How do you write/plan a good story?

[Rifzter]

I want to try my hand at writing a novel on Tapas, specifically an action themed one, and would like to know about the best way to go about this. I feel kinda dumb asking this since I've already got a comic going on but I'll be honest, my process for that was just to make a loose storyline and sort of freestyle the episodes along the way.

Do you plan out a vague beginning, middle, end and just start typing away? Or do you perhaps make more intricate notes, like planning each chapter? Any other tips? I feel it very overwhelming staring at a blank page and trying to world build, synthesise characters and their whole backstory along with devising a plot all at the same time.

[RainbowCat]

My first advice is that you should find the right way for you. That is so important! I had so many people tell me that the way I write/plan is wrong that I got discouraged and stopped writing for 2 years. So, look at how others do it but do what works for you

I mostly write without planning. I have a general idea where I want the story to go and what the characters are like, maybe some scenes that I really want to see in my story but that's all. For my last novel, I ended up with an ending that I had said I don't want when I started writing the story It just fits so well that I had to go that direction in the end.
The novel I'm working on now is a fantasy novel, so I wrote down some very basic notes about what the world looks like. Then I started writing and whenever I can't continue writing for whatever reason, I reread the previous chapters and take notes about what I've found out about the characters and the world they live in.
When I get good ideas for future scenes, I write them at the end of my current text in brackets (if they are scenes happening soon) or I take notes somewhere else to come back to when I think it's the right time.
That method works really well for me and gives me the freedom I need. I hope I explained it well enough

[cherrystark]

The best way to plan a story depends on how your brain works. I hate doing outlines because I either loose interest in the story once I finish the "paperwork" or I go off script. If making and keeping to a strict set of notes works better for you, do it. If you prefer to freestyle and figure things out as you go, do that. It's completely up to you.

[Watchout]

I hope my advice can give you ideas on handling your story and future ones.

First, consider what kind of story you would like and go from there.

Its fine to make stuff up as you go, I do too. Just make sure you implement that stuff into the story as smooth as you can. Don't just randomly add something with no context.

I have a very action-heavy story with lots of plot points, so I forget many of them. To help with that, I review my current chapters, envision what I want from my story, and foreshadow things early on.

I also have a 30+ page Google doc that I update all the time, holding important information and events that have happened or I plan to happen. This Google doc also has character descriptions, powers of each character, description of their personality/ character, and what I plan to do with said characters.

It's also essential to have good descriptions of what is going on(especially if it's a novel like for me). I take characters from media I like, put them in my story, and put a twist on them.

For comics, make sure to have clean and clear art so the reader knows what's happening.

Also, don't forget that you can go back to old chapters and update them to add more to your story; I do this all the time and am not ashamed to say so. That's the benefit of this website; you can always go back and add/ change your story.

Don't be afraid to use other works as inspiration. I am guilty of this and am heavily inspired by many forms of media, whether the games I play, books/manga/novels/webtoons/light novels, anime/tv shows/movies, or even daily occurrences.

Here's a list of media I am inspired by to create my novel:
Berserk(Inspiration to dark souls, bloodborne, sekiro, Elden Ring, and many more games and media)
Destiny( A franchise made by Bungie, who created Halo, one of the most successful gaming franchises of all time)
Jujustu Kasien
Bleach
Greek mythology
Spectrobes(a game franchise from the ds era)
The Bible

[BoomerZ]

Professional quality work needs professional quality planning. Just writing as you go is setting yourself to write yourself into a corner. Planning everything out to the letter can lead to being bored when it comes to actually writing it. That happy middle ground is a plan of where you want to start, the main beats you want to hit in the story, and the ending. These should be written down. This way you know where you are going and the story will make progress to the end. But this also leaves open enough room to have things pop up you want to include in the story. But you won't risk going in the wrong direction as you know where you are heading. Writing as you go is like straight ahead animation. Your image gets distorted before you even realize it. It's why studios and writers rarely just draw/write as they go.

[river121693]

Personally, planning around character arcs is probably the best and easiest way. What is your character and what change do you want them to have? Things like the settings, plot, conflict, are more malleable and can be built around this.

I planned the general plot out for my story because it's a fantasy epic. I started with a very loose concept (memory that can be shared), and a character arc (someone who's learning what solidarity means), and synthesize the two. The result is: They start with having some painful memory, and end with realizing that it's ok to let go of painful memory. I do a few of that for my side characters. The rest is just some creative theming and world building.

