Is this a normal issue or am I just not good at planning?

D

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Can anyone else relate to coming up with ideas for chapters so far in advance that you’ll likely die of old age before reaching it, but then you can’t come up with any ideas for the current chapter you’re writing? Is this just me, or is this a normal occurrence for others a well?
If you're a planner type of a writer like me, that's common.

I can make the best plans for my story, but when it boils down to details, I find it hard to come up with scenes.

Any case, my strategy to overcoming it is to wing it until I reach an epiphany. All times it worked, and I just finished writing and editing my 16th volume yesterday.
 

Gryphon

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Considering the fact I always come up with my endings first, yes. Yes, I feel that pain
 

Bobple

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Yes every now again. Sometimes can't think of what to write for this but I can for the chapters way ahead, other times the exact opposite happens.
 

MisterEnigmatic

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I completely understand
Can anyone else relate to coming up with ideas for chapters so far in advance that you’ll likely die of old age before reaching it, but then you can’t come up with any ideas for the current chapter you’re writing? Is this just me, or is this a normal occurrence for others a well?
I completely understand where you're coming from. I already have future events planned out for my series, but trying to put pen to paper in the current time is a bit of an ordeal.

Narrative writing is kind of difficult, imagine that.
 

Shard

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I have plans for 100+ chapters away, but there is practically zero chance I will ever write those since my characters often do things on their own and seem to intentionally break all my plans any times I make them. I write what they do, not what I plan, and I need to quit making plans that I know won't happen.
 

Erynd

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Yes, it happens that sometimes you have a lot of ideas at unexpected moments and well... something I do now is to always carry a mini physical notebook and write down as briefly as possible the idea.

Generally, when I do that, I calm down. Then there is the part where ok, it's time to see how to get to that idea and well, instead of falling into despair (which I used to fall too much) I sit in front of the orderly and look at everything I have written.

If I know or feel that it's going to take me a long time to get to the idea, the best solution I've found is... to ignore it.

The reason?

Well, getting desperate to try to get to that "epic scene" or "insert heart-pounding moment.exe" at the end... I feel like it ends up ruining me and my story by just trying to get to the development of that idea.

So, now simply:

Can I come up with a good idea?

I write it down. I'll see how I'll implement it later, but I try to constantly follow my novel until I get to those parts I always wanted to tell.

Is it slow? Yes.

Do I make mistakes? Yes.

The point is that I manage not to get stuck or make the mistake of rewriting my work for the sixteenth time.

My current point of view is that works don't have to be perfect, at least if you write for fun.

The work will always have flaws, I am not inviting mediocrity, but to accept that, at least if we never wrote or mastered a certain language to perfection, we should not expect to create a masterpiece in our first attempts.

Cheer up and I hope you find your working method to write better!
 

M.G.Driver

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I've seen authors who work backwards from their endings, logically setting up what needs to happen in order for the ending to make sense.
 

Rhaps

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I'm using the checkpoint method, as long as I get from point A to B, no matter if the lines are swigglies or a straight line, then I am satisfied.

Currently, I'm drawing swigglies, close to B but the road is longer than I thought. Originally I thought 30 chapters and an arc in between A and B was enough, but now with over 60+ chapters in, still on the road!
 

Aiyoki

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I've got the end goal in mind.

What comes before that is a buildup.

Sure there are "Key" points I've got that will be amazing once I get there but I first have to figure out how the story will get to that point.

My "rewrites" so far have happened before I posted the chapters so the readers never got to see what I had before the change :P

But those rewrites tend to happen because I sit back a moment and look at what I wrote and think "Would these characters really do this based on how I've developed them up to this point or did I somehow manage to make them go a bit too far out of character?" The rewriting process turns to me recovering one or more character's motives and driving it more subtly into the corrected direction.

As for thinking ahead, yes. I do it. Does the execution of idea change once I get to it? More than likely it will and usually does. Does it hurt the story at all? Nope, because each new chapter is a unique development that progressed to that end point for a reason.

Writing is all about creativity after all :D

I plan for the first arc of my current story to conclude somewhere around 55 or 60 chapters, but the story itself might not end up concluding that quickly and it could end up going on way longer...
 

nowme_cres

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Can anyone else relate to coming up with ideas for chapters so far in advance that you’ll likely die of old age before reaching it, but then you can’t come up with any ideas for the current chapter you’re writing? Is this just me, or is this a normal occurrence for others a well?
How far though?
 

Novel_Fam

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Can anyone else relate to coming up with ideas for chapters so far in advance that you’ll likely die of old age before reaching it, but then you can’t come up with any ideas for the current chapter you’re writing? Is this just me, or is this a normal occurrence for others a well?
Don’t worry! That occurs to me to so many of my novels.
Currently it’s hard typing out the chapters as I already now how the plot is going how the ending and relationship will be but the issue is doing the details and scenes…
It’s really hard gaining motivation and imagining as I create…
 

Iamnotabot

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Can anyone else relate to coming up with ideas for chapters so far in advance that you’ll likely die of old age before reaching it, but then you can’t come up with any ideas for the current chapter you’re writing? Is this just me, or is this a normal occurrence for others a well?
Yup i can see the future lightyears ahead but in exchange for that power i have lost the albility to see the present and it has stop me writting ever since......
 

Macha

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Can anyone else relate to coming up with ideas for chapters so far in advance that you’ll likely die of old age before reaching it, but then you can’t come up with any ideas for the current chapter you’re writing? Is this just me, or is this a normal occurrence for others a well?
I am already old. I'll likely die before finishing another story.
 

TheEldritchGod

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Can anyone else relate to coming up with ideas for chapters so far in advance that you’ll likely die of old age before reaching it, but then you can’t come up with any ideas for the current chapter you’re writing? Is this just me, or is this a normal occurrence for others a well?
Well, depends.

I find that when you aren't writing a story, it works to simply random write shit that you actually want to, then stick it away in a folder. Then, years later, I go back into my folder and go through and yank shit to fill in what I'm doing now.

For example, I wrote something about... let me check... July 31st 2021. I am just now catching up to the scene. Almost. Got abut 12 chapters to go.
 
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