: Re: Getting stuck on imagining what should be happening in the moment I frequently experience a specific type of writer's block and am looking for strategies to work around it. I lean toward discovery

What do you define as a good story? For me itâ€™s something that delivers a satisfying overarching plot as well as each main character having a satisfying arc and the story having a set of themes that are explored from different angles throughout the story, via everything: plot, monologue, dialogue, descriptions of setting, everything.

If that is the definition of a good story and youâ€™re writing a novel (50,000+ words), then a good story simply is not written without good planning.

Planning is the solution to the question youâ€™re asking.

I donâ€™t think planning has to be as elaborate or detailed as some people think. I donâ€™t like to over plan because then it doesnâ€™t leave me room to feel free to be creative when I actually write. So I focus on just planning the main plot pointsâ€”for the main plot and the character arcs..

When I write, I use my own slightly personalized version of the snowflake method:

First write your story in one sentence (difficult, yes, but Iâ€™ve found it to be rewarding)
Then write your story in three sentences
Three paragraphs
Five to seven paragraphs
All the paragraphs

At step five I have a paragraph for every chunk of my story. (Usually each chunk ends up being one scene, but there are exceptions, such as if I decide to tell two different threads back and forth for a while.)

At this point, when I sit down to write a scene, I already have a paragraph that outlines what needs to happen in this scene to move forward character arcs and the plot. However I still have tons of freedom! There are a billion ways to write a scene that does those three or four things. So for me this method works.

In my opinion the key is balancing planning, so you know what basic things need to happen in each scene, but not over-planning to where you feel boxed in.

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@Angie602

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: Re: Getting stuck on imagining what should be happening in the moment I frequently experience a specific type of writer's block and am looking for strategies to work around it. I lean toward discovery

More posts by @Angie602

: In an academic Paper, should you mention/reference stuff like Definitions or Theorems? Or are they part of the "text flow"? I'm not sure if my question is entirely subjective or not. I'm asking

: What tense should the dialogues be in a first person singular write-ups? I am writing my novel in first person singular in the past tense as narrated by the protagonist. So obviously the narrative

: Emphatic pronoun question I'm curious as to why an emphatic pronoun isn't set off by commas. For example, "I, myself, completed the puzzle." Thanks!

: Is it illegal to write a book about how to do something illegal in some places? If I wrote a book about how to do something that is legal in some places but illegal in others, would I

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