I edit my plot summary document like, every week, because I have new ideas for how things should go as I get to know my characters more or as feel certain plot points are redundant, but I don't think my character arc itself has every changed.

[Hoku_1]

I also just recently started writing so maybe my advice can help you.
To start off I made a separate notebook in which I wrote about the back story of the novel. Since I'm writing a fantasy novel it is extremely important. I wrote about royalty, power levels, important figures, currency, etc. I also made an auxiliary chapter for readers to understand.

So mostly your first few chapters of the novel are about your MC and his introduction. Like what he is doing? how did he end up doing that? In my novel's case, it was about the MC transmigrating and getting used to the new world or his powers, etc.

Next, you need to know what conflict or struggle you are going to put in the MC's way. Then you start slowly progressing towards that conflict, like leading towards that. It may be best you start planning out the ending of the novel, like how it would end and why it would end like that. If you know the ending it will ease a lot of your stress. I also have a notebook where I list all the major events that will happen in the novel to reach the ending. Then i know what goal i can lead the mc to. Basically then I have the chapters planned.

I also plan my chapters every day before writing them, and my chapters are usually like 800-1000 words. They're bite-sized and easy to read. I also recommend you don't cramp a lot of text in a paragraph. Break the text apart because it can be intimidating to read that much (Refer to the attachment). I talk from experience since I used to read comics and switched to light novels. I didn't want to read a lot of text, I could easily read the ones which weren't cramped. Anyways, after i know the overview of the chapter. I start writing the chapter like start imagining the scene in my head as I write. Which makes it easier for me to be descriptive. I suck at being descriptive and I can smoothly write dialogues which I think some people struggle with. Sometimes I get new ideas while waiting for the chapter which is the opposite of the chapter planning I did beforehand but it doesn't matter because I go with my instinct and write the chapter with the new ideas. You don't have to follow the chapter planning by heart.

I also recommend you set up a writing schedule for your subscribers and yourself since it would be easier to write that way. For me, i take an hour out of every day and type up my chapter quickly. It doesn't take me a lot of time since I have my chapters planned already. Another tip is that whenever you're writing a chapter and when you finish it; finish it with a cliffhanger because it helps you to know what should happen in the next chapter and it makes the reader want more if the cliffhanger is nicely done.

That said, these tips are from my point of view and my writing style. I still have trouble with being descriptive. So I recommend you look at other novels to see their writing style and start writing that's how I started out. Another tip is to choose your point of view of the story because each one has its pros and cons. You can research that.

Read My Clinic In Another World :: Urgent Patient - Jake (Part 1) | Tapas Novels

DISCLAIMER: This is not a promotion. I am attaching this here because I thought you might want to see my writing style before you read my advice. The advice I gave about cramming too much text into the chapter, you can refer to this chapter for that. If not then inform me so I can remove this attachment.

[DokiDokiTsuna]

People have already given lots of great advice, so I'll just address this part:

I feel it very overwhelming staring at a blank page and trying to world build, synthesise characters and their whole backstory along with devising a plot all at the same time.

I think when you're in a spot like that, whether you're a pantser or a plotter or anything in between, the best thing you can do is just write. Whatever you feel like writing in that moment: a basic outline for whatever storyline comes next, an interesting scene you're looking forward to (even if it's "too early"), a character profile, a little worldbuilding essay. Anything your heart desires, whether it takes 5 minutes or 5 hours.

No matter what it is, it'll make it easier to sit down and write next time, because it'll give you something to think about. If you wrote something icky and bad (which happens...) you'll have something to fix. If you wrote something informative, like the character profile or worldbuilding, you can use it to edit prior work, or write something totally new about that character/world element now that you've laid out your thoughts on it.

Basically, the easiest way to rid yourself of the pressure of staring at a blank page is to do something, anything, to make it not blank anymore. ^^

[darthmongoose]

I tend to get bogged down in small details, and may struggle if my notes are too linear and find it restrictive and that I lose sight of the overall shape of the story, so I find it easier to plan things out on a virtual (or real) board (or even a bit of wall will do) and post-it notes (or virtual ones). I start by putting in the big story events that need to happen. Personally, I use the Save the Cat beats as a starting point. Some people don't like them, but personally I think they're only bad if you get too rigid about how you execute them, and you fail to sow the seeds that will lead to each beat beforehand so it comes out of nowhere mechanically.

I think ahead about what will happen, and then I work backwards and I think about all the things I need to set up to make the things that happen feel like a natural conclusion.

