Idk If Anyone Will Find This Useful, But This Is How I Go About Planning My Stories. I Mostly Write Fantasy,

idk if anyone will find this useful, but this is how i go about planning my stories. i mostly write fantasy, so that’s what this is most applicable to. but it could work with other genres too.

so there’s three major components to a story: the characters, the plot, and the world. creating them individually is the easy part, but they all connect and affect each other in different ways. (like you can’t have a character who loves peaches and eats them every day if they live a peasant in a region that doesn’t grow peaches, for example.)

so i created a cheat sheet to help connect all three components together.

1) the world creates the characters.

this is related to the peach example above. the characters should be a direct result of the environment they grew up in and the environment they currently live in.

2) the characters are limited by the world.

also related to the peaches. characters can’t do anything outside of what the rules of their surroundings and universe allow, such as eating peaches when they’re not available. this also applies for magic users. they can’t have unlimited magic, so keep in mind what you want out of both the characters and the world when creating magic systems.

3) the characters carry the plot.

we’ve all heard it before: “bad characters can’t carry a good plot. good characters can carry a bad plot.” but we all like a good plot anyway. try to make sure you’re not giving your characters too heavy or too light of a plot to carry.

4) the plot pushes the characters.

if nothing in the plot happens, your characters will remain static forever. if you struggle with plots, try starting with what character development you want to happen, then go from there.

5) the plot depends on the world.

you can’t overthrow the evil government if there isn’t one. think of what your world needs most and what your plot is centered around, and fit those two together.

6) the world is changed by the plot.

even if your plot is centered around something most of your world would call “insignificant”, the world will still experience some change from the plot. either the evil government will be gone, or maybe that one teacher is now way more careful about keeping an eye on the test key. either way, the world will be different from now on.

final note: usually people will be able to write one or two of the components with ease, but don’t know where to go from there. i personally can’t write plots, but thinking this way has really helped me actually make a story out of the world and characters because i looked at what i needed from what i had. i really hope this can help you too! happy writing!

tl;dr this is a cheat sheet to help anyone who struggles with writing one or two of what i consider the three major components to a story.

“too young to be a 90s kid but close” aesthetic:

-nyan cat, llams with hats

-owls. everybody loves owls–

-minecraft before the jungle biome. minecraft hunger game servers.

-slap bracelets

-long sleves under tank tops…jean skirts with… leggings…. dc shoes… shell shoes…

those 60 seconds multiplication tables. the big blocks with 100 squares, but the strips of ten squares, the single squares? also shape wooden blocks. yellow hexagons, green triangles, blue diamonds, youd make pictures with them.

-morning circle. playing 7 up at school.

-u knew the cookout was lit when they had huggies those juice barrel drinks that u bite the top foil

-sillybands

-nintendogs on your grey ds plus cooking mama

-remembering vaguely having to use a cd player as a kid, then an mp3, than an ipod-

-zebra. print. everything.

-japanese erasers

-duct tape purses

-the justin bieber sounds like a girl debate

-yo danny phantom hE wAS JUST 14

-shark boy and lava girl. sky high. stewart little. minutemen. halloweentown. the thirteenth year (mermaid). smart house. spy kids. twitches. princess protection program (bonus points if you watched it live and counted how many times they said princess). lemonade mouth.

-staying up late enough to see george lopez start to play

- “mom how do you spell cartoonnetwork whats the website”

- that weird fosters home for imaginary friends mmo

- fucking TOONTOWN

- “disney!! three six five!!!!!”

- microsoft paint created MASTERPIECES

- was… was kidpix a thing

-bill nye the science guy and liberty kids

“too Young To Be A 90s Kid But Close” Aesthetic:

-alvin and the chipmunks covers.

- school store! get me a pencil grip for a quarter.

-crimp your hair bitch… or straighten it. or clip in feathers. or strands of dye-

-bakugan

-wheezers ‘beverly hills’ on the playground. we will rock you on the bus.

-camp rock. highschool musical. epic disney crossovers.

