: Re: Idea overflow in plotting? I've been working on a paranormal/romance/mystery kind of novel for over 4 years now and still haven't finished it. It all started out as a fanfiction but I decided

@Hamaas631

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One key thing that I learned in my classes is that when you outline a story plot of any kind, you don't want to write the whole thing out on a planning document. My advice is to write half the plot down and have faith in your characters and setting to carry the rest of the plot forward.

I know now every major detail/plot point of my story that has to happen in order for my characters to end up where they are supposed to end up.

This, to me, is a dangerous way of writing a story -- because it's backwards to how it should be. Characters need to push the plot forward, rather than the plot pushing the characters to a point they need to be at. This is tricky, I know, as some of the best stories give the illusion that the plot is tugging the characters forward, but good active+dynamic characters are the kinds of people that readers want to see in their stories: the ones who take their world by the wheel and drive with it. People like that in real life are interesting -- and are often the kinds of people you hear about in biographies, documentaries, and news articles.

I do think the basic plot points you have here are very interesting and could blossom into something great; I just need to stress that the focus should be on characters first, then plot. Setting, I believe, is also affected by characters -- because like I said: active people are the ones who help shape their world.

A lot of people get caught up in worldbuilding -- and that's understandable. To me, though, it's something you need to be loose with and then hammer out harder when you get into actual plotting and revisions. I am certain that if you do this, your story will be great!

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