So with Errant, it's a story about a girl whose mentor/crush becomes a tyrant king by drawing excalibur and she chooses to become one of his knights and then years later, she has to try to fix this messy problem she's caused.
And so in the first chapter, that meant I had to set up things like:

• Introduce the protagonist, and get across her feelings of inadequacy and her teenage crush on this asshole guy so that when she makes the bad decision, it makes sense why she did it.
• Introduce the villain and show that he's a dick, but also charming enough you can see how a teenage girl might not see the red flags.
• Introduce that Excalibur is a thing, drawing it makes you monarch, and that it's kind of bad.
• Put the characters in a situation where there's an opportunity for Excalibur to get drawn.

If you do it like this, it becomes a bit easier, because then you can just start building out scenes that establish each of the pieces that will need to be in certain places, or known to the audience for the scene to play out. So write "The protagonist runs away from a giant spider!" as your chapter climax first... and then go back like "Okay, in an earlier chapter, I should establish that the protagonist is scared of spiders, maybe have a scene where they're freaked out by a spider in the bath, or they get spooked when a little one lands on them" and "Earlier in the spider chase chapter, somebody should remark on all the cobwebs in passing, maybe make it like a joke about the place needing dusting, so that the payoff is set up, but not too obviously."

[Lensing]

Here is my approach / thought about this.
I write and draw exactly what I wish other people would write or draw.

I´m a songwriter and it´s exactly the same for me. When I don´t constantly
think that this is the hottest shit then it is not the hottest shit. I write the songs
that I would love to hear. Always depends on what song I write it has to make
people dance or cry or whatever.

Be passionate about the things that you create. When you write something and
you are not 100% sucked into / obsessed with the story then how will someone
else love your story?

[ShidoDraws]

I actually learned through making comic scripts that it is easier to write a novel after writing the script. So think of it like writing a script for a movie, show or comic. Whatever it is, then just turn it into a novel, the details will come naturally. I did it with the current comic I made and I am very much satisfied with the writing. I just won't be able to publish it since people might very much prefer the comic over it. lol

Something I do back then is make an illustration for an arc/scene, then write the story leading up to it but this is kind of tricky because sometimes it can lead to writing plot holes. I think it is a good technique but tricky but maybe not. Who knows. I kind of don't write novels as much as i used to since I started writing for my comic so it's difficult to say what works, honestly.

[toonben]

The way I write my stories. I wrote the synopsis, full treatment, page breakdown, and then the script. I'll rewrite the script endless amount of times until I'm happy with it before I send to be edited. I tend to prefer a finished script before I draw the comic so I don't have to any changes or little.

[GodbreakerComic]

The main thing to me is give your protagonist(s) agency. There are alot of ways to tell an effective story, but make sure your hero isnt just being told to do a thing, rather they WANT/NEED to do a thing.

[Katzalcoatl]

If it is your first time writting a novel I don't recommend you jump straight into action. I would suggest starting with a simple slice-of-life or fantasy setting with few actions here and there.

After getting some practice you can then move to a more heavy action story.

The main reason I suggest this is because heavy action themes require way more succinctly and eloquent sentences than a story with less action moments.

I have written multiple genres so I can tell you with personal experience how hard a heavy action story is to write. It's way different writing an action novel than doing an action comic. The main difficulty in action heavy novels is that you have to think of 20 distinct and elegant ways to write "and (s)he punched the enemy".

A reader can be easily bored with your action scenes if you keep expressing them in similar ways. For now I would suggest you start a novel with limited action or you can instead do multiple one shots of heavy action to get some practice done.

P.S. if you are a veteran novel writer then you can ignore my advice since you probably have enough practice.

[InTheEndlessMidnight]

I think it largely depends, I would say probably look up a guide / blog posts on how to write action scenes for some general guidelines such as this. But they do really take a long time to get good at, any writing does. I don't plan but I do things sequentially, one by one, since if I don't it's often a mess, I do have a vague idea of where it goes, and then I slowly whittle down the beginning to when most of the things happen that would be important and crucial, before going from there. I think having an ending in mind is often a lot more helpful if it's more freestyle.

Also, I think if you're staring at it, while trying to worldbuild simultaneously and write, I would say do the world-building documents first, or whatever makes it easiest on you to get something on the page. It doesn't have to be good either, most first drafts suck, and mine as well, it just that I often take whatever that's there and edit / rewrite it into something more useful. Most importantly, is getting over the hurdle to write something.