From what I've seen, many writers on this site are already pretty good at developing basic plot, but I would still like to offer you the chance to read over strategies and exercises that I've found helpful over the years. Also, while a story may have the perfect plot and character development, they can still be dropped off the writer's update list for weeks, months, even years at a time, perhaps never to be continued or, sadly, deleted from the internet entirely. On that note, with personal experience on my side, I'd like to discuss reasons why such a thing can happen and ways on avoiding it. If you have a question, please ask it and I'll answer you personally before mingling the answer into this forum. ^_^

Designing The Plot
The word 'plot' will have a basic definition if you look it up. There are different grades and depths of plot though, and a variety of techniques available to render your plot down certain paths which can go uphill, downhill, switchback, or just fork in the road (which is usually where maintaining the plot becomes helpful).

As far as I see it, plot can be graded in complexity and predict reader appreciation depending on its core nature. Going by my definitions and word choices, the six plots include the simple plot, the basic plot, the thoughtful plot, the detailed plot, the complex plot, and finally the complete plot. This is how I grade plot, and it by no means rates the quality of a story, simply offers a way to classify the nature of it. The way I classify them is by first placing the story in one of three categories (no character development, character development independent on plot, and character development dependent on plot and vice verse), then grading its complexity based on the presence of story sections (beginning, middle and end) and frequency of plot reflection and stability. After those two steps, you get my list:
1. Simple Plot- This plot will not have much growth, and therefore has only the beginning and the ending. This style of plot is normally seen with gag-fiction, or one-shots designed around one moment in time, typically to give the reader something to giggle over. It is a one reaction (from reader), no character development plot, and I have read quite a few which were quite entertaining.
2. Basic Plot- This is a plot with a beginning, middle and ending, and is quite common for one-shots. The nature of this plot involves a setting being made, things happening within that setting which may or may not affect character development, followed by an ending that does not have to directly associate with the initially given plot. Many chapter stories rely on basic plot, and normally it provides readers with a fun and easy-going story.
3. Thoughtful Plot- This is a plot with a beginning that effects the ending. Some highly appreciated one shots fall under this category (notice the lack of a middle for this one), but it is also found used in stories without many chapters. What I mean by the beginning affecting the ending here (cleanly separating this from the first two) is implying the use of either 'cause and effect' or 'hint turns into expanded revelation'. In some fics under this category something interesting happens in the beginning and renders something to happen in the ending (cause and effect), and others will grasp the reader, hint at little things, then at the end add those hints together to complete a puzzle that the reader never really knew was there, a rare effect which takes the reader by pleasant surprise.
4. Detailed Plot- Are plots which add hints to the ending throughout the beginning and middle. Basically, the same as a thoughtful plot but longer lasting and usually dragged out and developed through several chapters, which creates a middle to the story.
5. Complex Plot- This is the plot which develops throughout the story and evolves. What I mean by it 'evolves' is that it starts off as one concept then naturally develops into a new complex which is based off of its old self. For instance, you can have a story which starts off with the obvious plot being that Sesshomaru has to put up with Kagome and her antics to achieve the means to an end, but then the plot may 'evolve' when that means to an end is either achieved or impossible to achieve, forcing the plot to continue and alter if you have loose ends hanging around.
6. Complete Plot- This is the final plot form in my eyes. It is the same as the complex plot initially, but the complete plot keeps facts straight, re-uses and develops them, defines itself time and time again with different events, and in the end validates itself wholly and, well, completely. If you have read an epic, a fanfic which never dies in popularity nor wavers in quality, you have most likely witnessed the use of complete plot. This plot style is highly desired by readers for its complexity and depth, but it is also the most difficult to achieve as a writer (in part because a writer usually grows in skill in this provided order [1-6]). For most writers, it is very difficult to repeatedly step outside of the flow of the story, consider the progress it's made and the direction in which it's going, and make changes to abide to the plot's development. There is certainly no harm in creating goofy scenes without much meaning aside from the 'aw' factor, but each chapter in a complete plot story should overall revolve around the plot and fuel it forward.

