Legion World Forums LEGION OUTPOST Bits o' Legionnaire Business The Writers' Discussion/Ideas Thread

Question about writing stories with big casts and multiple plot threads:

Do you start at the beginning, and then bounce around from thread to thread until you've reached the end of the story, or do you write out each thread separately from start to finish, and then figure out which scenes go where across the structured through-line?

I ask this because until now I've always taken the first option, but I'm seriously considering taking the second option for my current project.

I always write chronologically. not saying it is right or wrong, it just suits the way I think better. especially when my plot threads have to intersect. so I maintain an outline of what must happen, and after writing and publishing every piece I review the outline to see if it still "works", or has to be updated

I've always done the first, and luckily my brain tends to be coming up with the next 'chapter' while I'm typing the first (or I dream it up at work, or while vainly attempting to get to sleep). But I've also almost always stuck to singular plots, even if the fic itself got lengthy, and admire those writers who can do more serialized writing with multiple plots one after another (or loosely interwoven / overlapping, in the best cases).

Only once or twice have I moved a section to earlier or later in the story, because it didn't fit as well where I first 'wrote' it, which is as close as I've ever gotten to that second 'craft the pieces individually and then assemble them in the optimal order' style I've gotten. It sounds interesting, like putting together a puzzle out of story fragments, but I'm not sure my OCD would stand for something that non-linear and freeform.

That's a good question Raquel. I kinda do both - I'll have a long term plan with individual plots mapped out, and have a clear start and finish in mind that has definite points along the way I want to introduce. I start of with these and work my way through allow myself to write a tangent piece if t's taking up my thoughts, like currently I've been working on a story that involves a lot of my new team going to a festival, and while I've fully written out the first five posts and know where I'm going with it I also have these ideas concerning an Academy plot that will only take a couple of posts so to make brain-space to complete the first story I've spent time completing the second. As it is. I'll most likely post the academy piece first just because it's completed already and neither really feed into the ongoing story arc I have planned so it won't matter the order they are posted in. This is particularly nice to have these ready to fire when it's a done-in-one post that helps break up the storylines so it doesn't go from one major plot to another.

I must admit I have about twenty potential stories for my Legion Worlds series in my draft folder that I started then realised they wouldn't fit so they languish there until I have either headspace to complete them or room to include them.

Ultimately, my way of writing is to figure out the whole plot and get started on the beginning though won't stop myself from a little indulging if other ideas to come through - whether that's for plots that are coming up or randoms stories (as if you're only focusing on one part you could miss some gold in another). I guess, a bit of discipline and a bit of playfulness together.

Good luck and looking forward to reading whatever you come up with.

Thanks, everybody. Much appreciated.

some great stuff here...

One thing that really helps me is my Recap thread. TBH it's mainly for me, than for readers. When I'm writing a piece, and something comes up that requires me to refer to a different plotline, the recap thread helps me quickly search for posts related to that plotline and refer to what I wrote... this helps me keep my internal continuity in order

I find that I generally take a linear approach, but there are always exceptions.

Typically, I'll outline the story and the specific beats, and usually I will write them in some kind of linear order, but I may move stuff around a bit, although not too much.

It gets interesting when juggling things happening in different areas at the same time, though, to the point where I need a spreadsheet or map to help me remember who is where.

If I'm writing in reaction to, or continuing from, a specific point, then I'll generally spend time establishing where everyone is and what they would do next. So, linear from the beginning.

With the OP's big cast/ multiple plots, the goals of the cast can be established to give some way points. They don't have to be stuck to, as events will change everyone further. But it gives some structure.

If it's something that's ongoing, then there's scope to build in stories and scenes as they suit. Like GL, there will be beats of various sizes. All of which can be shuffled. The Levitz Paradigm is super useful to ensure that there's no slack, as it visually shows where all the big beats are. The shuffling around can be used to strengthen various subplots, as you can build in foreshadowing events, framing devices etc.

If it's stand alone, then anything could have brought out the idea. The bigger cast would be used to enhance the point of the story, provide counterpoints, and hopefully be strong enough to stop the subject being a Harmonia/Jo panel hogger.

Looking forward to your posts.

Season's greetings to all my fellow writers here at Legion World!

I'm taking stock of what I achieved this past year, and what I didn't achieve.

Sad to say, about the only real positive achievement for me as far as fan fiction goes happened not at Legion World, but at Archive of Our Own, where I finally posted a new chapter of my current Transformers fic, more than one year after having posted the previous chapter.

Here at LW, I tried my best but my best just wasn't good enough. One non-starter after another. Eventually, I had to face the very real fact that I was both burned out and blocked.

But as 2024 approaches, the creativity embers are starting to glow again, and the block is falling to pieces. So, hopefully, better results to come in the New Year.

