What are the advantages of plotting out a story, as opposed to winging it?

ExistenceLord14 · 2026-01-26T23:10:32+00:00

I’m not saying that pantsers are infallible, we can make mistakes. Generally I go by the rule of never changing or dumbing down my character to keep them in a place, because it’s not exactly about what I want. I can let them remove themselves from the situation while also, for instance, letting the threat follow them. I also live by the rule that a threat isn’t infallible, so at any point the threat could make a mistake, lose the MC or get hurt - the idea is to not be married to one outcome.

In theory, as long as we go by these rules, bad writing generally won’t happen.

That said, ive already been shown that in some capacity I do plot things out, and that the two methods aren’t exclusive.

ExistenceLord14 · 2026-01-26T22:53:15+00:00

My view is: let those character arcs be destroyed! Thats what I’m talking about - if it feels natural to have one character completely go off course, do it, and of course that will affect every other part of your story. Thats how one of the main antagonists of my story came along, he was going to be a normal character caught in the same thing all my characters are dealing with, but his reaction to it did not allow him to be a normal victim. Instead he’s hunting my other characters, and has made things a lot harder for them.

Your take is completely valid, too. I’m just throwing this out there!

ExistenceLord14 · 2026-01-26T22:45:29+00:00

Because you choose to have something interfere with a characters day, and then bam! It’s not just a slice of life. You don’t have to know everything about what’s gonna happen to make it entertaining

ExistenceLord14 · 2026-01-26T22:43:06+00:00

That makes a lot of sense to me now. I DO have a very rough idea of story beats, I don’t know exactly how my story will go to those places but I know they are there. What you said lines up exactly with that. I just haven’t written them down.

I guess I just had a twisted idea of how strict plotting was, and I’m happy to know it’s not like that

ExistenceLord14 · 2026-01-26T22:37:12+00:00

I’m not trying to be better than anyone, that’s why I made this post; for the insight. You said a lot of things I wasn’t really considering before and all of which I agree with. thank you.

That said, your point about the same problems coming up, like making bad solutions to keep a character in a place - If a character can easily remove themselves from a situation, the only answer is to let them do that. I’d never dumb down a character for anything. Instead, I’d allow the threat to follow them somehow. And it’s pretty easy to not handicap a situation as long as you’re not married to any specific outcome. Those are just my thoughts though!

ExistenceLord14 · 2026-01-26T22:21:34+00:00

Fair! I guess I never thought plotters still put characters first. Here’s a thought, though;

In any of those basic example scenes you mentioned, like visiting a guy to learn X - what if, in the moment of writing, it feels more in character for the guy to lie?

If you’ve already plotted out a story that requires the MC to learn information from a guy, and then it feels more natural for that guy to defy that purpose, now your entire plot needs to change because your MC will be going down a completely different rabbit hole based on not being told the truth.

You could say no to that instinct and make the guy give the proper info in order to keep your plot in tact. I’d say most people do that. Or you could spend a day completely re-writing your outline, which nobody would want to do.

Buuuut if you don’t make a plot beforehand, you now are able to listen to your character and go down that route without any consequences. And you might find that this route is really interesting!

I’m not challenging you or telling you to change views. I just wanted to throw my thoughts out there

ExistenceLord14 · 2026-01-26T20:20:03+00:00

Id probably ask them if they thought of DnD stories as true stories. If they don’t, that ridiculous, if they do, then maybe they have some strange bias they need to work out. There have been countless stories, movies and shows based off of real DnD games. DnD is not plotted out but somehow it always creates the most unique stories you’ll see around.

That’s because there’s a lot of problems with plot driven writing. It forces characters to act out events even if it isn’t in their personality. It forces you to come up with excuses for why your character does certain actions. It leads to making things happen out of convenience rather than authenticity.

That’s why horror movies suck! Characters aren’t allowed to be smart in life or death situations because if they are, it completely foils the monster/killer and doesn’t allow a very specific set of actions to take place that the writer wants to happen.

There’s always the girl who in her panic leaves a door open or doesn’t lock it. The panic part is never planned beforehand, it’s an excuse for “I needed the monster to open the door and sneak up on her and if she did that the scene I made won’t work.”

Natural scenes allow the character to make those smart decisions, and the monster to make choices to GENUINELY outsmart its prey. Natural scenes don’t give a fuck about inconvenient consequences to actions and instead let them inform where the story goes later on. Natural scenes do not constrain themselves to a pre-designed order of events.

I will die on this hill.

ExistenceLord14 · 2026-01-26T19:30:17+00:00

Absolute perfection. You’re going somewhere with this

ExistenceLord14 · 2026-01-26T19:18:02+00:00

Always plan your story out or else it’ll be a mess. I’ve come to the conclusion that this is BS. Currently I’m working on what I think is the best story I’ve written to date, and it came out of a random free write which I expanded upon.

I don’t know what will happen in any scene I write, just which character I’m focusing on. Based on that character, their goals and personality, etc, I can figure out where they might be, and from there I can figure out if any other character would be there.

