So, I've gotten to the point where I pretty much can't complete any fanfic I write. I've got a bajillion ideas for 4 different fandoms (HP, DF, FF, SVM), and I can never write more than a few snippets for any story, probably no more than 5,000 words each. I've got hundreds of partially written stories that will never see the light of day.

I've decided that I should just focus on one thing, and that's to write an original story. I've tried twice before. The first couple chapters of one I posted in the original work forum here a year or two ago, but I was unsatisfied with what I was writing.

The second one is sort of sitting on the back burner, and I haven't got past the development part too much. I am undecided if I should continue this one, since some ideas keep popping into my head (not necessarily good ideas either) or if I should just start from scratch and do a story properly.

I've got a few questions, and they're not necessarily directed at the few people here who have been published.

-How far do you plan ahead?
I usually write several thousand words worth of outlines form fics, with most of the ideas being for the next chapters, and then the others being the major ideas I want to cover later. I feel that if I wrote the whole outline to a story before I even start, that I won't be creative enough, and I'd feel locked into that idea.
I plan on doing a series, with ~5 books and one add-on. How far ahead do you plan? I know roughly what I would like to include each book, but not the chapter by chapter schematic.

-Background/setting?
To, me, it seems like there's two options here. You can have it set in the modern day like Dresden Files, with recognizable names and stuff, so some of the mundane work is already done, or you can make a completely new fantasy setting.
How much work do you have to decide ahead of time for your fantasy setting? Like, I drew a basic map, with some nice detail on it, but since I'm not past the planning stages yet, a lot of it could change. How many revisions are typical, or do you always try to stay on target and adapt to what you've already decided?
Also, how much do you create about your characters before you start? Do you figure out your main character, and have the others grow while your story evolves? Or do you have a huge biography written, and then you chose how much to share with the reader, and when (if ever).

-Cliches
How much are tolerable? I don't go out of my way to write cliches or try and fit an archetype. But I do find myself drawn to emulating ideas I enjoyed in other stories. Obviously, it's how they're executed that really determines how well they are done, but there is a limit.
For example, Having the main character be a wizard is pretty cliche at this point in time, but we still like to read about it. I am on the fence if this is what I want to do, but writing about magic is what I'm probably best at. I love fantasy settings, so it will be something pre-technology with swords and stuff. I'm on the fence about including the cliche 'advanced' race with clockwork shit and gunpowder. I want to do it, but only if it works in the story, which I am unsure at this point.
Anyways, I'm not sure if I want to make the main character a wizard, or have his adventure buddy a wizard. I definitely will avoid the whole 'surprise, you're actually the lost prince of a kingdom, your family was killed when you were young, and you were raise as a blaahhhhhhh'. I don't like most modern entertainment for dumb reasons like that that just ruin it. Then again, having the main character being a farm boy who over the course of the series, becomes a great leader, is probably just as cliche. I want to focus more on the actual adventuring, since I don't want it be a real save-the-world type thing, but stopping-the-bad-guys from taking over is a decent idea, especially if the good guys are actually the bad guys, and both the bad guys and good guys are secretly lead by the same person, but neither of them know it.

Comments/Suggestions, other than the obligatory 'post a snippet in the WBA' post.

 

Start writing something, anything, immediately. After you do that, you can start thinking about the background. Heavy, light, subversive, supportive. Anything is possible. Don't be annoying about cliches, but don't just be weird to avoid them. Don't make the main character Jesus, it's a bit common.

 

Get the words out of your head and commit them to word or whatever program is your choice. That is and always must be the first step when you have an idea- once you've put the idea down into actual words, you can step back and see what does and does not work for it.

Start off with a smaller number, also. Aim for somewhere between 500 and 1000 words just to see how it feels, a small snippet to test the waters.

Once you've done that, try it again. Add a little twist, a difference that you think might help, or just explore the same scenario through a different narrative/description of events.

It's okay to outline your concept, even quite a ways ahead, but
don't be afraid of being confined by a plot you've outlined in your head or already started just because of that alone. You'll refine it as you go, and sometimes certain events and characters and settings will have to be scrapped or changed in order to proceed.

