground. Once you've done it many times, it'll start to become been-there-done-that.

Before I would wonder how am I going to get all this done. How do I get my characters and plot from A to Z? Now, after doing many times, I think about what I want to do, and I understand the various paths I can take to get me to the end.

I won't say it's easy, but it all becomes manageable. One of the skills that writers have to discover/learn is their process. You have to discover what things you need to know before you start writing and how to organize those things such that it allows you to write your story efficiently and effectively.

For me, I read a lot about story structure and that helped me with my outlining. And I just started building onto and adapting that foundation to my personal tastes/needs. It's about looking around and taking what's useful to you and discarding the rest.

If it were easy, everyone would do it.

But every writer has their own way of working. Ask 100 of them, and they will give you 100 different answers.

But doing everything you mentioned at once before writing is almost a guaranteed way to kill your writing drive from the start. The best thing is to have a process that allows you to vary what you do, and develop the information you need for the story over time.

Some people are outliners and some people are discovery writers. If you tend toward being a discovery writer, the outlining process can be agonizing. Discovery writers, I find, are more character driven, so the character development takes the place of outlining. They need to figure out who their characters are before they will know what they're going to do. Outliners tend to fit character to plot: what kind of person do I need to go through the ups and downs of this plot?

Most writers probably do a combination of these things--they have an opening scene in their head, they set out writing, get stuck, try to outline to see what's happening and what should happen next. Or, they write a scene here, then there, then figure out how those scenes work together for a more cohesive narrative.

Just work they way it feels right to you. There is no prescription. And if someone tries to tell you there's only one way to write, then run in the opposite direction.

Stephen King says : put someone or some people in a situation and write them out of it.

By the time they’re out you should have some idea of who they are based on how they get out and what they got out of.

You can add backstory or pre situation scenes later if need be.

The other advice I have is don’t write in linear order. Is there a scene you dream of writing? Write it first build to it later.

The thing is, you don't REALLY know those things until you start to write, or at least you don't know how they're going to manifest in the final product until you get writing.

Worldbuilders disease, and by extension character builder's disease, gets in the way. I write very detailed outlines, and yet sometimes the story turns in my grasp as I see that conceptually things need to be different in the moment of writing them. This character is supposed to behave X way, but once they're in Situation Y, then that seems rigid and not at all what they'd do. So it shifts. So on and so forth, until all those character sheets and all those "oh, how will this plot resolve itself" bits you've spent time working on are unfamiliar and unworkable with how the story presents itself now, on the page.

Write. Make changes in real time, as the story evolves. Make a plan, but be prepared to change it if a better option presents itself. But you'll never know what information you actually need until the story is on the page.

You can figure out a lot of this as you go. There's no need to account for all the infinite possibilities at once. Just the immediate next steps.

all i do is think about what i personally want to write about (e.g. my story started with just the concept of finding fulfilment in crappy situations), think of a couple interesting characters and a vague setting and get to writing. all the tricky stuff comes to your head a lot easier whilst writing a draft. its fine if an awesome idea requires a bunch of re-writing since youll have to re-write anyways!

I know what you need to do!

Robert Jordan, guy who wrote the Wheel of Time series had some issues like this too.

So he writes 5 pages per Character of them in their own voice saying what they're doing in the adventure, how they feel about other people, and how stuff about their personalities.  This way it's an easy reference guide for each of the characters you've got and you can focus more on the story!

So, I do drawing as a hobby too, and in that space, there is a good metaphor for this: imagine it as juggling. You don't start trying to juggle all the balls, but rather you build towards that, thinking about only one of them at a time.

To be more actionable advice, do your outline thinking about only one of these things, then do another pass thinking about another (or, if you are a pantser like me, do your first draft juggling what you find easy, then start adding things later)

Do all your outlines.

Then figure out the scene you need, and write that scene. Then figure out the next scene you need, and write that. Adjust your notes as you go.

Start each chapter with notes for the chapter.

I’m a pantser and that’s the only way I can get things done. For a while I tried outlining and doing full on character analyses, charts, and diagrams. It stunted my writing and creativity. I was lucky if I ended up with one chapter. I never made it beyond that because I knew too much and I was kind of typing what was being dictated to me by my complex charts.