So, these are the types of plot as I see them and how I define them. Their definitions serve as well to give a fill-in-the-blank approach to the type of plot you choose to pursue. Just keep in mind that if you 'rank' yourself at level four, that does not mean you are too good or too bad to pursue levels one or six, it simply establishes your comfort zone when you write, nothing more and nothing less. ^__^

Maintaining the Plot
I said before that I speak with experience in this. When I avidly wrote on fanfiction.net I developed a trilogy and had a very large following of readers who submitted several reviews, nominated my works, and to this day re-read the story to keep up with it as I update. As the story drew closer to the end though, I began falling victim to the common plight of fanfiction writers. My updates slipped, and I went for nearly two years without updating the story. Initially, I told myself that it was because of finals week in college, that I just needed some time away from the story, and that things would pick up again soon. Then a month went by, and I classified the slack as writer's block. Four months went by, and I told myself that I was just going through a phase after putting over a year into the trilogy. A year and a half passed before I realized what my problem was, and to some of you I am about to contradict the first half of this whole forum. I realized that I had overdeveloped the plot in my head.

Yes, I can make sense of that statement. While it's good to pursue details in a story and to make sure that it's as complicated as you desire, it is just as easy to overdevelop a plot as it is to make it underdeveloped. When it is underdeveloped, the reader can suffer. When it is overdeveloped, it's the writer who suffers. With both, the story suffers, and that's not good. Overdeveloping implies having too much detail and knowing the story too intimately to leave interesting gaps or tunnels for the writer to dig into and amuse themselves with while writing the remainder of a story. In this case, completing a story becomes more of a chore or like homework than it is a pleasure for the writer. On top of that, if this issue goes unrealized and the writer detaches themselves from the story, they risk becoming unfamiliar with the details they've added to the plot and therefore add another chore to the idea of updating: re-read your own work. Depending on the length of time between this tricky event and the original update of the work, the writer can encounter another obstacle and see their story as a grammatical embarrassment compared to their new work, meaning that they have to summon far too much will to even desire to continue with the project they started.

Complicated, isn't it? It is fairly common on fanfiction sites, and since realizing these flaws in myself I've decided on some good steps to take to get over this, or to even avoid it in the first place. The rest of this forum pertains to this last subject in terms of suggestions and short descriptions. Please feel free to offer your own input to this list and even to share your own writing experiences!

For prevention of writer's block:
Keep pursuing ideas, even if you're stuck on one story. If you keep your thoughts churning, a bit of gold may come out of the mud to help you through the difficult spot.

Try creative writing exercises you find online, which may include ranting as a certain character, or writing with a different style (such as swapping story mode for a bit of poetry), ramble-write for five minutes (where you type what comes to mind and can not delete), start recording dreams and fishing out one-shot material, change up the type of music you listen to- anything, and I haven't even tickled the surface.

Write out loud. Go ahead and record yourself if you can, but find a nice quiet room or some alone time and just start talking out loud to yourself. It always helps to act as a character you're working with, but just having fun with creativity in language is a great way to keep yourself going.

Adopt your character's personality for a day. I've been Sesshomaru for a day. It was very, very difficult, but I always laugh remembering how people stared at me differently because of the way I carried myself. Doing this really puts your mind into your character's, and gives you a realistic feel of how people perceive the character's skin (the part of them they can't physically change but wind up altering through behavior, sort of the 'first impression' element of a character).

To Overcome Writer's Block:
First,go over the prevention steps, since they are easier and usually have good results. For the more complicated moments in life though, like what I and many others went through, continue reading.

Don't stop writing. I can not stress this enough. Many people allow their passion to wither and die when they've gotten to such a large roadblock, and they may experience episodes of guilt for writing something new when they have to update out of moral obligation something they've been working on possibly for months already. If you refuse to allow your writer's creativity to shine though, you will find it difficult to get back onto the horse again and to keep your head above water in terms of updating things. In fact, you may even experience writer degeneration. Please, even if you don't upload what you write, keep writing new and interesting things even if you're just suffering from 'mere writer's block'.

Don't lose sight of what you want to do. A lot of people take the opinions of others to heart, and allow them to affect their writing. If you do this, the main plot you've developed in your head will be jeopardized, and eventually it may die without you even realizing it, creating a stagnation in your uploads and a refusal to grow with the same passion it once had.