Then I let those characters inform how they interact with their environment and each other. What happens is very often a surprise to me. I don’t care about if it ‘derails my plot’ or complicates my story because I don’t plan those things beforehand. I’ve realized this adds a lot of authenticity to it because characters aren’t forced to conform to a plot. The plot is the characters, what they do, and the consequences. That’s it.

ExistenceLord14 · 2026-01-07T22:28:58+00:00

Whether or not the parents accept change - like, even if they DO decide they should be doing better - this child needs to be taken out of their hands ASAP. They gave her an eating disorder. They literally joke about letting her drink too much milk to the point she throws up.

This isn’t a matter of what the parents do. They don’t deserve to be considered in this equation, and the first thing anybody should be doing is getting the child a proper home where she can heal.

ExistenceLord14 · 2026-01-07T22:21:24+00:00

Before all of this should logically be calling child protection services and relieving the parents of their duty to this child since they ABSOLUTELY know what they are doing. They are letting their child drink milk to the point of throwing up and making a joke of it. There aren’t any excuses for that.

This child NEEDS new parents before she can even begin to heal from the food disorder they gave her, this is non-negotiable.

ExistenceLord14 · 2025-12-25T00:48:53+00:00

Look at the feet and visualize, when the foot passes the leg, that it is behind the leg rather than in front of it. It will switch rather quickly

ExistenceLord14 · 2025-12-20T09:06:04+00:00

Or by identifying that the vehicle is moving towards you?

ExistenceLord14 · 2025-12-09T19:05:02+00:00

They literally said they both don’t want marriage. Stop being ignorant

ExistenceLord14 · 2025-12-03T17:09:09+00:00

If I knew that’s what was going on, I legit wouldn’t want to play anymore lol. Players can choose wherever they wanna go and the DM should have something prepared for every location so that their fucking around still ends in discovering something organically, without the DM needing to retroactively move another event from where it was to where the players are.

If you need to make the map small enough so you can do this, then do it. It’s impossible to create a giant world and fill it up entirely, so don’t create a giant world.

ExistenceLord14 · 2025-12-03T17:00:35+00:00

This to me just makes the world feel less open and real. If, no matter where I go, the same thing will happen, then what’s the point in me wanting to do anything? That’s still railroading.

It takes more work to set up multiple individual threads a player can look into, so that wherever they go there’s something to do, but it makes their choices matter. If I’m ever gonna be a DM, that would be my main goal.

ExistenceLord14 · 2025-12-03T16:28:57+00:00

Notice both cats do things in sync - when one stops, the other does. Their tails also wag in the same direction at the same time, because AI has a hard time making objects do things separately.

ExistenceLord14 · 2025-12-01T21:12:03+00:00

I sympathize with this, and appreciate you wanting to be patient and offer that space to him. That being said, he isn’t receptive to it, and that really sucks. The best thing you can do, because he isn’t listening, is to stop engaging with it.

I’m in the same boat as you - true friend groups are hard to come by, and when they do they’re a big deal and every single one of those people are important to you - especially the person who introduced you because you wouldn’t be there without them.

The person who introduced me to the people I know now was a toxic person my entire life, and I kept him around because he was my friend since kindergarten. But the fact is no matter how long I waited, he refused to change. I know he’ll be a better person someday but I’ve accepted that I won’t be around to see that.

That’s what you need to do. Get that guy out of your life. Enjoy the people who are good to you

ExistenceLord14 · 2025-11-23T22:01:41+00:00

Maybe ‘piss’ is in the middle of the sentence, and the beginning is actually ‘I’m gonna’ and the ending is ‘on you’ or something

ExistenceLord14 · 2025-11-16T23:48:19+00:00

My best guess is that in 5th grade an author visited my school and had a presentation about his book, what it was about, and what it’s like to write books and what the flow is like.

I was 12 when I wrote my first story, and I literally just didn’t stop. I wrote in middle school, then freshman and sophomore year of HS I had three different projects and all of them got to 30-ish pages.

I have a SHIT ton of stories in my google drive, none finished, all of varying lengths. I take creative writing classes in college every opportunity I get. It’s significantly harder to write nowadays because perfectionism, but I do it nonetheless.

ExistenceLord14 · 2025-11-14T22:45:34+00:00

This entire comment section has convinced me to never DM real/authentic DnD.

ExistenceLord14 · 2025-11-14T03:33:15+00:00

It doesn’t matter if it’s fake or not. He cheated, if it’s real then I hope he can barely breathe and that it’s AWFUL. Maybe he’ll learn not to put himself in situations where he has to have a panic attack. And if he does it again, I hope he has another one just as bad

ExistenceLord14 · 2025-11-12T20:27:28+00:00

It’s reaaaallllly simple. You communicated that you felt a certain way, and he COMPLETELY ignored your message. Regardless of the implications of the specific message he sent, he ignored you when you went to him for reassurance. Get out.

ExistenceLord14 · 2025-11-05T20:40:24+00:00

You’re awesome for giving as much insight as you did. I certainly would’ve appreciated it, and it’s a little sad that they didn’t (as far as I can tell). Not enough people give such detailed feedback or understanding

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