History Main / WritingByTheSeatOfYourPants

* ''ComicBook/TheCloneSaga'' started off as a simple story, but when it became an unexpected success and ExecutiveMeddling required it to be drawn out, it's clear the writers lost any of idea of where it was going. As detailed in [[http://lifeofreillyarchives.blogspot.com/2008/03/introduction-and-update.html The Life of Reilly]], particular areas of contention were who was the "real" Peter Parker, who was behind the clone plan, and the identity of Judas Traveller.

* It's clear from the [[http://lifeofreillyarchives.blogspot.com/2008/03/introduction-and-update.html Life of Reilly]] blog that ''no one'' involved in ''ComicBook/TheCloneSaga'' had clear ideas on what to do, and if they did, they didn't tell anyone else about them.

** ''Webcomic/MSPaintAdventures'', especially in the earlier adventures. The latest adventure, ''Webcomic/{{Homestuck}}'', is the only one to have any sort of planning before being written, having started with the four central characters, their [[WeaponOfChoice weapons of choice]], some [[InventoryManagementPuzzle general]] [[ItemCrafting game]] [[RealityWarper mechanics]], and a handful of plot points, including an ending, worked out beforehand. The rest of the universe-spanning, time-traveling, chronology-fucking, nearly 9000 pages of extremely convoluted plot has been made along the way.

* ''Machinima/RedVsBlue'' started like this, as Burnie Burns first thought of six episodes, then expanded to eight, and ultimately a full 19 episode season (that led to a still ongoing series) as he kept having new ideas, with major plot events (Church dying, Tex being a woman) conceived shortly before they were filmed. To avert a repeat, before production on the second season started Burnie and Matt Hullum did a rough plot outline, leaving only the individual scripts to be done on a short-term basis.

* The first season of ''Machinima/RedVsBlue'' had Burnie Burns starting to write an episode after the previous one's release, coming up on the fly with some of the twists (Church dying, Tex being a woman). And given this kept on pushing some of Burnie's original ideas, it even made the six-episode series instead become a 19 episode season of a [[LongRunners still running show]]. This was reduced in the follow-ups, as pre-production always started by making an outline for the whole season before jumping on to individual episodes.

[[folder:Other]]
* ''UsefulNotes/NaNoWriMo'', the National Novel Writing Month challenge, actually advises this as a way to complete it. The challenge is to write a 50,000-word novel in 30 days during the month of November; as such, some writing by the seat of your pants is not only expected but encouraged. "NoPlotNoProblem" is their ''official motto''.
* The [[BigBulkyBomb Tsar Bomba]] was designed while it was being built, due to having mere ''weeks'' to build the biggest nuke ever detonated.
* Various artistic-based organizations have festivals designed to test the flexibility, speed, and improvisational skills of those who enter, giving them a limited amount of time to complete a project that normally takes weeks or months. Theater groups have 12-24 hour festivals to write and develop a scene for the stage. Film societies have 48 Hour festivals where groups have two days to write, shoot, and edit a short film. Game jams are 24-hour festivals where game devs have to ''yadda yadda'' a finished game.
* Scholastic competitive speech and debate has several events where, instead of a memorized speech, contestants get a different topic each round and have a limited amount of prep time before they begin speaking. In Impromptu Speaking, there's usually only a minute or two of preparation for a short speech on a quote or abstract concept. In Extemporaneous Speaking, after choosing a current events-related topic, speakers have a half-hour to do research and come up with a short speech. In Parliamentary Debate, two two-person teams get 20 minutes to prepare full cases for a debate that lasts around 40 minutes total.
[[/folder]]

* Music/BenFolds is prone to improvising an entire song in concert whenever a fan tells him to ''[[CreatorInJoke ROCK THIS BITCH!]]'' Awesome enough, but then the new tour has Y Music, a classical group, accompanying him, taking it to [[UpToEleven a whole 'nother level of awesomeness.]]

* ''WebAnimation/TheDailyObjectShow'' and other similar "speed-run" ObjectShows take this trope UpToEleven, releasing new episodes within a day, or sometimes hours.[[note]]Though the episodes' runtime is about a few minutes on average which helps lighten the workload[[/note]] To top it off, most of these shows involve some amount of [[AudienceParticipation viewer voting]], making it harder to preplan everything.

* ''ComicStrip/CalvinAndHobbes'' creator Bill Watterson notes in commentary that when writing out a multi-part story, he doesn't think of an ending in conception because he prefers the story to flow organically. Sometimes it would create a storyline and resolution which would pleasantly surprise himself (such as the arc where Calvin decides to duplicate himself), [[Administrivia/TropesAreTools but other times he would write himself into a corner]].

* Most {{Tabletop RPG}}s isolate one player from the rest to fill the role of the GameMaster, who has four major "hats" to wear. One of these hats is the Author. The [=GM=] plans ([[SchrodingersGun in the loosest sense of the word]]) the plot of the story of which the PlayerCharacters will interact; creating, adapting, or choosing the setting, populating that region with villains and other [[{{NPC}} Non-Player Characters]], and assigning them any necessary backgrounds, motivations, plans, and resources. As such, writing by the seat of your pants is a necessity to prevent the story from going OffTheRails if you're the FM. Beware, as overdoing the Author aspect of the GM role can lead to [[{{Railroading}} preventing players from affecting the game with their choices]].

* Most {{Tabletop RPG}}s isolate one player from the rest to fill the role of the GameMaster, who has four major "hats" to wear. One of these hats is the Author. The [=GM=] plans ([[SchrodingersGun in the loosest sense of the word]]) the plot of the story of which the PlayerCharacters will interact; creating, adapting, or choosing the setting, populating that region with villains and other [[{{NPC}} Non-Player Characters]], and assigning them any necessary backgrounds, motivations, plans, and resources. Beware, as overdoing this aspect of the GM role can lead to [[{{Railroading}} preventing players from affecting the game with their choices]].

* Pretty much everything in Magic: The Gathering that involved Urza, Phyrexia, or the Weatherlight was made up on the spot.

* ''Videogame/XenobladeChronicles'' was never intended to be connected to ''Videogame/{{Xenosaga}}'' and instead be a completely new story, titled ''Monado: Beginning of the World'', but Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata asked director Tetsuya Takahashi to rename the game and use the Xeno- prefix as a homage to the series Takahashi had wanted to succeed but failed. But when ''Xenoblade'' turned out to be the success he had sought for so long, and since the Xeno- was already in the name, Takahashi started rewriting the story to add connections to ''Xenosaga'', culminating in a large RetCon in ''Videogame/XenobladeChronicles2'' that directly links it to a key component of his old series.

* The unexpected return of Wrestling/RomanReigns' leukemia had a strong ripple effect on the booking plans of the entire main roster. Reigns had built up as the successor to Wrestling/JohnCena for the last four years, and his hiatus (which had to be treated as a ''retirement'' thanks to the circumstances that made it happen) ruined all future plans they had for him. Wrestling/DeanAmbrose's planned FaceHeelTurn was sped up several weeks so he and Wrestling/SethRollins could help carry RAW's main event scene as the new top heel and top face, Wrestling/BraunStrowman made his second HeelFaceTurn that year to take Roman's spot as another top face, Wrestling/BrockLesnar won his second Universal Championship after having lost it to Reigns two months prior, etc.. These were just the ''immediate'' effects, too; the true impact of his departure won't be felt until ''Wrestling/WrestleMania 35'', which will be the first year since 2015 that Reigns is not going to be part of any of the main event or even semi-main event builds.

** Leaks from the writing team indicate this was what drove the abrupt story swerves in ''Battle for Azeroth'' and ''Shadowlands''. Then Senior Creative Director Alex Afrasiabi devised and championed the Burning of Teldrassil whose fallout has driven every plot development since then. The main intent seems to have been driving up player numbers for the new expansion by opening with a massively shocking moment. However he apparently had no plan for how the story would progress past this point and was let go before he could develop one. The writing team was left trying to piece together a narrative to explain this for the next four years.

** Leaks from the writing team indicate this was what drove the abrupt story swerves in ''Battle for Azeroth'' and ''Shadowlands''. Then Senior Creative Director Alex Afrasiabi devised and championed the Burning of Teldrassil whose fallout has driven every plot development since then. The main intent seems to have been driving up player numbers for the new expansion by opening with a massively shocking moment. However he apparently had no plan for how the story would progress past this point, which contributed to the disjointed and unsatisfactory faction war story, the reveal of the Jailer, and the extreme dissatisfaction with Sylvanas's character arc.

-->'''Mike Stout''': The stories on the first two games were very loose, yeah. We usually knew pretty early on what all our levels would be, and we’d have a general idea of the plot. By that point, though, we’ve usually made 6 or so levels — the level design team works ahead. So the levels that are already made get retrofitted into the story as best we can. The script itself usually got written pretty late, and we didn’t have a dedicated writer on staff until RC3 — so the scripts were written by people who were also doing other jobs In the case of RC1 and 2, they were done by our animation lead Oliver (Wade) and one of the senior riggers, John (Lally). Starting in RC3, we had a writer on staff and the planning and writing could happen earlier and faster. But the real fruits of this first paid off on R&C Future. And now, all these years later, the terrific story work they did on Spider Man (UsefulNotes/PlayStation4) is a testament to how much the studio has grown in that area. That’s almost certainly true (the original story plan for R&C2 being very different from the final product). The stories got rewritten a lot. Since the cinematic didn’t come until later in the project there is some wiggle room there. Storyboards were done for every animated scene in those games — but I don’t remember doing storyboards for story development. A lot of games do that these days, but it was rare back then. We did a lot of animatics also, now that I think about it. Sliding around T-pose stuff. So maybe not every scene was storyboarded. It was nice because once you nail the blocking you can just add details on. Usually the faces and mouth sync would get done first, then the rest. But it’d all build on the animatic."

