Story/Series Planning! (ft. Beta Bully) (Patreon)

This is what my story/series plans look like! (With spoilers redacted, of course 😉 )

When I come up with a story it usually starts as an info dump. I have a whole folder of word docs that are all just info dumps, scraps of dialogue, etc.

I then take all of the notes/bits that I have accumulated and start squeezing them into this structure that I use for all of my story plans:

TITLE

This one is self-explanatory, but sometimes I put a few different title ideas, or keywords up there.

WORD COUNT

I track my word count every day, so I have a word count section on every story plan.

SUMMARY

This is the summary that I will use on public platforms. This usually gets filled in last.

CHARACTER NOTES

SETTING NOTES

These are both kind of obvious but it makes my life so much easier to keep notes on everything about the people and places!

OUTLINE

My outlines don't often read as what most might consider an outline, because sometimes they are very long! But this is where I dump all of the things that I want to happen. Sometimes I fit a whole plotline into one sentence and sometimes I'll detail a whole scene because there's specific actions I want the characters to take.

STORY

This is where all the chunks of usable content are stuffed! I continue to dump bits of dialogue and small scenes here even while I'm writing other chapters, that way I can use them in the future!

Not all of the headings have to have anything under them if it doesn't fit, like I didn't feel the need to keep setting notes for Beta Bully when there are only  four main locations in the story: School -> Darcy's Pack -> Luca/Luna's Pack -> Nature Reserve

All of my stories are laid out the same way once they graduate from infodump to the planning stage and I keep this plan open until the last chapter is finished 😊

I'll be making some more behind-the-scenes posts at some point because I love rambling about how I make my stories. The only thing I don't always know is where they come from!