I've got 15k worth of words of my own first novel down from a couple of years back that has to be scrapped almost wholesale, and the initial attempts at my Anthology entry went through 4k or so before I finally hit on a completely different path that retained the core of the characters that I wanted to present.

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Regarding background, it honestly depends on the period of your piece.

With something like fantasy, you have to do a lot more world building than you would starting off with something more modern- what is life like in your setting? How do the people live and react with one another? What kinds of animal life or vegetation might there be? How does magic work, if it even exists? What restrictions are there to magic, and how is it viewed- favorably, ill, madness, feared, unobtainable? What kind of events have taken place in the past that have lead to such views, or social structures?


Personally, I've focused on a bit of history- what lead to the current state of affairs for my characters to deal with; the general way of everyday life- they have different social classes to contend with, different problems therein, outside threats and such; and the actual heart of the fantasy theme- in this case, magic of a purely elemental nature, alternate interpretations of the classic dragon and wyvern and non-human entities, and the impact that these things have.

I've revised every piece of that at least twice if not three times in the last several months, especially between December and today. The core themes presented there are still retained, which is what I think is the most important part, but it is explained in a fairly clear way.

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Cliches can be tricky. Everyone has read the 'farmboy goes off to great adventures and fame' and 'main character is secretly related to X, Y, or Z', and as someone here said in another thread, even if your writing skills are superb, the depiction of such things may still fall short.

If you don't want your character to be a wizard, than try to pick an understandable role he could fit into and still have reason for interaction with them for the period- perhaps something akin to a wandering merchant that deals with the occasional exotic material that would bring him into contact/conflict with wizards and magical users, and the know-how to avoid too-awful fallout.

A knight or mercenary, even, if you wanted him to have a competent swordsmanship skill and the capacity to fight his way along. He certainly doesn't have to start from a farm-life.

 

Rather than answer your questions directly, which others I'm sure will cover, I'll comment more on a few differences between writing original fiction and fanfiction and how one might make the transition easier from the latter to the former. You really should PM someone like jbern or Joe, though, for advice.

Regarding planning and plotting, you probably need a bit more structure with original fiction than you're used to with fanfiction. With fanfiction, you start with a general sense of what is going on in the world, what the essential conflicts are, what subplots are afoot, etc. With original fiction, all these have to be created from whole cloth, which means planning on your part and keeping a sense of pacing in one's story, whether to deepen the plot, etc. When you write, you really need a firm idea of the ending to which you are driving. Even if you don't keep that ending (indeed, it's always worth brainstorming as you near the end of a story as to how you might twist the ending to defy a reader's expectations), you still need to sell it with your writing up until that point.

I struggle mightily with characterization when writing original fiction and this was the hardest transition to make for me. Unlike fanfiction, where we have an intrinsic sense of how, say, Ginny Weasley or Severus Snape will handle a situation, our original fiction characters haven't the same crispness and it's too easy for them to fall flat or fall into tired archetypes (the plucky sidekick, the demure romantic interest, the down-on-his-luck hero with an attitude problem, etc). I keep a folder for each longer story with a file for each of my characters containing basic biographical information, history, etc., written freeform. One thing I find helpful is to write a series of vignettes and exchanges involving my characters in different settings before trying the story proper. I usually have a couple dozen of these before I begin. I include these scenes in my files for each character to give a larger sense as to who they are and how say, BFT (Blunt Torce Trauma), retired superhero turned union enforcer, would handle an interminable line at the ATM machine next to a shifty-eyed pickpocket or the funeral of his sister's child to a narcotics overdose. Sometimes these vignettes find their way into the story. Often they don't (not directly), but the exercise is golden for knowing how one's characters tick.

Clichés shouldn't detract from the story to the point where a reader's going to think he's seen it all before. Especially if you hope to sell your fiction, it can't appear too derivative, even if there is a twist later on down the road. Writing about a wizarding detective encountering supernatural baddies in a modern day St. Louis would feel like Dresden despite our finding out at the end that the wizard in question is actually a cross-dressing vampire princess.

