I'm really fascinated by how many people talk about needing to know the end before they start - I hardly ever know how something will end before I start it. I can see how it would be useful though.
I occasionally find that I've surprised myself, and it's already there to some degree.
Yeah, I'm the same, sometimes, though I think that's more because the plot has come out of something that I wrote, rather than having the plot before I started if that makes sense, so I'm unconsciously foreshadowing what's coming for myself and for the people reading it. I don't know - it sounds a lot more pretentious written out than it is in reality (in reality, it's 2000 words in and going, oh! plot! yay!).
I like the idea of developing the theme before the plot - that sounds a lot better than fumbling around and hoping the plot comes to me (that was what I found odd doing 14 valentines - the character pieces about the female characters had zero plot before they started (and zero once they were done, in some cases!) and generall started with me writing a sentence about that person and then going on until I realised what I had to say about them; the other seven, the pairing based ones, I had a rough idea of where each of them was going before I started).
I think theme is easier for me in a way, because really what I want to write about is people belonging together and belonging somewhere, and that fits in easily to the vast majority of stories, even if the plot is about something else. I think that's part of why I liked your East of the Sun as well, because so much of it was about, or had the underlying theme of, belonging and family and creating a home.
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Yeah, I'm the same, sometimes, though I think that's more because the plot has come out of something that I wrote, rather than having the plot before I started if that makes sense, so I'm unconsciously foreshadowing what's coming for myself and for the people reading it. I don't know - it sounds a lot more pretentious written out than it is in reality (in reality, it's 2000 words in and going, oh! plot! yay!).
I like the idea of developing the theme before the plot - that sounds a lot better than fumbling around and hoping the plot comes to me (that was what I found odd doing 14 valentines - the character pieces about the female characters had zero plot before they started (and zero once they were done, in some cases!) and generall started with me writing a sentence about that person and then going on until I realised what I had to say about them; the other seven, the pairing based ones, I had a rough idea of where each of them was going before I started).
I think theme is easier for me in a way, because really what I want to write about is people belonging together and belonging somewhere, and that fits in easily to the vast majority of stories, even if the plot is about something else. I think that's part of why I liked your East of the Sun as well, because so much of it was about, or had the underlying theme of, belonging and family and creating a home.