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Q&A Should I write my story if I haven't established a plot?

Write first, ask questions later. The best way to understand your story is to write it. This means that sometimes you need to put words on the page before you know where those words will take you....

posted 6y ago by Arcanist Lupus‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

Answer
#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T10:11:29Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/40163
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by user avatar Arcanist Lupus‭ · 2019-12-08T10:11:29Z (almost 5 years ago)
## Write first, ask questions later.

The best way to understand your story is to write it. This means that sometimes you need to put words on the page before you know where those words will take you. That's okay. The process of telling your story will give you what you need to finish it.

The thought of telling your story without a clear path to follow can be scary because of the high potential for the story to go in the wrong direction without guidance. But that would happen anyways - even the most dedicated and experienced outliners have watched their stories twist away from what they planned, as the process reveals to then that the original plan was flawed. It's a natural part of writing, and something you can fix.

The worst possible case is that you have to put the story away for a while until you learn how to fix it. But stories never die, they only hibernate.

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2018-11-15T07:52:38Z (almost 6 years ago)
Original score: 6