[[folder:Western Animation]]
* ''WesternAnimation/FelineFollies'', the debut film of WesternAnimation/FelixTheCat, was improvised by Creator/OttoMessmer in a very short period of time so that producer Pat Sullivan could give Paramount Screen Magazine a new cartoon to fill in for another series that was running late. Everything in the cartoon, except for the inking, was done by Otto Messmer himself on weekends.
** According to Don Oriolo, the son of the TV ''WesternAnimation/FelixTheCat'' showrunner Joe Oriolo, the Trans-Lux cartoons had absolutely grueling production schedules to go hand in hand with the [[NoBudget low budgets of $6,700 per episode]]--they had to churn out a few episodes of the show every ''week'' (one animator was reported to have been doing around 150 feet--or around 2 minutes of animation--per week). The scripts for each episode were written in ''hours'', hence why there was so much inconsistency between the Professor being Felix's sworn enemy, and then hiring him as a helper now and then.
-->"It's sort of the same concept as Bluto being friendly to Popeye in a couple of episodes. It just happened by way of scripts that were churned out in hours. Don't forget they were doing a few episodes a week. They didn't overthink anything or analyze anything because there was nothing ''to'' analyze. They were creating what is our history now—-and didn't think of the ramifications!"
** The Felix the Cat comic books Creator/OttoMessmer and Joe Oriolo worked on likewise had grueling work schedules that forced them to make up stories as they went--they were expected to turn out one completed script per ''day''.
* Animator Kurt Wiley said that the Australian animated series ''Crocadoo'' had an insanely tight production schedule, almost as bad as the aforementioned Joe Oriolo Felix cartoons--they had one week to complete each episode. And unlike the six-minute Felix cartoons, these were entire half-hour episodes!
** He also added that some of the Creator/AdultSwim shows have some of the tightest deadlines in the industry, with entire half-hour episodes having to be completed in a ''single day''.
* According to one of the head writers of ''WesternAnimation/PinkyAndTheBrain'', Charles M. Howell, each of the 52 half-hour episodes only had one week to prepare a script for them. Despite this, they ended up going four months over schedule.
* According to the DVDBonusContent, ''WesternAnimation/{{Freakazoid}}'' was written with very little planning because of time constraints. Portions of the first short, "Dance of Doom", are just improv from Paul Rugg cut down for the runtime (and to eliminate profanity he said while riffing).
* ''WesternAnimation/TheRenAndStimpyShow'' creator Creator/JohnKricfalusi had a story titled "Wilderness Adventure" rejected three times by Creator/{{Nickelodeon}}, and, because of it, he improvised the outline for "Fire Dogs" in an afternoon.
* ''WesternAnimation/YellowSubmarine'' began production without an ending or a beginning because director George Dunning had already animated those. He simply told his writers (20, reputedly--Jack Mendelsohn and Erich Segal were the credited writers) and his animation directors (Bob Balser, Jack Stokes) to fill in the scenes between those points.
* Most episodes of ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'' are pitched, storyboarded, written, animated, voice-recorded, and put on the air in the stretch of about one single week, one episode at a time. In contrast, most animated series take nine months per episode, with several episodes being in various stages of production at any given moment. This is why ''South Park'''s topical humor is more current than, say, what ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' does. The only time this trope backfired on them was when "Goth Kids 3: Dawn of the Posers" from season 17 had to be postponed due to a power outage.
* The writers of ''WesternAnimation/BeastWars'' admitted in DVDBonusContent that they were winging it as they were going along. They also said that things went UpToEleven around the time of the season finales as they weren't always sure they would get renewed for another season so they just adopted a "kill them all, let Hasbro sort it out" view when writing these episodes. This led to one particularly infamous moment where Inferno is clearly supposed to be '''utterly vaporized''', yet in the next season he turns up burnt but otherwise unharmed.
* The crew behind ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTime'' is pretty open about the fact that half the show is meticulously planned out while the other half is completely made up on the fly. The show taking place on Earth [[AfterTheEnd a thousand years after a nuclear war]] and the revelation that the Ice King was [[WithGreatPowerComesGreatInsanity a normal human driven insane by his crown's magic power]] are the biggest examples of this, being major cornerstones of the show's lore that grew from a background gag and as [[https://twitter.com/kentisawesome/status/1037067785409581056 a quick replacement]] for a previous episode idea (Jake and Finn doing an {{MST}} of an obscure real-world holiday special), respectively.
** The reason Princess Bubblegum turned back to normal in the Season 3 premiere after becoming Finn's age in the previous episode was that the writers weren't sure what to do with a plot point like that.
** Lemongrab become a recurring character purely because [[EnsembleDarkhorse fans loved him so much]]. The writers never intended to have him appear again after his introductory episode.
* While the writers of ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverse'' [[TheProducerThinksOfEverything really did come up with some ideas]] long before they were formally introduced, such as the major twist in the show's fifth season being planned from the start, there are still a lot of important elements that were only written retroactively and benefited from the magic of CerebusRetcon. The major ones include:
** Season 1A ended with the revelation that there were other gems that the Crystal Gems had come into conflict with, and Garnet and Pearl seeming anxious that the same thing will happen again. While the crew had a vague idea of a GreatOffscreenWar fought on the Earth, most of the details of who the Crystal Gems fought and why were decided after they wrote that scene.%%podcast
** Amethyst being created on Earth. While her joining the Crystal Gems post-war had always been part of the character's backstory, her specifically being made at the Earth Kindergarten was thought up during the writing sessions for Season 1B; Garnet's "We kept Amethyst" line from early in the show's run wasn't intended as foreshadowing at the time. Amethyst's short height being the gem equivalent of a birth defect was also something thought up later still. %%podcast Vol. 2/Ep. 2
** The Cluster. While it would become a major plot element of the second season, the crew wasn't exactly sure what they were even alluding to when it was first mentioned in the Season 1B finale. They wouldn't figure it out until partway through the development of Season 2, with the initial idea being that it could be a conventional (though [[{{Kaiju}} enormous]]) monster the heroes would have to confront directly. %%artbook
** Bismuth. While they had planned out most of the character's details by the time they finished producing the first season, her bubbled gemstone was added to the background of Lion's mane in the middle of the season before deciding who she was, why she was there, or if she was even a character at all -- preliminary ideas included it just being a portable warp device, not a gem. %%Podcast Volume 2, Episode 7
** The [[spoiler:AlienAbduction arc]] at the end of Season 4 was in part spurred on by a minor dialogue exchange from Season 1B. The writers had no such intention for the moment laying the groundwork for the later event at the time of writing, coming up with the idea during Season 4 writing sessions. %%podcast Steven Selects (ep. 7)
* Creator/GenndyTartakovsky claims that he was so stressed out trying to manage his own television series for the first time with ''WesternAnimation/DextersLaboratory'', that he was constantly beating out stories that he never got to see the completed forms of until they aired on TV.
* Dan Povenmire was asked to pitch ''WesternAnimation/PhineasAndFerbStarWars'' before he had actually finished the script. He explained the script anyway and actually managed to fix every plot-hole during the pitch meeting without anyone realizing he was improvising.
* The original pitch for ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' was rather spontaneously improvised: Matt Groening was waiting to meet with TV executives about an adaptation for his comic ''ComicStrip/LifeInHell,'' when it occurred to him that he'd have to sell the rights. He quickly doodled a series of new characters loosely based on (and, with the exception of his own AuthorAvatar Bart, named after) his family members, and the rest is history.
* ''WesternAnimation/GravityFalls''. Almost everything outside [[DrivingQuestion the identity of the Author]] was made up as the writers went along, with them jokingly apologizing for the show not being [[TheProducerThinksOfEverything as perfectly planned out as fans believe]] after every instance of this in the show's DVD commentary tracks. Several important details and plot elements were usually the result of an idea being put in purely because it seemed cool or funny, only to get {{Cerebus Retcon}}ned later. These include:
** Originally, they had no idea what role Bill Cipher would play in the series, if any role at all. Much less [[spoiler:his connection to The Author and eventual role as BigBad]].
** The phrase "Search for the Blind Eye", ArcWords that were teased between the Season 1 and 2 hiatus. Hirsch threw it in because he thought it sounded cool, then had to figure out what it meant later.
** The journals and their respective owners were not even conceived until the production of the fourth episode.
** Hirsch admits that during production of the first episode, the writers had no idea what was behind Stan's vending machine. They only came up with [[spoiler:the multidimensional portal]] when they were writing the season finale and realized their planned reveal of [[spoiler:him owning Journal #1]] wouldn't be all that impactful on its own.
** The wheel of symbols surrounding Bill in the opening credits had no meaning upon conception. It was just meant to be a cool visual using various pieces of imagery from the show. It was only when they saw fans speculating about the symbols online that they retroactively attached each one to a character.
** Before Old Man [=McGucket=] [[spoiler:was made to be The Author's old lab assistant]], he was originally just meant to be a one-off character.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Fan Works]]
* The author of ''Fanfic/GarfieldInAlongCameASplut'' apparently said that while the general idea of the story sat in his head for a while, the actual story was written in ''half an hour''--[[MindScrew and it shows.]]
* Creator/NimbusLlewelyn, author of ''Fanfic/TheWizardInTheShadows'' (a ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings''[=/=]''Literature/HarryPotter'' crossover) and ''Fanfic/ChildOfTheStorm'' (a ''Literature/HarryPotter''[=/=]''Film/TheAvengers2012'' crossover) [[note]] Well, it started that way. It has since evolved into a MegaCrossover incorporating ''Literature/TheDresdenFiles'', ''ComicBook/TheSandman'', lots of Creator/MarvelComics and elements of Creator/DCComics) [[/note]], has cheerfully noted a proclivity for doing this, particularly in ''Child of the Storm''. This is despite numerous mentions in the A/N's of ''Child of the Storm'' of a grand plan and a well-earned reputation for both grand scale WorldBuilding which invariably involves putting his own unique spin on various characters ranging from the familiar to the deeply obscure, a JigsawPuzzlePlot and a ChekhovsArmoury fit to challenge Creator/JKRowling herself. The general gist is that the grand plan, the framework, is intact, while the details are subject to change. These 'details' have included several major characters, with fan favourite [[spoiler: Diana]] being thrown in on a whim at quite literally the last minute and other popular characters, such as [[Literature/TheDresdenFiles Harry Dresden]] and [[ComicBook/MsMarvel Carol Danvers]] being added at similarly short notice.