After you get a draft down, spend a bunch of time polishing your first chapter since this is what's going to make or break your story in terms of readership. Whether you're going the traditional publishing route (in which case you need a publisher or literary agent, who will want to read an excerpt of your story) or self-publishing (in which case, you need readers to be hooked on a prose sample and therefore willing to buy your book), all the time spent on that first several pages will be time well spent.

 

Thanks for the responses. I guess what my main concern is really how much preparation do I need before writing. All my stories usually start with some clip that I want to turn into more, but I always either get bored, or get stuck. I know some authors completely plan out a story before starting it (or lie about it) but I think I'd lose a lot of interest in doing that.

On my actual story note, I'm think of having two schools of magic, one being popular and in the capital city, and wizards are essentially nobility, and then a second school for the darker aspects that is looked down upon, but is essentially the same thing. I want the wizard/witch in the story to come from that school, but essentially have a normal personallity, and you would never know they practiced black magic by talking to them.

And a secondary note, I haven't decided what I want my main character to be. I wrote him as a small village guy, living off the land, but not necessarily a farmer or anything like that. Just the kind of person who knows a bit of everything. He's hasn't been exposed to magic all that much, and thinks that the towns alchemist is just a crazy man peddling useless trinkets and junk, and doesn't learn until later that he's actually a wizard and that he knows real magic.

The problem is, I don't think that's interesting enough. The first chapter in the first story is the most important one, as you said, and I don't think it would work that well, especially since it would just be the normal thing of showing a normal day in the village, and then having his world turned upside down with a traumatic event.

Instead, I think I may want to make the guy a theif or something. Perhaps he finds a trinket that he doesn't realize the value/importance of, and it's probably magical and he doesn't realize it. I'm not suggesting something that inadvertently summons demons to the world, since that's probably a bit contrived, and the whole idea is sort mcguffinish. I think the important thing to try and emphasize is not the item itself, but the people that are drawn to it, the people he wouldn't normally associate with.

I'm probably just rambling at this point.

 

Planning a story can be simple - Stephen King's idea for the Regulators came to him while he was writing Desperation, and the idea was simply to tell the same story in a different location - to very, very difficult and detailed.

I've said this elsewhere, but it always bears repeating - everyone does it differently. Personally, I always write down the story first, basically writing the Wiki entry, beginning to end. If the story isn't interesting when i'm done, I might tinker for a bit, but more likely I'll never bother with it again.

It's only when I've got a basic tale that works that I'll go back and fill in the details - dialogue, backstory, secondary world-building - and see if that continues to work. If it doesn't, I scrap it and start over, if it does, I'm set.

in terms of first impression: cut the first chapter. Always cut the first chapter. ALWAYS. it's instinct these days to start with the image of 'normal' and then show the change that starts the story rolling. We get this from movies. Especially epics, action movies, and coming-of-age movies.

With the written word, a much different medium, we don't have awesome visuals to hook the reader. You have to do that with words, and all too often, telling the pre-story is not a hook. I never read the Hunger Games because the first chapter is dull as week-old shit, but the film is at least visually interesting. So, i say cut to the chase, almost literally. Show us what's interesting up front, then take us back.

Only other piece of advice I'll give: to keep things original, go against your instincts. Make characters and settings do the opposite of what you would normally have them do. It's more interesting for the reader, and likely more interesting for you, too.

 

Planning, for original stories, is as personal a thing as it comes - you'll find advice as varied as there are authors slinging it.

Stephen King, mentioned by LittleChicago above, is rather famous for a "flying by the seat of his pants" kind of author. He advocates in several books he's written on fiction writing (though not necessarily fantasy) taking this same approach - start by putting pen to paper and let your mind fill in the details as you go (or as you revise).

On the opposite end of the spectrum, Patrick Rothfuss spent years and years during graduate school and post-grad while lecturing developing his world(s).

Jim Butcher, in his class with Debbie Chester, had to plan an outline for the first novel of the Dresden Files, and then each chapter had to have a goal - something to accomplish. This is something I think about now when I write, and something that I feel is VERY typically lost in fanfiction, when you have unlimited words. Authors are writing either to infodump, purely to expand the world without really accomplishing much storytelling or character development, and don't even have a particular goal in mind for a chapter.