Don't fear the readers. Sounds silly, right? I sure think so now, but a few months ago I nearly had a heart attack when I uploaded the first new chapter after over a year. The feeling was validated in part, with one review and few hits, and with a persistent, quiet blame whispering in my ear. Sometimes, facing people who once adored you, standing up on a dusty stage in the spotlight and offering an apology as well as something you've struggled so hard to put out onto the internet, is a scary feeling. While their reception of you may be justified, that doesn't mean you need to give it permission to affect your power to update or to be fine with it, and it doesn't mean you have to seek forgiveness, and it doesn't mean you have to, well, do anything really. Even if you think you're terrified, just go through with uploading your work and hit 'submit' with a sense of pride, no matter the outcome. If readers are mad, they would have the right to be, no? And that's fine. Just keep writing for them, and they'll come back to you. They did in the first place because of your writing, anyway, so just woo them back so you and your audience can both heal a little.


I will re-visit this later to fill in gaps and alter any grammar or spelling (it's 5am, I'm going to sleep, LOL). If you have questions or notice a lack, please comment asap (since I'm updating soon anyway). I'll get back to this in about ten hours, but in the meantime I hope that you have found some use for it. ^_^

~AD

Here's my dilemma: I write down any plots I come up with just on principle if I want to one day pursue it. I have no problem doing that and writing and/or typing out pages of plot. Yet, I can only type at most 3 chapters of a story before I just don't want to type anymore. The chapters are also relatively short (only about 1000 words), but I want each to serve a purpose and not have too much in them so it doesn't seem like 'this happens and then turn around and this happens'. I want it to have substance for the actions occurring. I write each chapter in one sitting so I don't go back later and try to change a lot about it or forget what exactly I wanted it to include. If I try to add to a previous chapter and make it longer or do the chapter over a span of days, it either never gets done or takes forever to get done, by which time, I don't want to post what I've written for it.

Now my questions:
1. What should I do when I just don't feel like typing/writing? I want to get the story out, but just don't feel like typing or writing it.

2. Am I unnecessarily worrying over having too much in a chapter or is it a valid concern?

3. Should I keep writing shorter chapters and leaving them as is, or should I try combining them to make it longer?

I have other questions, but apparently I'm not allowed to not pay attention to this kitten long enough to type them coherently...

Thank you for this post and answering my questions.

this is such a great forum post! thank you so much for it! *favorites*

Reply to Tsuki Ai:

I have a few friends who are also writers, and you remind me of one of them. It's safe to say though that everyone has their own quirks, perks and preferences when it comes to writing, and as a result they each encounter their own unique issues. By the sounds of it, you have a lot of plot seeds (this is what I call one or two pages of plot written down, creatively or just as straight facts for future events). These are perfectly normal, and I firmly believe that every good creative writer with a passion for the subject has them. They're littering my USB drive as well, and I find myself re-reading them and then just wondering where they're going, what they'll grow into and what they'll taste like when they're complete. Wondering about a story like this, from my experience, makes the task of planting the seed into a fiction story difficult, because if you are asking yourself such questions in the beginning that means that you're unsure as to how to cultivate the story and nurture it, which is a very difficult way to go about creating something all by yourself. From what I've seen many of these plot seeds don't come to fruition for a long time, for months or years even, so this is a perfectly normal "writer's curse".

Back to the friend I've mentioned, she's the sort who hates her plot seeds and wants them to "friggin' grow already!" as opposed to sit in the pot and gradually take root in her creativity. The only issues is, well, it's a seed, so you only get about three to five thousand words into it before blinking and wondering why it's not flowering like you want it to. Several things can hinder a plot seed's growth, including undeveloped plot, undeveloped characters, undeveloped complexity of plot- just a lot of undeveloped factors that a solid healthy plot feeds off of. As simplifying as it may sound (and hopefully not judgmental, because I get caught like this, too) you may be getting 'stuck' because you have so many great ideas for the story but they are either already halfway gone (used in the story), or they are hovering out of reach and you may find yourself with chapters already created and wondering "okay, I've got it started, but how am I going to connect D to M?". This is another common reason why plot seeds don't sprout easily, is when the plot feels to have a chasm in it. Not many writers can look at this chasm and say to themselves "okay, gotta build a bridge," because it's easier to walk around it while thinking of new material to pursue. Actually, many writers don't even see the chasm, which makes developing and loving the plot all the more difficult and frustrating.