** And even the grand plan is admitted to be subject to change: the original intention was for a much more Hogwarts focused tale and it to ship Harry/Ginny, then the author noted that he didn't like this idea and was having difficulty writing his way out of it, before having a eureka moment and succeeding, maintaining Harry/Ginny as a first relationship, before finally discarding it entirely. So far, he's managed to avoid overt plot holes, mostly thanks to ExactWords, a talent for repurposing previous plot points and a habit of writing a very long way ahead in the series, meaning that any scene that's posted has a reasonable chance of having been written and rewritten a dozen times until it is considered satisfactory. On the other hand, it can just as easily be a more literal reading of this trope and written at the last minute, just before the fic goes up.
*** The ''original'' plan was for a much more conventional crossover fic covering up to the 7th HP book, approximately 100-150,000 words long, shipping [[CrackPairing Harry/Sif]] of all things. When this was revealed, the first book, covering 3rd Year, was approximately 600,000 words long. This was, needless to say, considered HilariousInHindsight.
* The writer of ''FanFic/StrikeWitchesQuest'', Planefag, has admitted a few times to doing this quite a bit and that it has gotten him into trouble of the plot hole sort.
* This backfired on the writer of the ''Franchise/KingdomHearts''[=/=]''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' crossover ''Heart of Equestria'', who was promptly overwhelmed by the various plots they introduced and ultimately cancelled the fic.
* ''FanFic/RainbowFactory'' as it went on. The author even stated that he was inspired by [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRx_iXgLAyw a song with the same name]] and thought to himself it would make a good DarkFic.
* How the first [[http://kleinerkiller.deviantart.com/gallery/41037509 Yognapped]] was written. It was first set as though LetsPlay/SimonLane and LetsPlay/LewisBrindley of the LetsPlay/{{Yogscast}}'s real-life counterparts were playing ''VideoGame/{{Minecraft}}'' and commentating, but moved on to an actual post-''Machinima/ShadowOfIsraphel'' universe with the characters of Simon and Lewis' ''Minecraft'' avatars, alternating in-between for several chapters before settling on the latter. This led to some plot holes that the writer has attempted to {{Retcon}}, with varying degrees of success.
** To a lesser extent, the primary arc revolving around Notch and Herobrine came about entirely by accident. Herobrine's utterance of "[[spoiler: [[WhamLine I care as much about your citizens as our late sister cared about your temper]]]]" was changed at the last minute from a lame YourMom joke.
* The creator of ''FanFic/OriginStory'' admits that, while he began with a carefully plotted outline, the story left the outline in the dust in the middle of Chapter Four and that these days, he's writing whatever comes to him to write, as it occurs to him to write it. That said, he's still managed to put together an intricately constructed and emotionally engaging story, and it absolutely '''''does not''''' look like he's been improvising for the majority of the story.
* The writer of ''Fanfic/GimmeShelter'' admitted he came up with the idea for the story after seeing a picture of the protagonist, Fleur de Lis, standing in the rain with no raincoat or umbrella then wrote the story in full within a few hours of having the idea.
* According to Amoridere for ''Webcomic/KillLaKillAU'', some of the stories are typically thought out, at least to some degree, whereas others are ideas that "just show up" and she runs with them, which is to say, partially improvised, especially with the dialogue. Likewise, she does the same for the ''Fanfic/Gensokyo20XX'' series.
* This has become more or less par for the course for @/LadyNorbert's stories, [[Fanfic/ThePrivateDiaryOfElizabethQuatermain particularly]] [[Fanfic/ElementalChessTrilogy the ones]] [[Fanfic/{{Cinderjuice}} in series form]]. She never intentionally writes a series; she writes what is supposed to be a stand-alone story, and then the sequels announce themselves within days of its completion - often connecting back to details in the earlier story/stories which were not intended to have later repercussions. In her own words, "My stories tend to be smarter than I am. I'm honestly not this clever."
* ''Fanfic/TheLegendOfTotalDramaIsland'':
** Although this story generally has a good deal of planning by fanfic standards, the author will sometimes run with spur-of-the-moment ideas, especially in ancillary scenes. Bridgette’s dream sequence [[note]][[AscendedFanon based on a reviewer’s comment]][[/note]], the makeover scene before the camping challenge, and the dancing at the boot camp party are acknowledged examples of elaborate scenes with little or no planning.
** Scenes added for the purpose of error correction have little planning, due to the time constraints which necessitate such scenes in the first place. The author has acknowledged two notable examples:
*** In the first Boney Island challenge, [[TheHost Chris]] was meant to warn the contestants during the challenge briefing (as per canon) that a {{curse}} would befall anyone who took anything from the IndianBurialGround located there. For whatever reason, the author forgot to include that bit and didn't discover the oversight until well after posting the chapter. Rather than go back and [[OrwellianRetcon quietly revise the scene]], the author wrote a scene for the following chapter wherein one contestant who happens to know the legend warns another who has innocently picked up an artifact from the area. This approach gave the reader the same information as the intended scene and had the benefit of giving the resident MotorMouth another “mind dump” monologue.
*** The dancing at the boot camp party was an elaborate scene added at the 11th hour, so naturally, at the 59th minute, the author discovered a serious problem with it, namely what the scene [[KissingUnderTheInfluence made Tyler do behind his new girlfriend's back]]. A hasty repair job ensued, resulting in the "damage control" discussion the next day and the scene on the Boat of Losers with [[VotedOffTheIsland the eliminated player]] and the interns engaged to implement the damage control plan.
* There was a fanfic called [[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11849009/1 Ghost of a Chance]], a WesternAnimation/TeenTitans & WesternAnimation/DannyPhantom AU fic. Written by the writers of the Assassin's Creed Novelizations, the fic was originally started with an intent to practice being creative after all the restrictions they placed on themselves in writing "truly historically accurate" adaptations of the first five Assassin's Creed games. In fact, part of the reason they stopped novelizing was that they felt their extensive research into society, events and character development outside the gameplay was sapping their writer's energy. So, they started this crossover with an idea for a scene: Jazz is telling Robin to, "Tell Danny I'm alive" and they planned to just run with what happens from there. However, when they reached chapter 10, they came to a horrible realization. When they brought in the Justice League into their story, they realized they were going to have to start referencing the wider DC universe much more heavily instead of just the Titans universe. This proved problematic as they were casual fans of both shows, but were [[CripplingOverspecialization utterly under-practiced when it came to all the intricacies of the wider DC universe]]. And after coming down from the Assassin's Creed stories, they chickened out and instead began trying to wrap the fic up as fast as they could. Thus several potential plot threads were rushed through or expositioned to death in order to reach an ending where they could take a deep breath and relax again.
* The writer of Fanfic/{{Intercom}} has stated that when they first started the fic, she was just interested in getting down on paper a fic where Riley could hear her emotions before anyone else so she wouldn't feel overshadowed in the process. ''WesternAnimation/InsideOut'' hadn't even been released when she started it! Thankfully, by the time chapter 3 was released, the author had seen ''Inside Out'', and thus began "fine tuning" her universe so as to better match up with the movie, and to eventually have a planned ending in mind (or so she claims). Funny enough, one WMG on her tvtropes page accuses her of not actually being in control of the story, but instead relying on fans to do the work for her, which is what this trope is almost about. Then again, since every 3rd WMG, reviewer comment, and headscratcher ends up used or addressed in-story, it's quite possible that this trope is still in effect, and we just have a case of a LyingCreator.
** On another note, the author admitted that some of the experiences in Imagination Land were taken from fan suggestions and that the term for Riley's [[spoiler: Unique white tinged memories that she creates]] was taken from a fan's musings on their meaning.
* At first the actual reason for ''Fanfic/CitadelOfTheHeart'' having this trope apply at times was more so the fact the ending of the story is given much more priority and thought out plans as to how it'll happen rather than everything that happens between then and the beginning, and the continuity aspects also take priority next after that. The author has more or less stated it isn't incredibly hard for him to more or less completely rewrite stuff that happens in the middle of the story from the original intent and yet keep things as close the end result for the end of a given fic regardless, but the success of this he isn't certain about, and for good reason; once ''Truth and Ideals'' was finished as the first completed fic he's ever worked on, the author had suffered a CreatorBreakdown which ended up influencing his remaining fics up all the way to July 2018 due to the sheer fatigue of finishing a story as big as ''Truth and Ideals'', which only made the OriginsEpisode ''Crazy Carousal'' all the more delayed because the author openly states due to only barely beginning to recover from the fatigue of writing ''Truth and Ideals'', he just doesn't have the energy to work on ''Crazy Carousal'' any time soon, and highly doubts he'll get to work on it until perhaps as late as 2020.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Literature]]
* An excellent summation of this trope from E L Doctorow: "It's like driving a car at night. You never see further than your headlights, but you can make the whole journey that way." (Also quoted by Anne Lamott.) For this reason, writers sometimes call this "the headlight method." (Some change it to "flashlight.")
* Creator/RayBradbury fleshed out his short story ''The Fireman'' into the novel ''Literature/{{Fahrenheit 451}}'' at a pay typewriter in 9 days.
** There's a famous Bradbury quote on his method of writing that pretty eloquently sums up this trope: "You've got to jump off cliffs all the time and build your wings on the way down."
* Creator/IsaacAsimov was on record as stating that, while he usually had an end in mind, he almost never had any idea how he'd get there.
** In a specific example, Asimov wrote the story "Literature/InsertKnobAInHoleB" on the spot during a televised panel when challenged to do so after he claimed he could write under any circumstance. He completed the story within 30 minutes, in part by using the panel discussion as inspiration and by [[WriteWhoYouKnow including his fellow panelists in the story]] since the StudioAudience could see them and thus would not have to imagine what they look like.
* Creator/GarthNix says this is how he writes - most of his world-building is made up on the spot.
* Creator/StephenKing falls into this category -- he never plans ahead, he just writes until he has a good idea and runs with it.
** ''Literature/TheGreenMile'' may be his best example of this. It was originally released in installments. At the time the first installment was released to the public, he hadn't even figured out the ending yet... but still scheduled a set release date for it. By the time he started the final part he'd completely forgotten about Mr. Jingles, and it's only thanks to his wife asking what happened to him that he didn't become a literal WhatHappenedToTheMouse.
** King said in ''On Writing'' that he does ''occasionally'' plot his stories, he just does it rarely because he usually isn't proud of the results (like ''Rose Madder'' and ''Literature/{{Insomnia}}'') when he does--with one exception: ''The Dead Zone''.
** ''Literature/{{Christine}}'' is another notable case, as it awkwardly switches from first to third person due to King not thinking through putting the story's narrator in the hospital with a broken leg.
** ''Literature/TheStand'' is a case where the book almost got the better of the writer. King says he described the novel-in-progress to friends as "his own personal Vietnam," and when he got to a certain point, he was stuck. His good guys were in Boulder, his bad guys were in Vegas, moles among both camps, and....now what? He was about to simply quit writing it when he realized that what he needed was [[spoiler:a bomb in the closet to get his good guys' attention and to tell them it was time to take their titular Stand.]]
* Creator/CoryDoctorow wrote ''Literature/LittleBrother'' in eight days.