Jim Butcher also has a sizable blog about writing. I don't have a link.

Keeping story arcs and motivations in mind is what makes stories compelling.

 

The fun of writing an original story is being completely, almost over-whelmingly responsible for everything the reader knows about your story. The characters are new, no one knows the plot, the setting has to be explained in detail, and if you're not very careful, you will find yourself staring at a word document you've written and then deleted about 6,000 times in the span of two hours.

Then you'll stop, and inevitably give up for a while, which is probably why you created this thread to begin with.

I find it easiest to follow Stephen King's rhetoric, in that you begin writing and fill in the details as you go. Sometimes the best ideas are spurr of the moment, and the reader will be just as surprised as you are by them. Of course this can lead to sloppy writing, but you always have time to edit and add more as you go.

The most important thing for you, however, would be to calmly write and write and write and write and write. When you feel like you're not making any headway, take a break. Writer's block is as real as you make it. I don't have much time at the moment, but good luck, bro!

 

Exactly this pretty much. I wrote the first chapter ~10 times, then decided to just skip ahead to the scenes that I really wanted to do. Once I wrote those, I realized that I needed to write like 50,000 words just to tie in the scene with where I want to take the story, and then realized that that's a pretty daunting proposition, and so I cut both chapters, leaving me with nothing but outline again.

 

I've found that it helps to start shorter. For instance, if you already have an idea for a novel, try writing it as a short story first - say 2-5k words. If you like what you get out of that, then try expanding it to maybe a novella. Rinse and repeat.

Try writing a bunch of short stories first, then work your way up. The advantage of short stories is that theyre not that daunting -- if you just free write, you can crank out a 3k short in one sitting, and as I'm sure you've come to realize, theres a lot of pride that comes out of having a completed work. While 3k is really laughable, it's still something original that you've written, that is complete. It feels good.

 

I agree with Sesc. Harkening back to Stephen King (his book On Writing really is a must-read), he advises that new writers simply need to sit down and actually start writing. Plans are good, but at a certain point, you need to throw caution to the wind and put pen to paper. Yes, you might think that "oh, I'm wasting time if what I write is bullshit", but what you're actually doing is practising and honing your skills. And that's not time wasted, in my eyes.

What I do is that I set a certain word quota for myself and ensure, whatever happens, that I fullfil that quota for the day. Even if the house burns down, must complete that word limit. For that reason, I do minimal planning (although I do recommend keeping a general plotline plus basic, biographical information in a folder so that your facts are consistent) and just start writing.

Overplanning, in fact, kills my creative juices and cuts into that "joy" period where you're exploring the world you've created for the first time and you're loving it.

To answer your question, no, I don't plan far ahead. I plan enough to make sure I have direction, but I don't map out every detail. That's what rewrites and second drafts are for.

 

My experience (such as it is) writing original fiction is about the same as writing fanfiction, both of which are the same as what you described. I get an idea, get excited about it, write 4k to 10k words, then get distracted by another idea that I want to write immediately. Only twice has a story held my excitement for the long haul (hey, I haven't been at this writing stuff long), and both times I've cannibalized some of the story seeds that came before it. Most recently I ended up writing over 100k words before I took my first of three breaks to write something short or start something else, but the excitement for the idea never left.

Anyway, that's my experience, though I imagine everyone is different so I don't know how helpful it'll be. I just keep writing, trying new things, trying to find that spark where I basically become obsessed with the story. I can't force myself to write (EDIT: at least, not too much) without starting to resent the story.

Other thoughts:

I recently read an article about an interesting concept in programming, and I'm a bit worried that it may apply to writing as well. I forget the fancy name they used for it, but it was basically a curse of experience. I felt it, too: as I learned more, it became more difficult to finish things, because with each decision I had to make, I started to foresee issues either way. I haven't run into anything like that in writing yet, but from various comments on here I know at least some of you are rather concerned about avoiding certain cliches or certain genres that you perceive as tired or overdone. I'm not saying that you shouldn't be concerned about such things, just that I can imagine a situation where that might bog me down.

