Throwing stuff in

Has anyone here been tempted throw a whole bunch of stuff in your story just because it's cool/funny or anything like that? Has anyone actually did? I'm very tempted to do so.

EDIT: Grammar mistake, fixed.

edited 17th Nov '11 4:29:39 PM by dRoy

I did.

It all sucked.

I prefer careful planning.

All the time. I have a very "on the fly" style of writing. I outline major events in my story, and a few minor ones, but in between all that stuff, I just write whatever comes to mind. It's kind of like improv, and I've ended up with some really fun stuff because of it. There were times, while writing, that an idea will pop into my head, and I write it out, but it completely alters the progression of the story, or the role of a character. And a lot of the times, what I come up with at the spur of the moment is a lot better than what I had originally planned. I've learned to just trust my instinct. It's a lot harder for me to resist throwing something into a story if I thought it was cool or funny.

I'm really with Mr AHR here, even though I'm big on letting things go off the rails - it rarely is a good idea to just make stuff up on the spot. One reason why I do so much worldbuilding before I ever write anything is so that if I do go Off the Rails, I won't simply be making things up on the spot.

I do it de facto.

My method:

1. Outline major plot points and important scenes that must be had for the story to make sense.

2. Wing it in between these points.

3. Revise heavily.

4. ???*

5. Profit*

edited 17th Nov '11 10:07:35 AM by Sidewinder

I kinda go for a combination of careful planning and on-the-fly. I plan out major events, usually, but small things like jokes and the occasional tiny sub-plot will crop up out of nowhere. I've even had one or two characters appear unannounced before.

Yep, especially if the setting or current event is pretty boring. Obviously I think ahead to make sure this won't totally destroy another plot point I have to make, but otherwise, "throwing stuff in" is a nice way for me to keep my writing alive.

Yeah, I do it all the time. Mostly because when I say I have a story planned, most of the time I mean I have four scenes out of a hundred thought out. So yeah, it tends to happen a lot.

I do it all the time. Usually I have the basic scene thought out, and then think of somethign cool that could happen during the scene (usually it happens during fight scenes, where I might end up rewriting it multiple times since I got new idea on how the fight choreography could go).

This is pretty much how the entirety of Terrible Things Happen to Akane was written.

Depends upon how you mean it. If you mean inserting ideas that I think of on the fly because I realise that they could add something to the story (or at least would logically emerge from the topic at hand), then yes, definitely; if you mean simply throwing things in without considering how they will effect the story, not so much, though it sometimes happens if I want to see where something could go.

Let's say I stray often from my outline, to the point of changing the entire story by promoting a character into the core cast.

Get out of here, you horrible Gundam SEED Destiny writer.

edited 18th Dec '11 1:10:49 PM by BetsyandtheFiveAvengers

Since I write without outlines or the like, it's possible all of this could be thought so. I have a list of things I want to convey, but the details are undefined.

Thought of it, did it, made most of it work in the context of the work. Sometimes I detest careful planning because it severely curbs what I can do with my natural ability to connect plot and world build. If I plan too much, I pidgeonhole myself into a corner where I am neither using my potential nor writing something that I'll consider very good in the end.

In my opinion it's better to just have the absolute bare bones basics for a scene, chapter, episode, etc. and freely write around that than methodically plan every little detail, every little line of dialogue, every moment of action.

This, except I have a pornographic memory, so more things are defined in my case.

Don't believe me about the photographic memory? Who else would remember a throwaway line from a 15-year-old show?

...everyone? We all have dozens of throwaway lines that have been stuck in our minds for whatever reason.

Chalk me up as someone who doesn't do this. I improvise to a great extent, but I try to build off of what's already in the story. (For instance, when I realized that I'd never set up why two characters loved each other, I included an argument in which one of them accuses the other of using her as a Replacement Goldfish.)

Anything I put in a story has to do more than one thing. A scene or piece of dialogue can't just be 'cool' or 'funny', it also has to either A) Progress the plot or B) reveal something about a character. If it doesn't do one of those things, I usually end up cutting it, because when it comes down to it, it's usually better without it and I ramble as it is, I do not need the added word count.

As for concepts or objects or things...never. When it comes to that crap, I Kill It with Fire. That stuff is cancerous and just distracts from the actual story and characters.

Uh, yeah. I only really have a major outline, and then everything else happens by, err, "flowing". Letting the world live its life and me picking out which parts to write about.

Though it helps that I write only for fun and not for any desire to publish or something.