* The UsefulNotes/NaNoWriMo project lends itself to this approach. Participants are given 30 days to see if they can write at least 50,000 words. [[note]]Not all [=NaNoWriMo=] writers write by the seat of their pants. The rules allow writers to have character sketches, plot summaries, and even extensive, detailed outlines -- as long as none of the actual prose is written before 12:00 AM on November 1.[[/note]]
* The Reverend Lionel Fanthorpe [[ExtrudedBookProduct churned out novels for Badger Books]] on the basis of a book cover, a title, and a very short deadline. Badger's policies mean it's impossible to tell exactly how many he wrote, but the estimate works out at one 158 page book every twelve days. To manage this, he dictated into a reel to reel tape recorder, then shipped the tapes off to a pool of typists for transcription. To hit the word target, he would [[{{Padding}} pad out]] the books with philosophical discussions, mundane detail and [[DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment redundant descriptions]] (robots: "Metal things. Metal things that could think. Thinking metal things"), but then could be told that he had only three pages left to wrap up the story, so he had to [[AssPull pull out]] a DeusExMachina. Despite, or perhaps because of all this, Fanthorpe's work has picked up a SoBadItsGood following.
* Creator/LRonHubbard claims he wrote by meditating into a trance-like state and typing constantly for hours at a time. According to Creator/HarlanEllison, Hubbard used the Jack Kerouac method -- he rigged a roll of butcher paper of the appropriate width to feed into his typewriter, wrote for several hours, and at the end cut the long sheet down into even pages.
* As revealed in ''[[Literature/TheHistoryOfMiddleEarth The History of Middle-earth]]'', Creator/JRRTolkien wrote ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings'' this way with no real plans to what would happen chapter to chapter (including having no idea how the book would end). He finally made a rough draft once the gang got to Rivendell.
* Creator/DouglasAdams wrote ''Literature/TheHitchhikersGuideToTheGalaxy'' this way largely - throw out tons of ideas, then return later when it seems like one of them is funny or could be made relevant (like the potted plant saying "Oh no, not again"). As you can imagine, Adams was terrible at deadlines and finished the first book on that page because his publisher was furious. He once remarked, "Writing is easy. You just stare at a blank page until your forehead starts to bleed."
* Creator/RobertBParker of the ''Literature/{{Spenser}}'', ''Literature/SunnyRandall'' and ''Literature/JesseStone'' series wrote like this and compared it to being like the detectives of his novels never knowing what was coming next.
* Horace Kelton once replied to a friend that he didn't know "what [his] next book would be about. [[IJustWriteTheThing The characters [hadn't] told [him]]]." But he still planned some once he got the basic idea.
* Creator/CharlesDeLint writes that way and refers to it as an "organic" style of writing.
* Creator/TerryPratchett usually wrote with a plan, but in an interview said that while writing the assassin's "driving test" in ''Literature/{{Pyramids}}'', he had absolutely no idea how it would unfold, and consequently it was one of his favorite moments in the ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' series.
** When he sat down to write ''Literature/GuardsGuards'' he intended for [[TheCape Carrot Ironfounderson]] to be the main character, with [[KnightInSourArmor Samuel Vimes]] being a minor character who was there to provide a viewpoint character in the city before Carrot arrived. As he wrote the novel Vimes took over as the main character.
** When writing ''Literature/ThiefOfTime'', he knew that Ronnie Soak was [[spoiler: the Fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse]], but he only worked out what his actual ''name'' in that role was at about the same time as Lu-Tze. Specifically, he [[spoiler: [[SdrawkcabName ran to the mirror with a bit of paper with SOAK written on it]] to make sure he wasn't imagining it. He figured his subconscious had been working ahead of him.]]
* Creator/HarukiMurakami swears to this type of writing, never knowing the ending when he begins a story. [[WhatDoYouMeanItWasntMadeOnDrugs It shows]].
* Creator/StanislawLem wrote ''Literature/{{Solaris}}'' that way. It is considered to be his best book which is saying something because his other works are nothing short of brilliance.
* The cast of ''Podcast/WritingExcuses'' have often talked about the difference between being an outliner vs. a discovery writer. Creator/DanWells, author of the ''[[Literature/IAmNotASerialKiller John Cleaver Trilogy]]'' is a self-confessed discovery writer, but Creator/BrandonSanderson is very much an outliner.
* Creator/HunterSThompson not only did this, but he also made it the essence of Gonzo journalism: Your notes, more or less unedited, ''are'' the finished product. He would frequently spend hours or days locked up in his room with a typewriter, a whole bunch of paper, and half a ton of drugs and booze, hammering away furiously to send a long, rambling, yet somehow incredibly cogent piece off to ''Rolling Stone'' or whatever other publication he was writing for at the time. He famously declared his most famous work, ''Literature/FearAndLoathingInLasVegas'' to be a ''failed'' experiment in Gonzo journalism, as he had edited it too much.
* Ellen Potter, author of ''The Kneebone Boy'', had no idea how it would end when she wrote it and was, at her own admission, stuck on the ending for months until writing something that came to her at the gym. Unfortunately, a lot of plot threads are left dangling as a result.
* The 20th Anniversary Edition of Creator/TimothyZahn's ''[[Literature/TheThrawnTrilogy Heir to the Empire]]'' has a lot of notes in the margins, which reveal that the book changed a ''lot'' during the process from first draft/outline to completed manuscript. Most big ideas were set early on, but small details seem to have come spontaneously, like Luke drinking hot chocolate. He also threw in a consistently varied selection of cryptic side references, mostly used to make the galaxy feel bigger like the films did. Later many of these were picked up in order to perform some remarkable feats of ArcWelding - but as he notes while explaining,
--> Still, don't let all these clever explanations give you the impression that I had this whole immense thing mapped out in advance. Right now, I'm using [[IndyPloy the Indiana Jones approach]], and making it up as I go.
* Creator/GeorgeRRMartin describes the technique like taking a road trip. You know the broad strokes of the trip--where you start and where you end, and maybe some of the major roads you'll be driving along the way. But you don't know what diner you'll be eating at on day three; you don't know about the construction on the I-95; you don't know that you'll stop at a tourist trap you didn't even know existed during the detour...
* Calum P Cameron apparently writes the ''Literature/MediochreQSethSeries'' by formulating a basic plan, typing until he gets stuck, then walking his pet dog until he spontaneously comes up with enough new scenes to start typing again. Or he did, until [[https://www.facebook.com/MediochreQSethSeries/posts/590362237660422?comment_id=6649001&offset=0&total_comments=5¬if_t=feed_comment the dog died.]] Presumably, he still adheres to the trope, though, just without the dog-walking bit.
* The authors of ''Literature/{{Animorphs}}'' had no plans at all for the overarching plot going in - they came up with a plot synopsis before each book, but beyond that, they didn't have a clue. (The one exception seems to be their knowing ahead of time that [[spoiler: Rachel would die]] at the end.)
* Creator/LoisMcMasterBujold, author of the ''Literature/VorkosiganSaga'', has stated that she writes like this, comparing her style to the meticulous and structured method of her friend and fellow author Creator/PatriciaCWrede.
* An variant of this trope is when the author lets dice (or any random generator) decide over the plot. ''Paradise of Swords'' by Tobias Meißner is a good example - almost an RPG-as-book. Probably better known is ''Il castello dei destini incrociati'' by Italo Calvino. And Philip K Dick famously wrote ''The man in the high castle'' by rolling coins and reading the resulting I-Ching passages.
* The author of ''Literature/DestinedToLead'' claims this as her main writing style. Not surprising as the books were written during UsefulNotes/NaNoWriMo.
* BenMezrich had to do this for ''Literature/TheAccidentalBillionaires'' because it was optioned and adapted into ''Film/TheSocialNetwork'' right off of its book proposal without a completed manuscript.
* The ''Literature/WarriorCats'' arcs are never fully planned out in advance and as a result, major things can change; this is why Hollyleaf ended up not being one of the Three because they still couldn't think of a power for her halfway through the Power of Three arc. The story team even pointed out in an [[https://warriorcats.com/content/article/writing-a-good-prophecy article]] on the official site that they need to write prophecies [[VaguenessIsComing vague enough]] that there's room for different interpretation in case something changes in the story.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Anime & Manga]]
* ''Manga/{{Berserk}}'' author Kentaro Miura said he hadn't even formed the idea for the Band of the Hawk or Casca when he drew Guts' confrontation with the God Hand in volume 3, and there were a lot of details that he made up as he went along but which fell into place later. In fact, it fits together so well that it's surprising to learn he didn't plan everything ahead in great detail. A prime example is that the creepy fetus Guts sees in the first three volumes wasn't originally supposed to be [[spoiler:Guts and Casca's child]], but Miura later realized that this would work really well and made it into an important RecurringCharacter. Oddly enough, Miura has also claimed that he's [[FlipFlopOfGod had the entirety of the Berserk story planned out in his head since high school.]]
* Tsugumi Ohba admitted he'd write ''Manga/DeathNote'' by putting Light into a massive jam at the end of one chapter, and would then try and figure out how to get him out of it only when the time came to write the next one.
* The writers of ''Anime/TengenToppaGurrenLagann'' admitted, regarding the flash-forward prologue the series never got to, that they "lost that plot thread somewhere".
* ''Manga/{{Bleach}}'': Creator/TiteKubo has admitted to using a combination of this and arc planning. However, he is infamous for using this trope ''and'' for his special use of ChandlersLaw: "When suffering writer's block, introduce a new awesome character to overcome it". The trouble is, he doesn't actually introduce ''a'' new character, he introduces a new ''[[CastHerd horde]]'" of characters instead. LoadsAndLoadsOfCharacters ensue.
* Hidenori Kusaka does this in regards to ''Manga/PokemonAdventures'', as he has to write alongside whatever games just came out. What really makes him impressive, however, is that he doesn't work for Game Freak yet the series has a large amount of generation-spanning ArcWelding and [[ChekhovsGun Chekhov's Guns.]] Fans joke that he can see into the future.
* Creator/OsamuTezuka wrote ''Ambassador Atom'' (the prototype for ''Manga/AstroBoy'') as he went along. Notably, he had no idea who "Atom" would be, until he later decided to write him as a robot built to replace Tenma's deceased son. He would later ReTool Atom into his current incarnation and subsequently redid the story as an episode of ''Astro Boy''.
* Creator/RumikoTakahashi admitted not planning and not knowing where her manga was going during the supposedly final battle with Naraku in ''Manga/InuYasha'' or with ''Manga/{{Rinne}}'' in general.
