How do you plan your stories?

[J13]

Not being to imaginitive myself i've always had difficulty coming up with ideas for plots in creative work, it made me wonder how the creative process works for other people. From the start to actually putting it into Ren'py.

For myself, when i sat down to start i realized, i didn't have a clue what to write about. Over the next few days while just going about my everyday business i spent time thinking what i would want in a visual novel (scenes, characters, plot elements/twists, more or less anything that randomly popped into my head or i thought was cool.
I'd usually pop any such idea into notepad when i got a chance, or try it in renp'y if if it was a little complicated. If i forgot it, well then it probably wasn't that great an idea to begin with.
Of course by the end of the week i had a lot of random ideas but no way to string them together, so i sat down and started looking through these notes. It was then i realised that for me to fit all the ideas i wanted in i'd have to make a stupidly overambitious game well beyond my personal abilities.

Eventually over the last couple of days filtering through what i thought was good and would fit and shelving the other ideas in case i do another project some other time i finally have a rough plot that i'm happy with and know i can pull off technically and am finally making it into a flow chart in an attempt to keep myself organised.
Ultimately it's taken me nearly 2 weeks just to get this far, with something which honestly speaking is at best highly unoriginal, there has to be a better way, which is why i'm curious.
So how do you folks do it?

[DaFool]

Wow, then you're pretty fast.

It took me months until I can finally pull together a semi-cohesive story, and the ideas have been tumbling around my head for years.

What I notice is that when I develop a plot writing directly into Ren'Py it comes out differently then when writing on a word processor or outlining things on paper. I don't aim to be the greatest writer, so I don't even try, I just try to make sure what is written flows and is consistent, or else I could be suffering from writer's block for weeks. I think in terms of screenplay, which is sometimes hard to put into words.

[lordcloudx]

Hmm... in my case, all I do is wait for a good story or idea to come to my head. For example, I see an ad on tv about a guy rowing a boat towards his girlfriend in a sundress on some kinda enchanted forest setting. Then I go "Lessee... add some conflict, some element of fantasy, drama etc. and you could make a good story out of that." Then the writing process is almost automatic and the story just basically writes itself. This way, I already have the full story and the way I'm going to present it in ren'py in my head as I write the story.

I tend to trim down if there are lots of ideas floating in my mind and focus only on one important event, setting, or idea and just build the story around that one event, adding other elements that I like as I go along. Like in Hikari's Ribbon, "a little girl befriends an elf in a forest" was the event on which I built the whole story around with trust being the main theme. And since one of the characters was an elf, this means he didn't age like humans and had magical powers, so I use these unusual traits to build towards a climax, still with trust as the main theme.

So I guess my tip would be: Think of a very ordinary setting and add in some unusual circumstances, then add characters that you know. Your family, your friends, your special person etc. and give them their own unique characteristics unless you're planning on a classicist plot-based story.

[YuMMz]

Since I believe some of the strongest works stem from well-developed characters, I like to first develop the main characters. Hash out their personalities and determine where the story will begin. Once I have the characters and a starting point, I immerse myself into the character's persona and let the story flow. It is kind of like living the story I am writing.

[Recca Phoenix]

I agree with Yummz in that good characters can help a more unoriginal plot.
If you really can't think of anything, ask for help in writing a scenario. You could provide the charas and what you're going for, and a more talented writer could help you.
Just an idea, I know some people (like me) prefer to do the whole thing themselves.....
I came up with my story after developing the 3 main characters....drafted it outside of Renpy, then fixed it as I programmed. Of course, I made changes after that but so does everyone ^_^

[Fawkes - Feathered Melody]

I usually start with an plot idea or a common theme. Then I create some characters with their appearance, history, and personality. I usually have an idea of how it begins and how it ends. And then I spend a few days to several weeks working on a story outline dividing up the story into manageable parts. The detail varies depending on the length of the piece. For the second visual novel project, I found out that planning way too much was distracting. On the other hand, when I was writing my long story it ended up that I didn't do enough planning and I had to go back and think things through. If the story takes place in a big area like over an entire fictional continent, I draw out a map.