Then I read On Writing by Stephen King and that changed everything. I gave myself roughly 30 days to JUST WRITE and to get it down on “paper” (screen, really). In that first draft I let the story unfold organically and got to know my characters and their motivations. I could be more technical upon the first re-read and edits before completing the second draft.

If I were to ever try outlining again, I would still start with a blank canvas and just right, and then complete an outline for the second draft.

Like someone else said, JUST WRITE. Don’t let analysis paralysis stop you.

The first draft does not need to be perfect. A lot of what you describe will be changed refined, overhauled, etc along future drafts. So just start.

I also outline and plan ahead, but what I do is I dont think of it as set in stone. So when I hit a.. hm thatll do point, then I start writing. I keep my plans as more of a flag in a golf hole far away than an exact map. Gives you a) fluidity so if something serves the story better later you can change it b) takes the pressure off a perfect plan/outline.

Anyway, thats what I do, but whatever works for you!

Write.

Get the story down on paper.

Handle the details in later drafts.

Just write.

Figure it out as you go, I write nonlinearly and in snippets, you'll figure it out once you get a whole notebook full of random scenes, then you can start the second draft.

One scene. That’s where I always start because that’s where my ideas start. It can be anywhere in the story. Once that’s done you have a North Star to follow and can let the rest happen naturally. Don’t overthink it.

You can and should start when you have at least one element, or you’ll never figure out the rest.

I usually only have 1 or 2 characters and some scene that I find fascinating in my mind (it’s always true). So I start there and try to figure out how to get those two people to that scene.

I’ll stop to plot and outline, then I write, then I outline again and so on. I mentally cannot do the whole picture at once, it would be too overwhelming for me and I’ll stop writing at all. I know, I tried.

Just write. Everything can be edited later.

Writing is rewriting. It's conception on paper.

I'm more of a pantser than a plotter and I have no patience for character questionnaires or big outlines.

So what do I do? Generally speaking, who is my protagonist? What's the tangible thing they want? Why don’t they just go out and get it? What’s the plot, in very broad terms? What’s the Catalyst? Ok then, with all that in mind, let's write toward the Catalyst. Then the Midpoint. And I keep doing it stage by stage.

Characters serve story and plot. Whatever you're thinking of now, you'll be throwing away 80% of it because it doesn't fit into the story.

So my advice is to spend the time to write the story. You can flesh out your world and characters in the 2nd draft.

Put it together as you write. You don't need to know every step of the way before you start moving.

The best thing about undertaking a project like writing a story is that you don't have to have it all figured out before you write it.

Instead of figuring everything out before you write your story, you're allow to discover your characters and plot as you write them.

So no, there is not too much to think about before you start write - if you let it.

I felt like this too, and I got completely stuck revising my prologue. 😅 Someone told me: “You can always come back and revise the prologue after you’ve written 50 000 words and actually know your character’s voice.”

That helped me let go and just write. Once you start writing scenes, the puzzle pieces begin to click into place — character behavior, themes, even plot direction. You don’t have to solve everything upfront; a lot of it only becomes clear through writing and building scenes.

Writing helps things come together, but it can’t replace knowing what the story wants. If you still feel stuck, it’s often because the goal, motive, or conflict isn’t clear. And that’s the only thing you really need to sit with to figure out.

wasn't there a noted sculptor who talked about finding the sculpture in the marble? and this is someone who was working in a very unforgiving medium.

plan enough to get started. then get started. momentum and your subconscious will do a lot of the work. themes, resonance, consistency, etc: editing gets you those.

it will never be perfect. but if you don't sit down and write it, it will never even be good.

Well, it depends on what YOU like. If all that planning is too much, “just writing” might be the way to flesh out some loose details as others have suggested. Then you can circle back and see what you’d like to change/improve and where you might need to plan.

Also, could be worth asking yourself the goal of your writing piece. Why do you care about what you’ve chosen to convey in your writing? That can be a less-pressured starting point.

Some people like outlining, I prefer a “blueprint” these days. Outlining gets me too stuck in plot (the things that happen externally to the characters).

Stop thinking about it and start writing.

Don't try to figure it out all at once. You don't need to have answers to all of those questions before you can start writing. Also, don't be afraid to write poorly, write partial scenes, write only a few lines of dialogue, write out of order. Pick one or two of your questions to focus on and then write a scene or a loose outline or character profile that addresses them. Once you have that down you can move on to 1-2 more questions. As you write, you might find the answers to more than just your initial 1-2 questions as you find out what works for your story and what doesn't.