* Creator/AkiraToriyama of ''Franchise/DragonBall'' fame has admitted that he made up the story as he went along.[[note]]Sort of. He had a general idea of where the plot would be going in the mid-term and had always written at least a few chapters ahead of the most recent one.[[/note]] The fact that this worked is quite impressive but led to numerous plot holes and inconsistencies over the years.
** The TropeCodifier of the SuperMode, the Super Saiyan, actually didn't have much thought put into its design at all. Toriyama's only real idea was that Goku would start using villainous expressions when he entered the state. The golden hair was a last-second suggestion by a co-artist, to save time on having to continue filling in his black hair. The original idea for the Super Saiyan [[https://twitter.com/Rhiph/status/1117583434426331136 was based on]] a moment in ''Manga/DrSlump'', and could be seen in ''Anime/DragonBallZLordSlug''.
** The Cell Saga is [[http://www.kanzenshuu.com/intended-end/cell/ a particularly funny example:]] he originally intended Androids 19 and 20 to be the main villains, created Androids 17 and 18 after his former editor complained that they were lame, and created Cell after the same former editor said ''they'' weren't threatening enough. [[OverlyLongGag Then]] he introduced Cell's semi-perfect form when the editor hated Imperfect Cell's insectoid appearance. [[UpToEleven THEN]] he insisted they hurry up to Cell's perfect form when the editor thought his semi-perfect one looked [[{{Narm}} too goofy.]]
** Perhaps most legendary of all is the unexplained disappearance of the character Launch starting with the Saiyan Arc. Toriyama eventually admitted that while he did intentionally put her aside for that arc, between all the stuff he had to keep track of while trying to make up the continuing story out of thin air, he just plain forgot she even existed (not helped by the fact that the story follows select characters to planet Namek, and it wouldn't return to Earth for over two years!).
** The actual results of each Tenkaichi Budokai match were made up as each one was being written, which Toriyama found more exciting to write.
** A notable aversion is the reveal that Piccolo and Kami are aliens. When Toriyama introduced Kami half a year after Piccolo, he decided on their extraterrestrial origins, but it wouldn't actually be revealed for over a year after that. Notably, a moment at the 23rd Tournament had the two speak to each other in an alien language, a rare moment of long-term foreshadowing in the series.
** Toriyama isn't the only one guilty of this: when creating the ''Z'' movies in the 90s, Toei would come up with the subtitle of the movie first, then write the story based on ''that''! This explains why the Meta-Cooler movie is titled "Clash!! 10,000,000,000 Powerful Warriors", and others get rather generic subtitles like "A Super Decisive Battle for Earth" for the Tree of Might movie. This also explains why so many of them are [[NonSerialMovie Non-Serial Movies,]] even with each other!
** A more recent example is ''Anime/DragonBallSuper'''s Universe Survival Saga. Toriyama and his collaborator Toyotaro decided that they wanted an 80-person battle royale tournament, but only designed four characters for it[[note]]Excluding the Universe 6 characters already introduced in their own story arc[[/note]]: Ribrianne and the three main [[{{Sentai}} Pride Troopers]] Jiren, Toppo, and Dyspo. All of the other characters' designs were created by various Toei staffers, who also helped flesh them out: Toriyama only designed Ribrianne as fat, while Toei staff suggested making her a parody MagicalGirl based on their work on ''Franchise/PrettyCure''. However, in other ways the trope is averted: Toriyama's original draft for the story included a full beginning-to-end write-up that covered the main plot points, what happened to every member of Team Universe 7, and even [[spoiler:Frieza being called in to replace Majin Buu when the latter falls asleep.]]
** This happened in other places in ''Super'' as well: During the Future Trunks Saga, Toriyama wasn't keen on the idea of bringing back [[FusionDance Vegito,]] saying that there was no way Vegeta would agree to it, but Toyotaro convinced him to go through with it by saying that they could make it meaningful.
* Buronson, writer of ''Manga/FistOfTheNorthStar'', has admitted in interviews to never plan things out and write on the fly. For instance, the initial reason Kenshiro has the seven scars on his chest is simply that it would be cool, and Buronson came up later with the idea they were inflicted by his RivalTurnedEvil. Buronson considers this method of writing very effective since the readers can't predict what will happen if the writer doesn't know either.
* Much like its initial influence ''Manga/FistOfTheNorthStar'', Hirohiko Araki has admitted that he's been essentially making up ''Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventure'' as he goes. While this is impressive in that the story likes to make a lot of callbacks, it does explain the more "villain of the week" format that was in much of parts 3-5.
** While Parts 3 and 5 had the goal of defeating DIO and The Boss respectively, Part 4 is where this trope is very apparent. Jotaro comes to Josuke's hometown of Morioh in pursuit of a notorious serial killer, who's defeated in the opening episodes. Said serial killer was given his Stand by someone who shot him with a special bow and arrow...who's dead three episodes later, usurped by one of the people he shot and granted a Stand. Said character floats around for a bit before coming out to face the heroes and three episodes after he does he's defeated too. Then another serial killer is introduced with more buildup and mystery built around him...but soon enough he's defeated as well, at least until Araki finally decided to keep him around as the BigBad and he somehow managed to escape the heroes and gain a new identity, disappearing without a trace. Following this he remains the BigBad and discerning his identity again becomes a large part of the Part.
* While Creator/EiichiroOda of the ''Manga/OnePiece'' fame certainly doesn't improvise plot all the time, he may actually be doing it more often than his fans - who almost worship him for his use of ChekhovsArmory - realize. He has admitted that some things were made up more or less on the spot:
** Vivi wasn't supposed to be the series' best-known princess and honorary Straw Hat at first. She was just supposed to be a generic, short-lived ArcVillain even though TheReveal about her being a princess came a few chapters later, meaning that Oda made that up rather spontaneously. This is why her face completely changes design between two scenes, going from harsh and sharp-eyed to soft and [[GoodEyesEvilEyes wide-eyed.]]
** Trafalgar Law was introduced extremely suddenly along with the other Supernovae because Oda's editor wanted him to make some interesting characters for the Sabaody arc. So even though he's a very significant character in Doflamingo's arc, his involvement wasn't planned during Doflamingo's first few appearances, neither was the fact that [[spoiler: he's a D.]]
** Downplayed with the Going Merry: She was originally supposed to be the Straw Hats' ship for the whole series. Then Oda realized how underwhelming the little caravel looked compared to the ginormous enemy ships, and decided to "kill" her off and let the Straw Hats have a bigger ship. Still, her "death" was planned a couple of years before it actually happened, but it wasn't planned when she was introduced.
* ''Manga/{{Bakuman}}'' is a series [[SequentialArtist about fictional manga creators]] by the same authors as the aforementioned ''Death Note'', and it portrays nearly ''every'' writer at [[Magazine/ShonenJump Weekly Shonen Jump]] as making things up as they go, mostly because they spend so long with their series on the verge of cancellation. The clearest demonstration comes when the main two characters realize the best ending to a chapter was the revelation that its events were caused by an earlier chapter, [[ArcWelding even though they planned no such thing when the earlier chapter was written.]]
* ''Manga/{{Naruto}}'' creator Creator/MasashiKishimoto [[http://www.shonengamez.com/2013/12/22/kishimoto-naruto-will-end-2014/ stated]] that he'd made Madara Uchiha so powerful [[OnlyTheAuthorCanSaveThemNow that he had no clue how he could be defeated.]] Eventually, he came to a solution: having him be [[spoiler:stabbed in the back by a DiabolusExNihilo, who was even stronger but easier to defeat due to [[UnskilledButStrong inexperience.]]]]
* Creator/HiroMashima admits he's had a weird relationship with this trope to varying degrees depending on his work.
** ''Manga/RaveMaster'': This only happened in minor doses as he was planning ahead, with the only major change being the first quarter of the manga where he jumped into his planned FinalBattle [[ExecutiveMeddling as per his editor's suggestion]] to boost reader interest. After switching out the BigBad with another, Mashima was able to correct course relatively smoothly, with the rest of the manga playing out more or less exactly as he wanted from the second half onward.
** ''Manga/FairyTail'': Plays this completely straight, with the one pre-determined story element being TheHero's search for the dragon who raised him. Everything else--from the reasons for said dragon's disappearance to entire story arcs--was made up on the fly, though not without {{Foreshadowing}}; it's just that the things he foreshadowed were typically either made up at that moment or weren't worked out yet.
** ''Manga/EdensZero'': According to Mashima, it lies somewhere in between his levels of planning for ''Rave Master'' and ''Fairy Tail'', setting specific characters and story beats in stone while making up everything in between. Some of his plans have wound up being slightly distorted because of this, with certain characters being introduced earlier than anticipated.
* Miki Yoshikawa of ''Manga/FlunkPunkRumble'' and ''Manga/YamadaKunAndTheSevenWitches'' has stated that she and her editor usually only planned the story one chapter at a time and had little idea of what would happen in future chapters. In most cases, anyway; there are some [[TheReveal reveals]] - such as Miyamura's reason to transfer to Suzaku and Nancy's secret - that have so much {{foreshadowing}} that they were clearly planned several chapters in advance.
* A {{Downplayed| Trope}} example with ''Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion''. The show was put into product with a plot that had more or less been outlined from start to finish, and the series did by and large follow this outline to begin with. However, much of the second half of said plot outline had to be scrapped and rewritten from scratch during production, [[DistancedFromCurrentEvents as some crucial scenes had an unintentional similarity to]] [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo_subway_sarin_attack the Aum Shinrikyo cult's terrorist gas attack on the Tokyo subway in March 1995]]. The latter half of production also happened to be at the same time the series creator Creator/HideakiAnno was undergoing heavy treatment for his clinical depression, the experience of which also started to creep into the scripts. As a result, the show started seriously deviating from its original plans around Episode 16, resulting in the MindScrew sequences the latter part of the show is (in)famous for.
* According to Monkey Punch, ''Franchise/LupinIII'' only even exists because he wanted to create a manga but had no idea what he wanted to make it about. When the publishers he applied for asked what he wanted to make, he hadn't thought of it, but felt like he had to give an answer right there, or else he wouldn't get the job (though whether or not that would have actually been the case is unknown). His quick answer was that he wanted to make something like ''Literature/ArseneLupin''. The publishers approved of it, he was allowed to create the manga, and the rest, as they say, is history.
* The author of ''Manga/{{Gravitation}}'' outright admitted in the author's notes for one of the later volumes that she had no idea what she was writing and was basically just making it up on the fly.
* According to [[http://www.midnighteye.com/interviews/hayao-miyazaki/ this]] interview, Creator/HayaoMiyazaki's films go into production before he's finished storyboarding them, or even deciding how the rest of the story will even play out.
[[/folder]]

