How does everyone go about building their story? I know it's different for everyone, but I'm looking for possible ideas on work flow. I used to use the sit down and write a story method, no outline, no planning other than my thoughts. That worked great for short stories and the like, however I started work on a longer story and I find it's very easy to write yourself into corners or just get bored when you run out of that initial "idea high".
I'm trying out a new method at the moment. I wrote a paragraph synopsis about where I want the story to begin then I wrote another paragraph of where I want the story to end. I am now going through and writing a brief synopsis of each of the chapters. I did the major turning point in the story chapters first and now I am doing the "getting from one point to the next" chapters. This seems to be a bit better fro me as I am constantly changing from one scene to the next, not feeling forced to spend too much time on a scene. I plan to continually expand each chapter a bit at a time, turning the one paragraph into two. Building the story from the inside out I guess. At the end of the phase I should have a decent first draft to work with, the writing all chapters simultaneously seems to help me keep track of everything better.
My question is this, is there a better way? I get too distracted if I start world building, so I try to keep the building in an as needed status(but once something is put in it becomes permanent for consistency). If I do an outline I loose interest in the story quickly(I know what I'm doing now is basically outlining, but it feels different). I would really like to be able to finish without loosing interest in the story, because it seems that once that happens the writing becomes bland and dry.
Anyway, thanks in advance for any responses.
I'm trying out a new method at the moment. I wrote a paragraph synopsis about where I want the story to begin then I wrote another paragraph of where I want the story to end. I am now going through and writing a brief synopsis of each of the chapters. I did the major turning point in the story chapters first and now I am doing the "getting from one point to the next" chapters. This seems to be a bit better fro me as I am constantly changing from one scene to the next, not feeling forced to spend too much time on a scene. I plan to continually expand each chapter a bit at a time, turning the one paragraph into two. Building the story from the inside out I guess. At the end of the phase I should have a decent first draft to work with, the writing all chapters simultaneously seems to help me keep track of everything better.
My question is this, is there a better way? I get too distracted if I start world building, so I try to keep the building in an as needed status(but once something is put in it becomes permanent for consistency). If I do an outline I loose interest in the story quickly(I know what I'm doing now is basically outlining, but it feels different). I would really like to be able to finish without loosing interest in the story, because it seems that once that happens the writing becomes bland and dry.
Anyway, thanks in advance for any responses.