Avoiding mid-brainstorm burnout

There is this problem that I run into a lot, and I don't know how common it is. Nonetheless, I get a feeling some people will relate to it.

I have a tendency to come up with amazing ideas, but they all seem to die while I'm in the process of planning them. Most of the time it is because I focus a bit too much on the setting or characterization, and too little on the actual plot. Very frequently, I spend a lot of time thinking about the story, and coming up with a lot of great ideas, but all of them are merely this - ideas. Eventually, I come to realize that the whole thing is already horribly convoluted and I didnt even start writing anything, and I drop the project. Do you have any advice on how to avoid this?

I can relate a bit- every time I've tried to outline a story before writing, I get impatient and wonder why the hell I'm doing this when I could be writing the actual story, and if I force myself to keep outlining anyways, I get bored by the story and no longer want to bother with it. So when I start writing a story, I know where it starts, how I want it to end, and a few events in the middle, and I figure out the rest as I write. I specifically do not outline anything in my notes until I've already written it, more so that I can keep track of the details and subplots, and as I write, I don't plan in any great detail more than 1-2 chapters out. I find it gives me just enough structure to keep the story sensible while still allowing the flexibility to discover subplots and characterization along the way.

Maybe you might benefit from less planning. Once you know where it starts and ends, just dive in and start writing. You could also try writing it out of order, just writing the scenes as they come to you, and then connect them together later. Every writer and artist has their own preferred method for creating, and it doesn't really matter what it is as long as it produces results they and their audience of choice are happy with; you just haven't found yours yet.

Maybe you're a pantser, like me. That means Writing by the Seat of Your Pants — without spending too much, if any, time plotting things beforehand

I see. There is just one more issue.

If I take the "pantsing approach" I feel like I still havent fleshed out a lot in my main core idea in a meaningful fashion. First, I have planned a premise, but not a plot. I have planned a Five-Man Band-esque dynamic between the MCs within my story (but the group rarely fully assembles), but I still have trouble with balancing their technical/social roles well and not making either a spotlight-stealer. And, of course, I still don't have an antagonist.

A lot of possibilities open before me. Maybe I should take the Adventure Time route and write random episodic fluff until I'm comfortable writing an actual big plot? Maybe I should just let Characterization March On? Sometimes I feel like I'm not experienced enough with storytelling to actually write like this.

At the end of the day, I just dont want to bore the reader shatter their Willing Suspension of Disbelief, or lose my own will to write, like I did with so many of my previous unpublished works.

That can be part of pantsing, I feel: discovering the plot as you go.

Further, things like balance between the characters can to some degree be achieved in editing passes, once you (hopefully) have a better feel for the characters and the plot.

You could, indeed—that might be a nice way to practice.

It's a little like game-development, where the common advice that I've seen is to start with small projects: simple, short things that can be finished in relatively short order.

These, I think, provide the advantage of "quick wins" by which to help build confidence, as well as introducing oneself to the art via likely-more-manageable bite-sized projects.

As long as it doesn't become a trap in itself—a "safe place" from which you hesitate to venture out into more-challenging vistas.

The thing is, the way to become experienced is, well, to write! To try—and maybe fail sometimes—and to improve through the practice of it.

I said "and maybe fail sometimes"—and this is perhaps important: it's okay to not be good at the craft at first, I daresay. Writing is a skill, and skills take practice, and thus tend to be poorly-done at first.

Allowing yourself to fall is part of learning to walk.

That's very fair, I do think!

And to my mind, the fact that these things happened with previous works is an argument in favour of trying a new approach: the old way is perhaps not working out, so it's time to seek out a new way. To give pantsing a shot and see how it works for you!

(Signed: Another pantser. ^_^)

Edited by ArsThaumaturgis on Apr 17th 2023 at 12:47:47 PM

Yeah, a lot of times as long as I have a general concept and a few character ideas, I can discover the plot just by following the characters around and making things up as I go. My stories may end up a bit over-ambitious at times, and it may be harder to overcome walls, but it's fun to uncover the story as you're writing it.

In these situations, I sometimes just pause writing until I get some ideas back. Or do a bit of exposition/characterization work in the meantime. I am not of the school of writing that says that everything must tie in on the main plot.

I have uploaded almost 600 chapters of my webnovel, each chapter roughly about 7, 8 pages on Word Document for almost two years.

Honestly, sometimes it's all about going "Fuck it" and make whatever BS up as you go just to fill the required pages...and hope that you have enough readers who are willing to go along with it.

At least, that's just my experience. -shrugs-

Edited by dRoy on Apr 19th 2023 at 10:25:31 PM