[[folder:Films]]
* Creator/CharlieChaplin never used scripts when making his movies -- his films would always be made by constant trial and error at his own expense, focusing on the personality of the characters rather than the story. Even his features only used a little pre-planning for the story, but no fully written scripts. The one exception was ''Film/MonsieurVerdoux'' which had a script by Creator/OrsonWelles. Chaplin rewrote it to fit his interests, but otherwise retained Welles' structure.
* According to the book ''Literature/TheDisasterArtist'', everything that fans love about ''Film/TheRoom'' was [[ThrowItIn ad libbed]]. Despite kicking off with a formal script (which [[MemeticMutation his best friend]] Greg Sestero was the first to read), Tommy Wiseau was writing, directing, casting, rewriting, and acting by the seat of his pants, practically making up the film as he went.
* ''Film/{{Casablanca}}'' was being written as it was filmed. Some things had to be changed to comply with The Hays Code, and it took a while to come up with a satisfying ending.
* In ''Film/IronMan1'', the actors came up with so many good things on-set that halfway through they just threw away the script (having previously rewritten it every night) and instead wrote outlines of each scene instead. Creator/JeffBridges said that it felt weird doing it this way, then realized that he had to treat it "like a 200 million dollar student film".
* The [[Film/PiratesOfTheCaribbeanDeadMansChest second]] and [[Film/PiratesOfTheCaribbeanAtWorldsEnd third]] ''Franchise/PiratesOfTheCaribbean'' movies were both being written as they were filmed.
* Creator/TimBurton's ''Film/Batman1989'' was constantly being expanded, edited, and rewritten. Burton himself once recounted a situation wherein he had ComicBook/TheJoker take Vicki Vale hostage and move into the Church, with no idea what to do storywise after that point.
* Creator/DavidLynch infamously wrote ''Film/InlandEmpire'' scene by scene during filming. What effect this had on the film's [[MindScrew (lack of) coherence]] is up to debate. Seeing as it's ''David Lynch,'' however, it really doesn't matter too much.
* The '90s movie of ''Film/TheFugitive'' was largely made this way, on the fly--although one would never suspect by watching it, as it ''looks'' very carefully planned.
* ''Film/TheLordOfTheRings'' movie trilogy was shot like that. Even as the cameras kept rolling, scenes and plots were being rewritten again and again - some versions of the script reached not just the double digits, but went up to 40 and above. Actors frequently got their lines only the night before the shooting and major revisions resulted in whole scenes being re-shot. Ironically, the writers insist that each iteration was ultimately closer to Tolkien's work and even stated that some of the remaining controversial changes might have been gone too, had they not reached a deadline by then.
* Production of ''Film/TheHobbit'' trilogy was rushed and the script was constantly being rewritten, meaning that when Creator/PeterJackson rather quickly was called in to cover the directing, he often had to come up with lines and sequences as he was shooting. Whereas the cast of the previous trilogy might get their dialogue the night before, dialogue for ''The Hobbit'' was practically being written ''on set.'' He'd have the cast and crew break for long lunches so he could have the time to develop ideas and everyone would have something to do in the afternoon. Many scenes had to be cobbled together from randomly scened takes, that were done with no reason (such as the Dwarves vs Smaug, and the climax of the second film).
* Befitting its [[TroubledProduction chaotic production schedule]], ''Film/ApocalypseNow'' was made largely with this and ThrowItIn Creator/FrancisFordCoppola didn't even have an ending, as he'd considered Creator/JohnMilius' ending (Willard joins Kurtz, and the film ends with Kurtz shooting at American warplanes bombing his temple while screaming about his erection) ridiculous. This, and much more, is shown in the making-of documentary ''Film/HeartsOfDarknessAFilmmakersApocalypse''.
* ''Film/{{Scanners}}'' was written like this, which was forced upon Creator/DavidCronenberg because of the way the production had to be structured due to financing reasons. There was virtually no pre-production, so he had to start shooting with an unfinished script. He would write in the morning, and film the rest of the day, mostly out of order. On top of ''that'', they often had to drive around at random, looking for places to shoot scenes. So literally ''everything'' about ''Scanners'' was done by the seat of their pants. He talks about it at some length in ''Cronenberg on Cronenberg''.
* ''Film/StrangerThanFiction'' has an in-universe example. We see Karen Eiffel writing ''Death and Taxes'' while she's still trying to figure out the ending.
* ''Film/LawrenceOfArabia''. Shooting was just about to start when Creator/DavidLean threw out Michael Wilson's original script completely. Creator/RobertBolt was brought on to rewrite the script as filming began. As a result, the movie was filmed almost chronologically - a rarity then or indeed now, especially on such a large-scale film.
* Creator/StanleyKubrick seemed to be this for many of the cast members during production of ''Film/TheShining''. He would often spend the morning before shooting on completely re-writing the scenes that were to be shot that day, causing more than one of the actors to almost have a nervous breakdown, although that was a combination of this and Kubrick's perfectionism on takes. It has been argued, given his chess background, that this and other psychological tactics on the shoot were him being a MagnificentBastard to get the performances he wanted.
* During one of his Q&As, Creator/KevinSmith admitted to have written ''Film/RedState'' without a clear plan in mind. He only had two thoughts in his head: the overall topic (a horror movie inspired by a Fred Phelps interview), and the idea that the audience nowadays has already seen every story and knows every formula and cliché. The challenge he gave himself was to jump to a different scene with a different set of characters the moment he knew where the scene he was currently writing could be heading.
* Creator/AaronSorkin wrote ''Film/TheSocialNetwork'' as Ben Mezrich was writing the book it was based upon ''The Accidental Billionaires'' because Creator/DavidFincher optioned the project based simply on a book proposal. Mezrich would write a chapter and hand it off to Sorkin, who would then write the screenplay based on it.
* ''Film/BasicInstinct'' went from initial story idea to final draft ''in ten days without the use of a computer.''
%%* Parts of the overarching Infinity Stone subplot in the Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse were only thought up after the fact. For one, it's pretty clear that the Tesseract from ''Film/CaptainAmericaTheFirstAvenger'' and ''Film/{{The Avengers|2012}}'' was not originally going to be one of the Stones.
* Clifford Odets was hired on short notice to rewrite the script to ''Film/SweetSmellOfSuccess''. As soon as he had finished writing a scene in his hotel room, it was rushed to the location for director Alexander Mackendrick to shoot. According to Creator/BurtLancaster biographer Gary Fishgall, pages were distributed to the crew after they had been shot
** Creator/TonyCurtis [[https://archive.vanityfair.com/article/2000/4/a-movie-marked-danger had stated]] he once found Odets typing in a prop truck between filming.
* The ending to ''Film/BeingThere'' came about because of a comment that Creator/HalAshby made to a friend about how impressive Creator/PeterSellers was in his performance and his willingness to try new things: [[spoiler:"I could have this guy walking on water at the end of the film!"]]
* Creator/RichardLinklater noted that the script for some scenes in ''Film/{{Boyhood}}'' was finished the night before they were to be filmed.
* Production on ''Film/DaysOfThunder'' began without a finished script; scenes were often written the day of filming. During one driving sequence, Creator/TomCruise actually had to read his lines off cue cards attached to his windshield, [[DidntThinkThisThrough which resulted in a minor car accident]]. For subsequent driving sequences, Cruise was fitted with a special earpiece to have lines fed to him.
* The script for ''Film/DeathWish4TheCrackdown'' was rewritten during filming. Creator/CharlesBronson constantly had problems with the dialog and he requested further rewrites of certain items of dialogue and action scenes. Writer Gail Morgan Hickman recalled going through several rewrites on a daily basis.
* Creator/DennisHopper and Creator/PeterFonda did not write a full script for ''Film/EasyRider'' and made most of it up as they went along. They didn't hire a crew but instead picked up hippies at communes across the country, and used friends and passersby to hold the cameras and were drunk and stoned most of the time.
* While making ''Film/EightMile'', Music/{{Eminem}} had very little time to work on "Lose Yourself" while shooting the film and used any given opportunity to have a pen and paper in front of him to scribble down lyrics. In some cases, he was writing ''as he was being filmed'', such as Jimmy's ride home on the city bus after his first rap battle.
* The script for ''Film/{{Gilda}}'' wasn't finished when filming began. According to the film's choreographer, the pages would arrive on the day they were to be filmed and it was mostly made up on the spot.
* ''Film/HalloweenTheCurseOfMichaelMyers'' - the man in black's identity was constantly changing due to producers not knowing whether or not he would be a blood relative of Michael Myers.
* ''Film/MissionImpossibleFilmSeries'':
** ''Film/MissionImpossible'' went into pre-production without a script that the filmmakers wanted to use. Creator/BrianDePalma designed the action sequences but neither Creator/DavidKoepp nor Creator/RobertTowne were satisfied with the story that would make these sequences take place. Towne ended up helping organize a beginning, middle, and end to hang story details on while De Palma and Koepp worked on the plot. Towne rewrote scenes literally between takes during filming.
** For ''Film/MissionImpossibleFallout'', Creator/SimonPegg revealed that when production began, [[https://www.metro.us/entertainment/movies/the-script-for-mission-impossible-fallout-was-just-33-pages-long-when-filming-started the film's script was only 33 pages long]], in contrast to typical 85-100 page scripts. As a result, Creator/ChristopherMcQuarrie had to make events up throughout the filming process.
* ''Film/StreetsOfFire'' originally ended with Creator/DianeLane singing Music/BruceSpringsteen's [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IuSrPrJyz1k "Streets of Fire"]] - this was actually filmed. However, just before production finished, Universal admitted they wouldn't get the rights to the song by the release date. Creator/WalterHill then asked Jim Steinman to write a replacement; he wrote [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCIrPJ6SBl4 "Tonight Is What It Means to be Young"]] in ''two days.'' Hill wrote and shot the new ending in the few days remaining.
* Creator/JohnWoo went into filming ''Film/TheKiller'' with only a short treatment for the film and wrote the details of the script while filming.
* ''Film/TwentyEightDaysLater'':
** The original plan was to reveal that the virus had spread worldwide. Midway through shooting, they opted to change things to keep the virus more ambiguous. Since the film was shot almost entirely in-sequence, this is the reason for Sgt Farrell's dialogue theorizing the quarantine. The sequel confirms his theory.
** The entire second half of the original script was scrapped; originally the heroes find that the beacon is automated and there are no actual survivors around, and coincidentally end up at the same research station the infected animals were released from. One scientist is still alive there and informs them that the infection can be cured by replacing every drop of blood in the person's body with someone else's, leaving them to be infected instead. The crew quickly realized how ridiculous this was ("What do you do, clean out every capillary and vein with bleach?") and quickly came up with the story of the soldiers to replace it.
* ''Franchise/StarWars'':
** Zigzagged with the original trilogy. After the success of ''Film/ANewHope'', an outline was created planning possibly nine films. However, while [[Film/TheEmpireStrikesBack the sequel]] was being written, [[DiedDuringProduction the hired writer died]], leading Creator/GeorgeLucas to a CreatorBreakdown that made him change things around (most importantly, Anakin Skywalker and Darth Vader became the same character, and the film would become [[AnachronicOrder Episode V]] of IX), and also push some elements to [[Film/ReturnOfTheJedi the sixth]] (namely the revelation of Luke's sister and the appearance of [[BigBad the Emperor]]) - which in turn would become the GrandFinale as Lucas decided to just end at 6 films, though the prequels [[SequelGap would take a while to appear]].
** The sequel series produced by Creator/{{Disney}} ran into this issue as a result of their initial plans fell through. Originally each film was supposed to be directed by a different director (Episode 7 by Creator/JJAbrams, Episode 8 by Creator/RianJohnson, and Episode 9 by Colin Trevorrow) like they did with the ''Franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse''. However, Disney left it to the directors to make the plot and characters, hoping that each one would build off of the previous film to create a unique story that had different directorial flairs to it. However, this lack of planning caused issues when Creator/RianJohnson stepped up for his film, because, judging by the result, he had little interest in simply "building off" the previous movie, as his film ''Film/TheLastJedi'' essentially wrapped up or rendered irrelevant all of Abrams' plotlines from the ''Film/TheForceAwakens'', leaving the final film with almost no plot points to work with. Colin Trevorrow would leave as well, forcing Abrams to return to direct the last movie and follow up on the few remaining plot points left from the previous film. Most notably, Rian said that [[spoiler:the next film could very well retcon his own idea of Rey's parents not being anyone special, although Daisy Ridley also said that the ''one'' answer Creator/JJAbrams had in mind [[http://collider.com/star-wars-reys-parents-answer/ was about Rey's parents, and it was the same as Johnson's.]]]] As it turned out in ''Film/TheRiseOfSkywalker'', [[spoiler:while Abrams was fine leaving Rey's parents "[[ExactWords nobodies]]", he still made her ''grandfather'' somebody, as in Emperor Palpatine, who himself wasn't even originally intended to return and become the overall BigBad in the first draft of the script]]. Basically, Disney was hoping the directors would be able to write each film in such a way that the next film could take the ending and expand it. However, this caused the films to have inconsistent tones and plotlines that seemed all over the place.
** This tradition was tragically enforced after the unexpected death of Creator/CarrieFisher (Leia), who was supposed to have a huge planned role in ''Film/TheRiseOfSkywalker''. Her death (and Rian Johnson's decision to leave her final performance intact instead of altering the film to kill Leia) reportedly left the writers scrambling. They ultimately brought back some unused shots of her from ''The Force Awakens'' and added some FakeShemp moments to cobble together an ending for her arc.
* Rather surprisingly given their typical high-quality work and tight scripts, Creator/{{Pixar}} does it all the time. One of them described it as jumping out of a plane and hoping you can build a parachute on the way down. However, this has less to do with time constraints and more with how much every aspect of the film is done and re-done until making further changes would be unfeasible, just to make them as perfect as possible.
* ''Film/{{Jaws}}'', which Creator/RichardDreyfuss described as having started "without a script, without a cast, and without a shark", had the script for each scene typically finished the night before it was shot, after [[WrittenByCastMember writer/actor]] Carl Gottlieb had dinner with Creator/StevenSpielberg and members of the cast and crew to decide what would go into the film, and often incorporated improvisations that happened there.
* Kevin Williamson had always intended for the ''Film/{{Scream}}'' series to be a trilogy, and had written plot outlines for the next two films at the same time that he wrote the screenplay for [[Film/Scream1996 the first]]. [[TroubledProduction Problem was]], the outline for ''Film/Scream3'' had to be thrown out in its entirety just weeks before it entered production, as the [[UsefulNotes/{{Columbine}} Columbine High School massacre]] and resulting [[TheNewRockAndRoll backlash against violence in the media]] had made its plot -- about one of the killers from the first film being alive, in prison, and leading a group of obsessive SlasherMovie fans to carry out a new teenage murder spree[[note]]Williamson would later get to [[DivorcedInstallment use this plot]] for the TV show ''Series/TheFollowing''[[/note]] -- suddenly hit much too close to home. Since Williamson was busy with other projects, new writer Ehren Kruger was hastily brought in to come up with a brand new story and script in a matter of weeks. Naturally, the script was still unfinished when the film went into production, with pages usually completed the day they were to be filmed.
* ''Film/BackToTheFuturePartII'': [[Film/BackToTheFuture The first film]]'s ending was never meant to lead into a sequel, and in particular Creator/RobertZemeckis and Bob Gale have said putting Jennifer in the Delorean with Marty and Doc caused a ton of headaches until they resorted to simply putting her to sleep for most of the movie. Creator/CrispinGlover's refusal to return also caused serious writing issues, which led to the alternate 1985 timeline where [[spoiler:George was murdered by Biff]] and [[FakeShemp recasting George with actor Jeffrey Weismann, who was shown obscured]], as well as using footage from the first film to show George from 1955 (Glover would sue the producers, saying they misappropriated his likeness, which led to the Screen Actors Guild rewriting their rules on stock footage).
[[/folder]]