Your writing preferences my also be hindering your plot development. If I were to tell myself to write a piece of work or a chapter in just one sitting, I would spare myself a migraine and go for simple plot, because aiming at complex or even complete plot while suppressing your options seems very, very difficult. Eh, I'll go ahead and say it, it seems impossible. My personal writing preference is to basically type until I feel satisfied, then go over and edit and insert tidbits as they come to mind, or delete as I need to, and perhaps write more for the update. The more you can edit your own work not only takes out chances for grammatical error, but it also exercises your use of plot and character development. I edit my work about four complete times before submitting it, and some sections within that work will get tweaked up to eight times before I'm satisfied. But, my friends have always called me an anal writer, too. I edit for the sake of maintaining and loving my plot, and as you edit plot develops and warps and sprouts idea leaves, turning into a little plant you can prune into a desired shape.

My friend still has her plot seeds, but she's discovered new exercises in approaching them. She'll try combining two or more into a new story, and try to use the combined fraction plots into something more whole to work with. She also tries to write within the constraint of the plot but makes the characters do something random, something that'll never be in the final story. It may sound odd, but when you do that your characters will talk to you on a personal level, and they can guide the plot into a direction you never thought of and wind up loving, and if you can LOVE it, you take pride in it, and you then WANT to post it and to hear what people have to say. When you want to exercise the plot, and when you want others to share in its unfolding, it is no longer a plot seed, because whereas seeds have their own source of nutrition to get roots started and the plant to bud, a plot seed requires the love and appreciation of its creator to get anywhere, and once you figure out how to change or develop it and feed into it, it has no choice but to flourish.

I recommend taking a plot seed you've been eyeing over the last week, and exercising it. Try to see if perhaps the nature of your writing or the constraints of the level of plot you're seeking for it are not what are best for this seed. It doesn't need to grow into a tree when, say, a beautiful flower wants to unveil itself. Try summarizing the plot into a short paragraph, then exercise it by asking yourself some key questions which will guide it through the story. These questions may include "what do you wind up as?", "how are you going to affect the characters?", "what is unique about you and how can I exploit that?", "what is your favorite mood for settling my characters in?", "what direction do you lean toward when my character's actions have a choice and can result in something good or bad?". Questioning your plot is one method of exercise, and another which I quite enjoy is to go through what you already have, copy the beginning all the way to the point that your character makes a decision, paste that selection in a new document, re-read it, and then continue writing with your character making a completely different decision, see where your character takes you. You can also exercise the plot by breaking it up into two sentences (beginning and ending), write those sentences in a word document with space between them, be prepared to sit for a while, and then start typing non-stop with ideas on how to connect them. Don't delete them, don't edit them, just write them down, no matter how silly they may seem you have to honor your plot seed and see how many options you can give it to grow from. Give yourself a time limit and an amount goal if you need the motivation, but the more you can type between the beginning and the ending with any number or random plot-abiding things, the more material you will have to work with.

Before I get to your questions, I want to comment on this:

'I write each chapter in one sitting so I don't go back later and try to change a lot about it or forget what exactly I wanted it to include. If I try to add to a previous chapter and make it longer or do the chapter over a span of days, it either never gets done or takes forever to get done, by which time, I don't want to post what I've written for it.'

I remember wanting to just write something in one sitting. I also remember how agonizing it felt sometimes, and that I tried to make things longer and then forgetting things. Well, every single story of mine to this day uses this compromise. I'll write a story, and then keep two sections after the bit I'm planning to upload. There's a bulletin section reserved for plot keys, bits I need to add in or want to add in and can't forget as I write. As I use them, I delete them, so that the next key is always right there as I type, bumping downward and staying near the end of the document as I go along and keeping itself in my attention. The second section, the one coming after the bulletin notes, is my free-writing, situations I thought would be interesting to have and so I have the summarizing sentence in bold first, then ramble off creatively in story mode, writing something which exercises my ideas and develops them. It may never actually wind up in the story, seeing as plots tend to change for long stories, but I have several which I'll read over and think "huh, so THAT'S how the idea I have now started out." This second section is also fun for a writer because if you plot does evolve, you can look back at these story bits which abide to the ideas of the older version of the plot, and you can laugh and take pride in how much your story has developed. I feel that limiting yourself to short chapters when you have a thoroughly developed plot is treating the plot as a simpler one, meaning that you can not thoroughly appreciate it even as a writer due to self-imposed restraints. I know you don't want to write long chapters and risk forgetting things, but hopefully the above method can work out for you as well as it has for me.