Lastly, if you're a fan of Brandon Sanderson, you might enjoy his Writing Excuses podcast that he does with three others. They recently did one on the Campbellian Monomyth that I found interesting, and it inspired me to Google around for various discussions about it. But then, I took very few literature courses so this kind of stuff might be old news to some of you.

 

Whenever I write a story I go with a guideline, like the premise and beginning of why I even want to write it, then the ending. The rest is just the in-between that I want to write about and such, so I suggest that route.

Obviously with an original story of your own you can't just say, "Cool, now Harry is sorted into Slytherin and is banging Draco Malfoy!" you have to make your ideas, setting and characters so obviously there is a lot more to it. I'd suggest getting the main idea you have down and characters, then from there moving onto the minor places and characters that will flesh out the different 'scenes' and writing plot and places will give the characters, well, character.

I personally have the same kinda problem (dozens of different stories I've written with pieces of ranging anywhere from 1 chapter to 6 but wont post because I know the idea was dead) and have been thinking about it and every now and then I open the folder up and jot little ideas down in a guideline have. For me it begins there.

Sometimes, instead of doing that I'll think of an idea (Harry gets sorted into Slytherin, Harry is a female, etc.) and just start trying to come up with a decent summary and the idea just sticks, and I'm like, "If I saw that summary, I might check that story out..." and from there the idea builds and you find yourself thinking of different plots and twists and shit like that and the idea continues to grow until you've got the first chapter written down and are wondering how to start the second (was the first at prologue, will you change pov, etc). The main thing with me is keeping the story something I think both people will like and I will like, because if you don't like what you're writing, why even bother? Of course some of these authors take it to another level with the whole self-insert stuff, but I think you get my point.

 

As far as writing original fiction, I can only say that my first idea for a story sprang out of a desire to write the story I'd want to read myself. Having said that, I tend to find myself so obsessed with a particular idea that I wouldn't be happy until I had written the story. I'd say whatever you write, you really have to love it. You have to think about it constantly, fantastically, obtusely, sometimes without even consciously plotting, just imagining characters doing things. It has to be something that lives and breathes inside you with a life of its own, waiting to be born and to grow and develop, something you'd feel bad if you didn't get down on paper before you died.

My first idea for an original fiction, the one I love most, and all those I've had since, have started with the manifestation or development (not necessarily birth) of the primary protagonist in my head. Once the character, with his appearance, demeanor, and quirks forms, his or her story follows, and worlds can develop from there. But I tend to let them stew and grow as they will, primarily as a function of my intention to plan for now and write later with more knowledge (and at least an undergrad degree, heh) under my belt.

Sorry if this was useless to you, though.

EDIT: Fanfiction is a great way to practice the actual process of writing, though, and it allows you to test out some of the stuff you would have put into an original.

 

I'd say this: Don't worry about planning out details that you aren't interested in. Set up the details that move you to be creative. For example, when thinking up the culture for Magical Race X, don't worry about if they wear clothes with slits down the sides or use cross-stitching on the seams if that's not what interests you. Let that sort of detail come out in the writing.

But if as you are doing background on Moortar the Bold and decide that he's going to be a Hunter-Shaman exiled by his people for upsetting the Acorn Goddess, and the whole idea of the Acorn Goddess and the People of the Hunt just thrills you, write up all the things you can think about them because you find that interesting.

You don't have to think about things linearly.

You sound like someone who wants to put pen to paper and write than someone who needs to outline everything to a great detail. And the problem you seem to have is writing the bits you need to slog through to get to the parts you have planned out. I had a problem with getting bored of stories because I couldn't get to the fun parts I had imagined happening further on. I did an experiment in writing (which is how I got into fanfiction) where I just skipped ahead whenever I got bored writing something. My initial efforts produced some rather sub-par writing as I used a lot of exposition to cut things short, but I did find that I could push past parts I didn't enjoy much by simply ending them and move onto to a scene with more purpose.