!!Examples:

[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
* ''Series/TwentyFour'' was notoriously written on the fly, with the writers starting each season with practically no concrete idea where the thing was going to end up. Notably averted by Season 7, due to the 2007 Writers Strike and a year-long delay, resulting in a much more cohesive, planned-out storyline for that season.
* ''Series/{{The 100}}'' has ''twice'' filmed scenes (not merely planned, not merely written, actually ''filmed'') where Jasper dies, and both times the writers decided against it at the last minute, either cutting his death scene before the episode went to air or using the next episode to explain how he actually survived.
* ''Series/{{Arrowverse}}'':
** The Season 4 premier of ''Series/{{Arrow}}'' ended with a flash-forward of Oliver standing over someone's grave, openly [[ManlyTears weeping]]. The writers/creators admitted they had no idea which member of Team Arrow was in the grave when they started, and only finally settled on it being [[spoiler:Laurel]] when they ran out of time and had to pick ''someone''. This was yet another thing about the death that angered the fandom.
** Halfway through Season 3 of ''Series/{{Supergirl|2015}}'', Andrew Kreisberg was fired after numerous sexual harassment accusations. Since he'd been the main architect behind the season's story and would still have to be paid if it was used, the other writers had to quickly whip up an alternate second half that received many accusations of being obviously made up as they went, most notably with how several episodes were spent building up to the arrival of the villain Pestilence, only for her to be anticlimactically disposed of just one episode after her arrival.
** The crossover event ''Series/CrisisOnInfiniteEarths2019'' was designed to be as big a DC TV event as the crew could possibly make it, with offers for appearances sent to just about every living actor who'd ever played a major role in a DC property. The downside of this is that they then had to wait to find out just who they would and wouldn't be getting before they could do any serious writing on the special... which also meant they couldn't offer ''any'' specifics of what the actors would actually be doing or even how much they'd be paid. Creator/MichaelRosenbaum, who played Lex Luthor in ''Series/{{Smallville}}'', specifically stated that he declined the offer because it seemed so ridiculous to demand an answer from him ASAP while telling him nothing about what he'd actually be signing on for.
* ''Series/BarneyAndFriends'': The first season fell into this category, according to writer Steve White in an episode of the ''Purple Tales Podcast''. Steve and the first season's only other writer Mark Bernthal had only ''six days'' to write each episode.
* ''Series/BattlestarGalactica2003''. The writers' commentary on the DVD makes it clear that ''a lot'' of stuff was made up episode-by-episode. Especially irritating when every episode began with the statement "... and they have a plan" (until it was quietly dropped from the titles during the last season). Many viewers found this especially apparent in the plot points involving the identity of the Final Five cylons, leading to images like [[http://i.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/photoshop/9/2/6/125926_v1.jpg this one.]] It really came back to bite them when they decided that the "Final Five" Cylons should be different than the others, and have the last five model numbers. Trouble was, it had been built in the show from the start that there were twelve models, and they'd already given one of them the number Eight. So the writers had to quickly insert a piece of backstory that another model had been judged so corrupted (read: wanting to be human) that all copies were destroyed permanently.
** Another issue this caused was that [[spoiler:Tyrol was made one of the Final Five despite having a son, due to the writers forgetting that Cylons couldn't have children. When they realized this halfway through the final season, it was quickly retconned that his son with Cally was actually the result of Cally having a one-night stand with Hot Dog the night before they began dating. And then the episode wasn't quite as clear as it could have been that this was what happened, leaving many fans with the impression that Cally (now long dead and unable to defend herself) had cheated on Tyrol. Also, keep in mind that Cally had ''never'' shared a scene with or even spoken to Hot Dog before. Ever. In the DVD commentary, Ron Moore admits that he came up with this retcon simply because they'd built up Hera as the special Hybrid child so much that it wouldn't make sense to have two Hybrids - which was the ''entire criticism'' about making Tyrol a Cylon in the first place.]]
** As for the identities of the Final Five Cylons, [[spoiler: Ron Moore's explanations in the DVD commentary make it clear that he picked them all based on ''shock value'', rather than in-universe story logic. That is, rather than describing "that suspicious thing Tyrol did in episode 3.01 was supposed to be a hint that he's a Cylon", Moore spent the DVD commentary (i.e. of the Season 3 finale) discussing that he picked these characters based on the shock it would cause - even though there was no setup, with candidates ranging from the coincidental (Anders), the implausible (Tigh), to the impossible-without-contradicting-ourselves (Tyrol).]]
* The creators of ''Series/TheBigBangTheory'' have commented that every season they start with simply the next page. Creator/ChuckLorre apparently has a motto that "This isn't ''Series/{{LOST}}''" and thus they keep everything at the moment and not holding out based on what they have planned. Although looking back it would be easy to believe they did plan out at least a season in advance, given the progression of Leonard and Penny's relationship in the first two seasons and how Howard started to mature in the second season which allows him to start a relationship with Bernadette in the third.
* ''Series/BreakingBad''. While the writing wasn't exactly freestyled episode-by-episode (barring Season 3), there were some notable instances:
** Jesse Pinkman was supposed to die somehow in Season 1 until Aaron Paul's acting chops convinced everyone to keep him on.
** Gus Fring was only supposed to be on for a few episodes in Season 3, but his actor (Giancarlo Esposito) demanded more.
** On that note, Gus Fring was created because Raymond Cruz (who plays Tuco) had to leave for his role on ''Series/TheCloser''. Tuco was supposed to be the villain all of Season 2.
** When the M60 was introduced in Season 5, ''the writers had no idea how it would be used.''
*** A more minor bit in the same development: Walt takes off the watch Jesse gave him and leaves it on top of a payphone, for literally no reason except that he hadn't been wearing it in the flashforward scene.
** This continues in the spinoff prequel series ''Series/BetterCallSaul''. In one episode of Chris Hardwick's post-show series ''Talking Saul'', Hardwick told a crew member that he looked forward to the explanation for why none of the ''Breaking Bad'' characters recognize Saul after his high profile in this series, causing a priceless OhCrap reaction as the guy clearly realized on the spot what a corner they'd written themselves into.
* ''Series/{{Charmed|1998}}'' seems to have been an example of this. The most JustForFun/{{egregious}} example was probably the whole arc with Chris, a character who came from the future to SetRightWhatOnceWentWrong. The problem is, he kept changing the story of ''what'' went wrong and doing all sorts of morally questionable actions behind the Charmed Ones' backs. Eventually, the writers decided that he was Piper and Leo's KidFromTheFuture, here to stop his older brother Wyatt from turning evil. Approximately ''none'' of his actions before TheReveal[[note]]trapping Leo in Valhalla, killing several Valkyries, making deals with demons to trap the girls in an alternate reality, breaking up his own parents before he's conceived...[[/note]] make sense with that story, nor can he explain why he didn't just tell them the truth from the beginning. WordOfGod seems to admit that they didn't know what his story was, having only decided on this course of action [[RealLifeWritesThePlot because Piper's actress, Holly Marie Combs, got pregnant]]. Even after the truth is revealed, the writers can't decide ''what'' turns Wyatt evil until near the season's end.
* ''Series/DoctorWho'', partly by necessity. While an individual head-writer/producer might have individual plans, the show's LongRunner status means that this is a little bit necessary. For example, a lot of the things that have made the show so iconic, such as TheNthDoctor trope or the Daleks, weren't planned but added as they went along.
** Especially notable is [[Recap/DoctorWhoS23E4TheUltimateFoe "The Ultimate Foe"]], the end of the "Trial of a Time Lord" story arc. Original writer Creator/RobertHolmes died before he could write the final story, and the team brought on to replace him were actually legally forbidden from knowing his intended ending. The two-part finale has a quite noticeably rushed script, with a Master subplot that ends up going nowhere and the bizarre reveal that the prosecutor the Valeyard was actually a future incarnation of the Doctor the whole time, which the show has basically just ignored ever since.
** Creator/RussellTDavies, the first showrunner of the revival series, has openly stated that he tends to write overarching stories (particularly ones that span multiple seasons) as he goes, rather than having it meticulously planned out in advance. This often resulted in him running with things that people pointed out to him:
*** The fact that the Doctor happened to have an encounter with Donna, then coincidentally ran into her grandfather the following Christmas, then happened to run into Donna again after they, by total happenstance, decided to investigate the same suspicious company. Davies has said that someone brought up how coincidental it was, and wondered if there was some reason for it. At the time, which was before he had finished finalising [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E1PartnersInCrime "Partners in Crime"]] he had nothing planned. He realised that it looked like he did though, and began tying it into the series' overarching narrative. For this reason, they also took the hints that [[spoiler:Donna's fate seems cosmically interwoven with the Doctor's thing]] UpToEleven in that episode.
*** Similarly, when writing [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E3PlanetOfTheOod "Planet of the Ood"]], Davies put in the Ood calling the Doctor and Donna "the Doctor-Donna" just because he [[RuleOfCool thought it sounded cool.]] [[spoiler:Cue the finale, in which Donna becomes half-Donna half-Doctor due to a Time Lord-human metacrisis. Davies didn't realize that he had unintentionally created some major foreshadowing until someone pointed it out to him, thinking he had done it intentionally. He then rewrote [[Recap/DoctorWhoS30E13JourneysEnd "Journey's End"]] to include a moment of the Doctor remembering that the Ood had called them Doctor-Donna.]]
*** One notable subversion for Davies was the overarching story concerning the Doctor's severed hand, which went from the 2005 Christmas special to the Series 4 finale in 2008. Davies claims that since the moment he wrote it into the script for [[Recap/DoctorWho2005CSTheChristmasInvasion "The Christmas Invasion"]], he knew that he would end up making a "second Doctor" grow out of the severed hand, whom the original Doctor would send off to live happily with Rose. He even told David Tennant about these plans at the time.
*** Davies openly declared after Series 3 that the mysterious shot of a woman's hand picking up the Master's ring had no intended meaning; he had no further plans for the character, but with his time as showrunner coming to an end he figured he should put in some kind of SequelHook to make it easier for future writers who wanted to use him again. Then in his very last episode, he decided to follow up on it himself after all.
* Creator/JulianFellowes only wrote the first half of each series of ''Series/DowntonAbbey'' ahead of time, then waits to see how the actors play off each other before writing the second half. Occasionally this has bitten him in the ass when he decides to expand a character's role only to discover the actor isn't available, most notably with Edith's paramour Gregson.
* Many committee-led series will change plot and emphasise characters depending on audience responses to broadcast episodes. Sylar and Hiro in ''Series/{{Heroes}}'' received such a favourable response they were given much larger roles in the long run [[spoiler:including Sylar being allowed to live beyond the Season 1 finale.]]