I think there are people that can plan it all out - i'm not one of them. I do a rough outline, I tend to know the end point, where its going, but you have to write it all into being. I saw a Franzen interview where he said that he doesn't plan as he doesn't want to know what will happen and if you could plan to that level, what would be the point of writing it? It does make your head hurt, though.

Meanwhile, people start writing whatever they feel like from the middle, figuring it as they go. It's art, so there's a variety of ways you can do it. Things can be vague and figured out later.

The operative word here is "before". You should start from the thing that makes you the most excited, and a lot of stuff comes into focus as you develop the core of the story.

At the end of the day, the real shape of everything you described reveals itself after you finish the first draft, so you're going to have to scrap and rewrite a lot.

Which seems daunting, but it's actually liberating: don't stress so much about figuring everything out, because a good chunk of what you have figured out before will turn out to be wrong.

Unless you're a pantser

I have been writing books my all life. Even now, i need a few month to write shit, see how it goes and adjust from there.

Adjustment phase takes me 3/4 of the work, it’s dreading, I cry a lot, I complain about not being able to do it.

And then suddenly I have it and I can write the book perfectly in one go.

Thats just a process

If i outlined id probably have more finished stories, sadly the one time I outlined i didn't finish the outline

I am very afraid that writing is a job and not a game.
There are obviously many ways to do the job more quickly and easily, and as with any job done sloppily, the result will be just as sloppy.

"Just write" is a critical advice, but in my mind, incomplete, because I believe that outlining and prepping IS extremely important (but focusing too much on it will in fact stunt the writing progress). The solution I landed upon is collaboration. Find someone who you can throw your ideas at, that will listen consistently and give back. To me, this is so vital for a writer it's almost non-negotiable. I refuse to accept "I prefer to work alone" as an excuse. If a writer can have editors, they can have a collaborator.

I recently started writing and learned the best thing is to just start even if you don't have it all figured out. As i write the ideas start to flow. Like others said second draft is where you polish character arcs and fix inconsistencies. I still haven't published a book but hope to soon so take my advice as seen from a beginner. Hope this helps

I don't try to do everything before I write. I start with an idea and a character, and then build the world as I go. Sometimes I go back and change a line to better fit with that world, but going forward is best. I create things like character lists and encyclopedia as I build the story, but to do it before I write eats up energy and would just be really boring. The outlines I do before I write. I do the biggest ideas, beginning, middle and end, then I expand with bullet points after I do a chapter.

It’s interesting there’s a lot of ‘pantsers’ replying here but I’d love to see more responses from ‘plotters’ because I’m sure there are writers who do create character and world building notes in advance - particularly if you’re writing SciFi or fantasy and need to have an internally consistent and cohesive magic/tech system. I don’t think one or the other is better. It’s all about what works for you.

There’s definitely a lot of YouTube writing tutorials that emphasize having meticulous planning set up in advance - but that does not work for everyone, and can easily become overwhelming.

If you’re spending more time thinking/planning than writing, that’s a good time to realize it’s becoming too much. If you are feeling daunted (and you’re not alone in that) then perhaps the ‘plotter’ way is not working for you and it’s time to try a different approach.

Ideally whatever approach you choose, it should help you feel excited and energized to write.

Best of luck finding your flow!

Not really. Though once you have that stuff sorted, writing can be easy(ish).

Here is the real trick that turns people from thinking about being writers to actually being writers. None of that matters. Editing exists. Just start writing. Put words on paper. Many of them at the start will be bad, but will get better. You can just start with a location and a character. Make them talk and do something. See where it does.

This is an RPG(light) I'm running locally at a game store with others, and something I use while writing. I call it Scriptula Universalis.

https://beta.nief.ca/Scriptula%20Universalis.pdf

To start with, I write three 4 paragraph scenes in the world, just to get an idea of the world itself. Then, I set it aside till tomorrow, and start the RPG as the above rules state. The idea is that I have a deadline. I can then dial it in to what I feel like I can accomplish today. I use the edits to expand more on what I've written(describe world features, expand upon cultural differences, add assides, character writing, biographies, etc.... or sometimes even actual editing). Nothing is removed, but stuff gets moved around, relegated to other sections, scenes get moved, etc.

