WriYe - Planning part 1

What's your favorite planning method? Do you prefer to plot by hand or use the computer? What part of planning do you hate the absolute most? Or do you hate all of planning and you'd rather pants your novels? Why?

Sometimes I will go off without a master plan... Actually quite often I go off without a master plan... But usually I'll have some sort of plan even if it's just a very basic outline of a character and a challenge for them to overcome.

I actually really enjoy the planning stage and find that because of the way I go about it, it usually merges very easily into the writing of the story. I don't usually use paper notes and I haven't really got my head around the specialist story-writing software, so most of my planning is done in Word, which is where I write the vast majority of my stories. I start with an idea, then flesh that out a bit, then take each bit of that and flesh that out, and usually while I'm doing that I'll write one or two scenes that jump out at me. When I'm developing characters I usually find myself writing a scene as well so that I get their voice fixed in my head. The scene might not make it into the finished story, but quite often at least some bits of it do.

So the short answer is I love planning, there's nothing about it I hate, and although sometimes I do pants it, I'm much more of a planner.

WriYe - Planning part 2