To answer your questions:

1. Pursue creating writing exercises, particularly ones I pointed out earlier based on your stated needs as a writer. You can approach these exercises in three different ways: creatively (write in story mode, as though you're going to update it), logically (write ideas, facts, and events down and create a possible lattice framework for your seed to grow on), and emotionally (write from the perspectives of several characters in regards to one moment or event, and see how they feel about certain things. It may sound odd, but I've allowed my characters to take my hand and walk me down a path I've never seen, and I must admit that a character knows what a story needs. In the end, it's their story, not ours, not the writer's, we merely give it a means of coming into existence, so it's important to honor a character's influence in a story.) If you want character exercises, I have a forum that focuses on developing them as well, and some exercises in there, too.

2. Your worries are justified because you own the right as a writer to set up certain comfort zones and to know your own limitations and respect them. The only thing I worry about is you not fully developing or understanding your innate comfort zone, and that you may be falling instead on self-doubt limitations as opposed to self-awareness limitations. If you want to understand what I mean by this, try shrugging out of your restraints and attempt something new to write. It can be anything. Poetry, a song, a story based ON a song, a ramble, anything you can think of that lasts for thousands of words, just so long as you try new things and experience them, and so you can identify what you like about those styles and see if there's room for you to develop as a writer. Respect your limitations, but by all means do not hypothesize and then impose on yourself theorized limitations. I know that some writers do one hundred word "drabbles", and people like the idea and think of it as a style and that they're easy to do, but in reality it takes a talented and experienced writer to be able to summarize plot, restrain opportunity for character development, and keep things flowing in an engaging manner when such limitations are in place. If you know of a writer with drabbles like that, look at their older works, I am 99.99% sure that they were writing complete plot stories before these snippet stories, and before then their plots were probably simpler. A writer has to know themselves very well before imposing limitations on themselves and on their characters, which is why I worry about your limitations and hope that instead of honoring them you can think over a way to work around them first.

3. You know, for experiment's sake, open a new document and DO combine the chapters. Then edit it. I don't mean just look for grammatical errors, I mean get your hands working in the material you have sitting in front of you and see how you can reshape it. Even if you like it as is, remember that your main document is left untouched (since you pasted in an new one), and this document you're working in is there for the sole purpose of experimenting and venting and even getting angry while writing if you choose. The mood your in will always affect your writing, ALWAYS, so try writing when you're in different moods, too. In general though, by all means have FUN with your own works, and mess around with them a bit.

I hope this helps. Don't consider these writing exercises as mandatory homework. In fact, if you want to try one, get up and grab a snack first, wrap your mind around it and give yourself a feeling of luxury as opposed to 'must do this now' in terms of creative writing, or it can leave a bad flavor on your tongue. Please contact me if you want to voice your remaining questions, or if you have new ones tickling at the back of your mind. If you're desperate and bored, put your kitten on the keyboard and let them type on a blank document, see if you can play word games with yourself and if that takes you anywhere. ^__^

Good luck in all of your endeavors, and may developed plot writing fly your way.

~AD

Thank you! I hope it helps. ^_^

Thank you a lot for your reply.

My problem with writing them out aren't that I don't know how to connect them. When I write the plot, I write mostly full plots from start to end, just so I don't have that problem. I'll write the full basic plot I want for it then underneath add the scenes that I want it to have and the order so it's completely done and detailed. I don't mind adding little things to my story that wasn't originally in the plot, but if I try to add or change too much, it becomes a brand new plot and I might get stuck. I try to leave some leeway to alter the plot a little bit and still come out with the same result, but I try to stick to my original outline. I just honestly don't feel like writing. I once dictated a chapter of a story to my sister...and I mean fully dictated and she typed it. It's more like I would have to voice record the chapter and have someone type it behind me. That's the problem I have writing.

