Can't write, can plan
I can plan all sorts of specific aspects in a novel such as characters, locations, and the plot in general, but I struggle to actually write it the way it is in my head. How do I learn to write rather than just think about what I want to write?
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At the heart of all art is vision. The artist is an artist because the see something and find a way to express what they have seen so that others can share in the experience. No work of art can succeed without vision. If you have not seen, you cannot show.
It may or may not be necessary or helpful for an artist to make a plan. But a plan is not a vision. You can plan till the cows come home but that will not give you one iota of vision. A plan can serve a vision by introducing discipline into the expression of the vision. But the vision stands outside the plan. The vision is not in the plan.
Fundamentally all stories are about the same thing: what is it like to X. The X's themselves are pretty mundane:
- fall in love
- go to war
- fight a bully
- make a friend
- return home after a long absence
What sets good stories apart is not that they come up with some extraordinary new experience to write about, but they they write about the ordinary experiences that everyone cares about with a particular vision. The more vivid and true the vision, them better the story.
Read the plot summaries of any of the great works of literature (Wikipedia is full of them). You will find nothing remarkable about them. Their greatness does not lie in the plan but in the vision.
Unfortunately, we don't all have an artistic vision. Some people can prattle on happily without one. Others stall at the starting line because no matter how much the have planned, they have no vision. There is nothing that is burning in them to be said to the world. When the vision comes, the words will come. Alas, there is no promise that it will ever come.
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I can plan all sorts of specific aspects in a novel such as characters, locations, and the plot in general,
The short version of the below: Plan the first chapter, plan the first scene, and experiment with the first dialogue: The first interchange between two of your characters. Or really ANY interchange between two characters, you can decide if it is first or needs something before it, after you write it.
I'm an analytical and logical writer (a computer science professor with graduate degrees in mathematics and statistics), or what I like to think of as rationality in service to emotions.
However, I am also a 'pantser,' like Stephen King. So while I do think of my main character cast including my villain or obstacles, and I do keep in mind at least one possible ending, I don't create a detailed plot or feel obligated to stick to my original ending if something better occurs to me.
The way rational seat-of-the-pants writing works is simple. You have some sketch of your characters, and main character, and your story thread. All the stuff you say you can plan.
Rationally, figure out where this story starts. Something triggers the plot, the problem to be solved. Take your cue from other fiction: In Spiderman, we are briefly introduced to Peter Parker before he is bitten by a radioactive spider. We meet his love interest, and witness his social ineptness.
Superman's intro is loving parents sending him to Earth because Krypton will be destroyed. Or it is the Kents finding him in a field.
The Lord of The Rings depicts an idyllic rural beginning for the hero, before the wizard arrives and the problem begins.
Your story needs a beginning, usually to convey some background information. A normal home life for Joe before his wife is killed in a bank robbery (the trigger). Or before Joe and his fishing buddies accidentally hooked the body of a gangster, with about ten million dollars in diamonds chained to his wrist, that five rival gangs have been desperate to find first.
Think about it, without writing. Either find the first scene, or the first KEY scene (the triggering event that begins the plot). You can pre-fill later. Who MUST be in it?
What do they have to say to each other? Can you write even one exchange of words?
In the seat-of-the-pants approach to writing, each next scene grows out of the decisions or events in the current scene. That can be interrupted by changes in the POV, but basically the rule holds: What you had the characters decide and/or experience in this scene, tells you what they must do next.
There is flow, for each character, including the villain. Where does the story end up? Maybe at the original ending, maybe not. It is much like life itself, we have vague ideas of where we want to be in years to come, but where we actually end up depends on the decisions we make each day. If the characters continue to make decisions and don't give up on the problem, they will end up somewhere: Irrevocably defeated (maybe dead), or victorious for now, or perhaps both, undergoing a transformation of who they are, discovering an alternative to winning (eg love, parenthood) that feels more important than their former goal (eg wealth, fame).
The solution to your dilemma is MORE planning, at least planning in greater detail, until you get down to conversations and individual actions taken. Then the craft (detailed in other answers on this forum) will help you convert those conversations from a wall of dialogue to something readable, and to put your scenes together. Don't do the whole book: Just the first key scene that launches the plot. Rationality will tell you what must have come before it, to set that up, and to not introduce characters and their personalities and skills so cold (e.g. if a significant character is a politician recognizable to the public, that should be set up in some other scene before the key scene, with the main character seeing them on television talking about some crime issue or something else tangentially related to your story).
The outcome of a scene should be either a decision, or a feeling or change in the character, that helps you choose the NEXT scene. If not a decision, a strong emotion: We close on Karen crying. (for some reason, crying is usually a sign of recognizing loss, defeat or surrender, it often sets the stage for deciding on a change in one's life; so the next scene can be Karen discovering what that change will be).
This advice is not the same as "just start writing." Continue to plan in enough detail that you come to a conclusion about the most logical place and time for the Plot to begin. Before that point, you need just enough to logically justify the choices made by the characters at that time. In one of my stories, that is about two days in the normal lives of the characters involved in the Key scene.
Make sure your scene has a conclusion! You will know it does not when you do not (as the author) have any candidate (or candidates) for what the NEXT scene might be. Because in the scene your characters are driven to advance toward their goal (or change their course), so what actions occur as a result of their decisions, or what new decisions come about based on the outcome of actions, is what the next scene is about. For that character, or team.
Don't make them stupid and give them decisions the reader will think stupid or implausible. At least I don't, there may be a market for fiction about fools, but I don't care for it. I prefer heroes that win on purpose against villains that do NOT make ANY stupid mistakes to conveniently defeat themselves.
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