Might not work for you, but give it a try and see how it feels.

My advice is you don’t have to figure all of that out right away. Who is the main character? What are their motivations? What are some blanket ideas on what their personality is? You’ll refine the character more as you write them, and you’ll get to know them better. By the end of the story you won’t need a character sheet to figure out how they’d behave because it’ll be second nature.

When I write I usually cover three characters right away at the start of the book, then just have fun writing as I go, making characters as needed.

I think it depends on the point that someone is at in the story writing. Speaking strictly of myself, I find that I generally write some outline for a character and have a basic idea of the piece of the world they inhabit, and then go into more of an introspective chapter first to kind of figure out how this character thinks in terms of common situations they encounter. It's not the most exciting thing to have a character walk through a seemingly normal day in their life, but it tends to fill out all the things that are missing when I do it.

It also helps answer the question of "Why does this character exist?"

For example, one character I wrote kind of self described their world view in the sentence: "I ask for nothing and need for nothing, but the world always takes regardless." And then in small ways throughout that first chapter the reason for that world view became slowly apparent.

It helps to have it all on one screen or wall or table... like those red string boards you see on detective shows.

A bunch of color coded notecards works well. Then they can be x'd out after they're written. You can do one notecard per chapter.

And these should fit into a common story structure. Most common: Act 1: Inciting incident. A goal and obstacle are formed. Act 2. Rising action. Midpoint twist. Failure. Act 3. Resurrection. Climax. Resolution.

Something like that.

There are people who "pants" a story but basically they draft a bad story then pull out an outline and attempt to draft a good one.

mind map it, put it on a board like the fbi investigating the sopranos, write lists of locations, people, things, actions, link them, put arrows on them, number them, scratch off or stay some in those lists, eliminate everything til the absolutely necessary remains even if it's just the letter E.

Then write the first sentence.

I forgot to mention on my prior reply. I was thinking about this and was like "there isn't THAT much to think about..." and then proceeded to go look at the page count for all the notes and other things for the main character of my prior story, which is a 28 page long document.

No. Just write the thing.

Then don't do all that stuff.

I write using what I call tent pegs. I put a mental peg in at the start of the story. I put a mental peg down where I think the story needs to end. And I put down three or four mental pegs for certain emotional or circumstantial beats I think are going to be necessary.

Then I start writing at the beginning and write until I reach the end.

The thing about 10 pegs is that they're not part of the tent. They outline where the tent kind of needs to be. But when you're setting up a tent you often end up having to move the pegs.

It is a strange and wonderful thing to be typing along and have your characters doing things that you did not originally intend. That's your subconscious deciding to tell a better story than the one you planned.

One of the reasons you're finding all those things to be so daunting May well be that they are good advice that work for other writers but they don't match your own style. And if you try to write in a mode that doesn't match how you think it will become a daunting task that you will never complete.

You should maybe experiment with writing in a more attitude style.

Like if you want to write a space opera, tell yourself you're writing a space opera.. and start with some trivial action like "Bob dropped his fork."

"Bob dropped his fork"

Is that a whole sentence? Did he drop it by accident? Did he drop it on purpose to make the noise to get somebody's attention? Did he drop it because he desperately needed that hand to pull a blaster? Did he drop it because he just took a taser shot to the neck?

Now what would be a 10 peg for that? Maybe Bob needs to end up hiding behind some crates in the back of a starship hold because he's not sure what just came on board. So now you have a chapter that starts with a guy dropping a fork and ends with a guy hiding behind some boxes next to an airlock. Is he hiding there alone?

Bob dropped his fork, grabbed his infant daughter, and ran.

Etc.

Yeah, you start writing and figure that stuff out as you go. Not only does this make you more productive (obviously), but you also have way more information available, so your choices are informed.

I learned most about my characters by writing about them and figure out how they will deal with the obstacles in their path. I don't have all the details ready when I write my first draft.

My writing teacher wanted me to answer friendbook questions for my character, and it just didn't work for me. I just stared at the questions thinking "I don't know my character well enough to answer these, I have to write about her first". In

Jump in and write, and figure it out as you go. Revise later when you know the story.

Too much pre-planning is a fine way to never write anything.

You don't need to know every littke thing before you start writing. You can figure it all out.

Just start writing. Then figure it out in the 2nd draft.