When I sit down to write a chapter, I know it's not really going to be over 1000-2000 words. I generally write one of the scenes for my story and walk away. It's not that I force myself; I just know if I don't write the whole scene at once or if I add to it later, I'll rewrite it over and over again or I'll change something major in the plot because that's happened before. That's why I'll sit down, write the chapter and leave it be. When I write the chapter, I don't dictate where to stop; I keep writing until the want to stop is too hard to continue resisting. I do read over it after writing and add little things here and there that I miss. Then I have my sister read it, tell her what I wanted to happen and have her tell me if I did it or not. If I have, I'm done and will move on. If I haven't, I sit down at the moment still and try to fix it. My sister is my beta. She's an excellent writer and I know she'll be brutal with me and tell me if I complete left my original plot, even if she likes where it's going.

I've written different types of medias like songs, poetry, really short stories. I used to write a different type of fanfiction. Then I had no problem finishing them. It's like I'm tried of physically writing, especially since I had to write a 4000 word English paper in like 3-4 months, a 2500 word theatre paper in 2 months, a history research paper that ended up being like 2-3k words all at one time. I finished them and that's when it's seemed that I didn't want to write anymore, and it's only physically.

I've actually been doing 100 word drabbles and it's fun. I don't know exactly how well I do at making the story flow, but I try. I mean I beta and I have no problem sitting there and beta-ing, leaving it for a while, coming back and going over it again.

I was considering combining the chapters (which are more like scenes) after I wrote them into one large document and finishing the whole story before breaking them up into actual chapters, but I just never got far enough to where I finished the story even separately. I always write when I'm in the mood to write because if I try to write when I don't feel like it, nothing comes from it or I alter the plot so severely that it become a whole new plot and I have to stop and rewrite the rest of the plot to keep up with it.

Thank you for the suggestion about the kitten, but she seems to like locking my laptop then just laying or sitting on it and it just types one or two letters.

Thank you again for the reply and I will make sure to contact you if I have anymore.

Hm. What it sounds like then is you're uncomfortable with losing control of a story. You give yourself the formula to go by, but then the story starts to tug you in another direction, and that worries you a bit.

Personally, I love this 'tug', and I follow it until it stops. Normally, it results in a little scene that I hadn't expected, and sometimes it offers a new diving board to jump off of while still staying in the original plot. I'd love to hear of you following one of those tugs, maybe change the color of your text while you do so, and just see where it takes you, plot form be damned. This tug is usually what I feel when a character begins to shape the story a little, and that's actually a desirable thing, I always have readers comment more on tidbits of when my characters run rampant than on any wit or plotting on my part. Have you pursued any of these urges before, or have you tried maybe once and it just didn't go so well?

The next time you write just one scene, do me a favor and try to think ten minutes into the story's future, and write another scene. You may have simply developed a habit, and while it isn't necessarily bad I would love to see you flourish with your ideas. Perhaps you can even find a beta reader to bounce thoughts off of and to keep you thinking on the story so that it doesn't simply 'die'.



~AD

It's not that I'm afraid of losing control, it's more that whenever I went off my outline and went with the flow, I ended up getting writer's block or writing myself into a hole. Then I would have to go back and find where it all went downhill and rewrite everything after that, even if it wasn't part of the original plot.

If it's just like a scene or two that doesn't really change the plot, I have no problem adding it, but sometimes it threatens to drastically alter the plot. When it does that, I don't write it because I've had a few stories that I've written in the past (a couple that I've never even posted) where I followed the tug and it completely left me with virtually no where to go. Even when I could dig myself out, it was a long and tedious project that made me want to scrap it and start anew.

When I write the scenes, I already know what I want to write for the future of the story, but it's the actual writing part that dictates what scenes I write. There are a couple of chapters to stories that I had written that actually had like 3-4 scenes in it so it's not just one scene=one chapter. It's just I can't force myself to actually write what comes to mind because my mind spins off faster than my fingers can type (and I can actually type about 40wpm) so after my body gets tired of typing, I generally just sit back, look it over and see what I have left to do for the story. I'll add little things to my outline that comes to mind while I was writing and reading over the chapter.

Like I said before, it's not the figuring out what to write, but the actual putting it down. I can dictate a whole chapter and have it come out to be a lot longer than what I type, but I just don't have the want sometimes to actually type it on computer.