* ''Series/HowIMetYourMother'' starts with a DrivingQuestion of "How does Ted meet the future mother of his children?" and the creators were adamant that it would happen in the GrandFinale. The thing is they weren't sure how long they would get to tell this story and there were several admitted plans in place in case they were or were not renewed. Victoria of season one was outright confirmed to be the Mother in case the initial 13-episode order was all they had. Stella is theorized to also be a back-up Mother (given how they meet ties directly into the implied "MythArc") if season three was the end. Once ratings stabilized it seemed that the writers had a clear idea of how the show would end by introducing some more solid clues (the [[MilestoneCelebration 100th episode]] has Ted meeting the Mother's roommate and getting a lot of, still vague, information on her) but still had to keep things flexible because now they weren't sure ''when they were ending.''
* Parodied in a ''Series/TheKidsInTheHall'' sketch, which warns the viewer that it was "written in haste," showing the writer frantically mashing a keyboard trying to finish it within the deadline. The scene is filled with nonsensical actions and garbled dialogue caused by the typos, such as a man taking off his "rubber boobs" and sitting down on a "chain."
* The late 1940s TV show ''Kukla, Fran and Ollie'' thrived on this. The show was completely unscripted and the actors ad-libbed everything on set.
%%Do not re-add ''Series/{{Lost}}''. Word of God has disproved this. Even if the exact details weren't planned out, the team worked out an end date of a sixth season during the production of season 3.
* ''Series/{{LOST}}'''s pilot and first six episodes were written with only the vaguest of long-term planning (i.e. "Locke will find a hatch sometime, and there's a science compound, and maybe we'll reveal [[spoiler:two gods were playing a game the whole time]].") because Creator/DamonLindelof admitted he didn't think [[{{Cancellation}} the show would last]]. He just cribbed the flashback structure from ''ComicBook/{{Watchmen}}'' and wrote whatever interested him while waiting for the cancellation notice. However, when the ratings came in, he teared up in exasperation and asked, "You mean we have to keep doing this every week?!" He put in a call to his old boss, Carlton Cuse, who came onboard after "Confidence Man" and helped him sketch out a very rough outline, but they soldiered through the rest of the first season by ad-libbing it, including the infamous "numbers". It wasn't until the summer break that they spent a month planning out the rest of the MythArc.
** Lampshaded in a "Weekend Update" skit from ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'', where Creator/AmyPoehler reported that ''Lost'' had been renewed for another two seasons.
--->'''Poehler''': When reached for comment, the writers of ''Lost'' said: "[[OhCrap Crap]]."
* In the original KTMA season of ''Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000'', the riffs were improvised rather than written. The films being mocked hadn't even been seen in their entirety in advance. In the Creator/ComedyCentral era, however, each film was carefully screened and written before its respective episode was recorded. The show became [[GrowingTheBeard better for it]].
** During the first season, movies weren't watched in their entirety until the actual writing process took place. They changed to pre-screening the whole film after viewing the violent rape scene in ''The Sidehackers''.
* ''Series/NYPDBlue'' was often written on set during filming due to head writer David Milch's drug use. "OK, you [Sipowitz] say this, and then you [Simone] say this in response." Actors wrote down their lines on scraps of paper in the squad room. Jimmy Smits and other actors quit over the hectic scheduling.
* The series finale of ''Series/ThePrisoner1967'' was written in a trailer over a weekend. Not surprising that it's one of the most infamous {{Mind Screw}}s in television history.
* ''Series/RedDwarf'':
** The Season VI finale "[[Recap/RedDwarfSeasonVIOutOfTime Out of Time]]" was extremely rushed, and in fact, on the night it was filmed before the live audience it still wasn't entirely complete, meaning the writers had to type the script directly onto autocues for the cast.
** Writer Doug Naylor repeatedly dithered over what the ending to Series VIII should be, having had to scrap his originally planned finale as the budget had run out. The ending they went with was so rushed the director had to step in to play a part using a costume nicked from another series; this replaced another ending in which the cast was purportedly in costume, ready to film when it was scrapped.
** Series X had all six scripts written and ready to go... but then the production found out they wouldn't be able to do any location filming (it being a choice between that and having a live audience for the studio records). Episodes 5 & 6 couldn't go ahead without the location filming, and they were both scrapped and had to be replaced with new episodes, written ''whilst the other four were being filmed''. Only half of the new episode 5, "[[Recap/RedDwarfSeasonXDearDave Dear Dave]]", was able to be filmed in front of an audience ''because that was all that had been written'', and they had to go back later, shoot new scenes with greenscreen and splice it all together. At the time the cast was being ''interviewed for the making-of documentary for the DVD'', they ''still'' weren't sure if they were going to be able to film everything.
*** To compound this, the ending of episode 4 required a chimp, who would be played by [[PantomimeAnimal an actor in a costume]]. Nobody realised that there were limits on how many hours he could work inside the chimp suit until the day of filming, meaning the original ending had to be thrown out and a new one written more or less on the spot.
* ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'' is well-known for this as well, particularly in regards to its earlier years, being broadcast live and all. Most famously, sometimes writers would hide under the "Weekend Update" desk and hand new jokes to Creator/ChevyChase on the air.
* A relatively small point: [[SuddenlyEthnicity declaring Elaine not to be Jewish]] in ''Series/{{Seinfeld}}'' was something Creator/LarryDavid or Creator/JerrySeinfeld or ''someone'' had literally just thought of when the opportunity came to write about "[[ShiksaGoddess Shiksappeal]]". She had previously been considered by the writers and inferred by the audience to be Jewish (after all, Creator/JuliaLouisDreyfus herself is Jewish).
* ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'': The famous cliffhanger at the end of "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS3E26S4E1TheBestOfBothWorlds The Best of Both Worlds]] Part I" was due to the writers not knowing if Creator/PatrickStewart would return as Picard or not, forcing them to pause there and wait to write Part II by the seat of the pants once they found out about Stewart. Amusingly, Michael Piller, who wrote the finished script, had also decided to leave the show, and thought it was quite funny that he would be leaving the resolution to somebody else... and then he decided to stay on too, and suddenly had to come up with a resolution himself! Luckily, this turned out extremely well and the two-parter is still considered one of the entire ''Trek'' franchise's all-time greatest moments. [[FranchiseOriginalSin Not so luckily]], this encouraged the writers to ''keep on doing it'' at the end of each season on every ''Trek'' show from then on, which naturally had increasingly diminishing returns.
* InUniverse in a couple of episodes of ''Series/StarTrekVoyager'' about [[LeaningOnTheFourthWall the writing process]]. In "[[Recap/StarTrekVoyagerS3E24WorstCaseScenario Worst Case Scenario]]" Tom Paris and Tuvok are writing a holodeck program and argue over whether it's better to thoroughly plan out a story or make it up on the fly. In "[[Recap/StarTrekVoyagerS6E22Muse Muse]]", a playwright from a Bronze Age culture is writing a play based on the [[CaptainsLog log]] of a crashed Voyager shuttle. He only has a week to do so, and the [[TheShowMustGoWrong ending isn't even written by performance night]].
* ''Series/{{Supernatural}}'': The writers were pretty open about their habit of throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what stuck. If fans reacted badly to plots or characters, they would often, for better or worse, change course.
** Creator Creator/EricKripke had a plan for the ending of Season 3 which was derailed by a writers' strike which cut the season short. This led to the season ending with a massive cliffhanger, [[spoiler: Dean dying and going to Hell.]] Kripke had an arc planned that would have had Sam save his brother, but there was no time to set it up. So, Season 4 introduced [[spoiler: the concept of angels, and specifically, Castiel, the angel who pulled Dean from Hell. Prior to that, Kripke had been adamant that angels would not appear on the show even though there were demons. Season 4 gave us the angels and made them Old Testament-style "dicks" who didn't care much for humans.]]
** After revamping the mythology to include angels, the writers created a female love interest for Dean who was a FallenAngel, but audiences didn't warm to the character. So, they [[spoiler: scrapped that character and gave most of her arc to Castiel, who did not die as planned.]] This led to creating an entire backstory for Castiel's vessel as well as making him Dean's NotLoveInterest. Or maybe his [[https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/HoYay/Supernatural Not Not Love Interest]]. They also retconned stuff from earlier seasons, such as making [[spoiler: The Trickster really the archangel Gabriel.]]
** Season 5 had been planned to be the end of the show, so Season 6 had to undo the finality of the previous season. Sam returned from Hell [[spoiler: soulless]] but that whole arc was scrapped mid-season and as a replacement, [[spoiler: Castiel became the BigBad.]]
** The whole Leviathan arc was a last-minute replacement in Season 7 because the war between Heaven and Hell that was planned was either too expensive or wasn't working on the page, depending on who you talk to.
** Season 10 was thought to be the end for the show, then it was renewed, so halfway through that Season, the entire Mark of Cain story changes.
* Creator/DavidLynch and Mark Frost [[WordOfGod has admitted]] that they started writing ''Series/TwinPeaks'' not knowing who had killed Laura Palmer.
** The series has many examples of ThrowItIn and such but the identity of the killer wasn't meant to be revealed in the first place and happened only because of [[ExecutiveMeddling the network forcing Lynch and Frost's hands]]. This, of course, doesn't make it any less this trope, or rather it could be considered an even better example.
** After revealing who killed Laura Palmer they didn't have a clear idea how to keep Agent Cooper in the series, and with Lynch busy on over projects, the writers struggled throughout much of series two for the show to have a focus.
* Aaron Sorkin does this. There's a story that when he was writing ''Series/TheWestWing'', he needed President Bartlet to be lying in bed for a scene -- and so gave the character ''multiple sclerosis.''
** Matt, his partial AuthorAvatar, does this in-universe in ''Series/Studio60OnTheSunsetStrip''.
* ''Series/TheXFiles'': While the series' MythArc is known for suffering from TheChrisCarterEffect, making it this, the trope is in effect in a number of MonsterOfTheWeek episodes as well, as many times, the solution to the current mystery contradicts the established evidence or fails to explain some of the events that unfolded, leaving them as [[BigLippedAlligatorMoment Big Lipped Alligator Moments]].
!!!'''Specials:'''
* When Music/DavidBowie came in to tape his unlikely guest appearance on Music/BingCrosby's ''Merrie Olde Christmas'' TV special in 1977, the script called for Bowie and Crosby to duet on "The Little Drummer Boy". Bowie said he hated that song and refused to do it. Caught in a jam, the show's writers took a 90-minute break and wrote a new song called "Peace on Earth" for Bowie to sing in counterpoint while Crosby sang "Drummer Boy". After less than an hour of rehearsal, Bowie and Crosby taped the final piece that became a classic.
[[/folder]]

* Music/KurtCobain felt lyrics were less important and would often write or change the lyrics for {{Music/Nirvana}} songs at the last minute. On the other hand, he spent a long time on the music itself, especially the melodies.