-if you didnt have a blog on blogspot.com you weren’t shit (with the extension where you could feed the fish)

-lisa frank folders or those folders with close up of dogs and cat faces

-having to learn the fucking recorder. hot crossed buns… hOt croSssED BUNS,,,,

-did anyone play that weird wizard typing quest

-SMENCILS

-clUb PENGUIN. wizard 101. pirates of the carribean online. webkinz.

-everything is not what it seems when u can get all you wanted in ur wildest dreams

-popular snacks at snack time,,,: gritz, gogurt, fruit roll ups tongue tattoos, zebra cakes, cheese dip crackers, those cookie crackers where u took the red stick and spread it

-in the wee hours of the night you could hear… hear the chia pets taunting you

-orbeez. monster gummies. hotwheels beat that. fur real friends. pillow pets. littlest pet shop. yugioh. bop it. floam. tamagotchis.

-iDog

-HAVING THE KICKASS SCOOTER THENN KNOCKING UR FUCKING KNEES OFF WITH IT FUCK THAT SHIT

- “HERE I AM IN UR LIFE… HERE U ARE IN MINE… YEAH WE GOT THE SWEET LIFE… MOSTT OF THE TIME”

-underdog. undeRDOG. UNDERDOG!

-when you were playing on the ps2 and u fucking lost the fucking MEMORY CARD

-SPYRO

-playing gta the one where the guy wears the blue shirt (liberty city? ) with the sound off… memorizing cheat codes… square circle square-

-the fucking wii… making miis for literally everyone in ur class and sending the ones you didnt like to the parade

-slap slap slap… clap clap clap… SLAP SLAP SLAP…. CLAP CLAP CLAP (i.e 3… 2… 1… BLAST OFF from here to the stars,)

-when the teacher rolled out the elmo projector and those transparent plastic papers

-megan, MEGAN! (i.e i ran over oprah…..)

-the dell computers took over

-bruh message me on msn… then skype

-making a facebook page. liking all the fucking dumb facebook pages you could

-pokemon

-Z̵͖͂Ô̶̘Ö̴͔́. ̵͉͊Z̷̭̊O̷̻͒Ô̸̟ ̴̛̞Z̸̭̕Ȏ̸̗O̴͎̊ ̴̡͑. P̵̧̈Ȃ̷͖L̴̞̚S̶̰̐

-okay those weird ass beads u always got for Christmas that you had to iron to make shapes

-the fortune tellers… pick a color… blue? okay b-l-u-e. OK now pick a number… ok ur gonna marry lindsay lohan and have 80 kids

-WHAT YHR FUCK ARE THOSE GHOST THEMED CEREALS CALLED??? BOOBERRY??? AH SHIT

-team edward vs team jacob determined your survival

-thE yEar tHree THOusAnD

-black eyed peas

-fucking angry birds and flappy bird murdered everyone

-HEELYS OH DEAR GOD HEELYS I ALMOST FELL AND SLIPPED INTO ANOTHER DIMENSION

-that rabits game… let them go to the moon

-THE PS2 SOUND UP NOISE. THE DOOOOOOOSH

-every dvd had that coming soon bullshit

-stealing ur cousins gameboy

-Sugar. Spice. And everything nice.

-that fucking monkey at some of some fucking tv shows what the fuck was that fucking- hi im paul,,

-asdf videos! (desmond the moon bear.. i like trians)

-if you didnt flip ur shit everytime u saw a yellow car and yell BUMBLEBEE

-when the phone rings in school “THE PHONE… THE PHONE IS RI N G ING”

-“WAZZZZUUPPP!!” “WHAZZAAAAHHP!!”

-kidz bop. wholet the dogs out… who who? who?

-We all want to forget …. annoying orange and fred but god wont let us..

-MY SHINY Teeth and ME.

-that weird ass spongebob half time episode where theyre in the dome… or the spongebob episode with wormy… or the spongebob episode with the hooks (dont touch the hooks) or david hasslehof in the spongebob episode…

-invader zim

-FLAPJACK THAT FUCKING NIGHTMARE SHOW. And chowder. Coraline gave me NIGHTMARES fuck!

- I LIke to move it move it…