As far as a beta, my sister is my beta. I've had other betas before, but they kind of disappeared and then I started beta-ing. So I have my sister help me because we live together so if I have an idea, I can wake her up and get an immediate response and she'll be blatantly honest and tell me where she wants me to go with it. Plus, I have a hard time trying to type out my full idea for a plot as it's generally kind of long and I'll want to stop typing after only putting down part of it. So I hand write all of my plot outlines and details.

It sounds like you have a hard time keeping track of the scenes or points in the chapters, I could be wrong, but bare with me. I would suggest that before you type up the chapter, do a couple quick bullet-points with things that you want to put into the chapter so that you have an idea of what you want to go into it like this:

Example:
Chapter 1: Plot-points to be covered:

• Sesshoumaru to give Kagome a bouquet of roses


• Sesshoumaru to ask her out on a date


• Sesshoumaru to be pleased when she says yes


• Sesshoumaru kisses her hand, says goodnight, and leaves

And you can gradually strike each main point off as you write about them. It's just an idea to keep track of what is actually in the chapter.

~ Pyre

Maybe you don't have the drive yet to pursue that particular plot. You can start it, and you would like to continue it, but you lose interest or find faults or ways to be disappointed with it, thereby setting it aside and working on something else.

Then again, I may be superimposing a little, because my plot seeds commonly don't sprout for reasons I just stated. I've held onto several for months, trying to figure out ways to get them moving forward and just not finding one, the story just doesn't 'click'. Recently, out of the blue, a new plot came to mind and I could write it just fine, it flowed out and hasn't stopped since the beginning, which is rare (in fact, it's the most popular story I have right now). Maybe the plots are good and seem intriguing or complex, but the drive to see them through to the end isn't there. That's a way how people get 'stuck', simply because the writer and the plot aren't making the necessary connection yet (which is why exercising it is helpful).

Something I've seen people do is they upload a first chapter, then in the author's note at the end they tell readers what they're going through at the moment and as them for their thoughts, ideas for where the story's going, where they dread the story going, how they think the characters are coming along and things like that. Doing this not only gets you helpful advice, but it also gets your story's foot in the door to continue forward.

I'm sorry it's taken so many messages so far (and I probably still haven't helped), but it's difficult to try and figure out your issue based only off of what's being relayed. If you'd like, PM me and I can beta read something you're working on and try and give you advice off of the actual material.

To Pyreite: It's not that I have a hard time keeping track of what is in a chapter. My plot outline are basically all bullet points in the order that I want it to happen in the story. I don't do them for individual chapters as the outline for the story has them all and I don't have a set point to actually stop a chapter.

To Aura Depths: It's not that I don't have the drive, I honestly just don't feel like typing. It's the same thing when I'm typing emails and even when I've been replying to this thread. I just don't physically feel like typing. I'll start replying to this thread and stop for a little bit because I'm just tired of typing. It's not anything to do with the story itself.

I honestly don't know how else to explain it because it seems that I'm explaining it wrong or incompletely, but it's like how someone may not feel like reading. It's not that they don't comprehend the plot or aren't interested in it, they just don't feel like physically reading. I just have a hard time sitting at a computer. I can dictate it and I won't have a problem, but actually typing it out is hard for me to do. It just seems that I don't like to type on the computer much anymore and that's what I need help getting past. I've written some chapters by hand and it didn't take me much to do, but I have a hard time continuing to write by hand.

I also appreciate the offer for beta-ing, but at the moment, I'm not really working on anything. I'm considering a couple of different things to work on (many of which are finishing older stories of mine) and don't really know when I'll get around to them, but I will be sure to write you if I do start on a story.

Okay, that part I can comprehend. I'm not sure what advice I can extend to you on that note (maybe it's ADD, in which case there are certain foods you can avoid to suppress it), but definitely keep in touch if you do have questions or if you want a beta and I'll see what I can do. ^_^ In the meantime though, I wish you luck in doing what you wish to do, and hope that you can overcome this dilemma of yours soon.



~AD

I don't think it's ADD because I don't have trouble focusing on anything else, just when I'm typing on a computer and it's only sometimes. I try to work through it, but it doesn't always work.

Thank you and I will.