My admiration for all of you, for your dedication and focus and self-discipline, is now higher than ever. I can only hope to finally find my own particular groove in the months to come so I can be more prolific than I've been over the past few years.

Lastly, I wanted to share that my current project is uncommonly ambitious, even for someone like me who tends to set the bar high. It is nothing less than a fan fic sequel to the late, great Darwyn Cooke's masterpiece, "DC: The New Frontier," set in 1984, approximately a quarter-century after the original story. Any ideas or advice would be very welcome.

Happy Holidays, all, and best of luck on each of your fan fiction projects!

sounds great, Fanfie! glad to see you're getting past your block and burnout!

The New Frontier was one of my favourite self-contained comic book projects, it will be interesting to see what you do with it!

I understand creative block - I have half a room full of art supplies that have been sitting there untouched for god knows how long....so while I am happy that I can churn out fanfic pretty regularly, it is still frustrating that all my other creative outlets have kinda slipped by the wayside.

Happy holidays to you too Ann, and good luck in the new year!

Thanks, guys!

Random plot bunny that I don't have an immediate use for, and don't need hopping around my brain;

A thousand years ago, Saturn had a population of Martian emigrees, sometimes mistaken for being natives of the ringed planet. With some talent for telepathy, but scattered around the moons of Saturn, these Red 'Saturnians' had nothing like the range necessary to communicate between their far-flung moonbases, separated by distances many times the diameter of the Earth, and often blocked by the enormous mass of Saturn itself, so they constructed a series of crystalline 'telepathic relays' and seeded them into the rings of Saturn, allowing them to communicate between their half-dozen bases and colonies. History does not record what happened to them. But those relays remain, and when human telepaths settled on the moon of Titan, they could 'hear' a faint hum through their telepathic senses, one that seemed like a natural emission of the planet, perhaps. Some even speculated that the planet contained a sleeping consciousness, and had the ancestors of today's Titanians been a more romantic (or superstitious) folk, there might still be a religion about this 'sleeping world mind of Titan.'

Still, even now, long after the relay crystals and their origins were uncovered, some myths remain, like the quaint notion that crime is so nearly non-existent (on a world where anyone can anyone else's guilt like a blazing scarlet letter floating over their heads!) is that something in the rings of Saturn projects a field that makes them 'not do crime.' Quite silly. And yet, the background hum, nearly unnoticeable to those who grew up surrounded by it, and it's telepathy enhancing effects, fade away when a Titanian leaves the area of Saturn, and seems like a deafening silence, a 'wrongness' to some, and very much a 'rightness' to others, who feel blissfully free of 'that noise.'

Eve Aries was such a one. She felt like that noise had been hammering at her skull her entire life (even if she, like most Titanians, had not really been consciously aware of it until it was suddenly gone and the silence seemed loud in her mind), forcing her to conform, distracting her, muddling her clarity of thought, and that was finally free to be who she was always meant to be. Which, unfortunately, was a villain.

She used to have some half-baked notion of 'freeing' the rest of her people by destroying these ancient relics, but she has more recently realized that she can *tune* them instead. If she can just get unrestricted access to one of them, isolate it from the rest and do some experiments, she's sure she can 'program' it to both pass on it's new telepathic harmonic to the rest of the network at the speed of thought, and also broadcast not some meddlesome telepathic 'white noise' to her people, but something a bit more lively. Something that inspires them to make something of themselves, and use their telepathic abilities like she does, to take what they deserve from the rest of the mind-blind emotional cripples of the United Planets. She'll show the UP a new Titan, one were the telepaths aren't all meek and respectul, so very careful not to do anything to scare the fragile little mental midgets surrounding them.

A Titan that takes it's rightful place as head of the United Planets. A Titan, that, *naturally*, will need a Queen.

love it! love how you worked in Jemm. and the reasoning for why Eve Aries would suddenly turn evil after leaving Titan is sound!

Thanks!

I had long ago spitballed origins for the various Legion worlds (Braal, Winath, Titan, Carrgg) and how they got settled by Earth colonists (when that was thing), and my first thought was that H'san Natal base on Titan from that old Teen Titans arc, but then I recently remembered that Jemm's people, a whole race of telepaths, lived on the various moons of Saturn! A whole new angle I hadn't explored!

The DCU is just rich with interesting ideas to cross-pollinate with each other, thanks to it's long and varied history. Some see all this 'continuity' as a hindrance, which blows my tiny mind, because it's an opportunity! They've been given this enormous gift full of magic and wonder, and they're like, 'Whoa, that's too big! It confuses my easily-startled brain. Let's reboot and make it smaller and less than it was!'

yup! and with things like time travel, pocket dimensions, and so on, it's relatively easy to come up with ways that potentially contradictory ideas could coexist!

Thank you, Ann!

I wasn't able to do anything really from a motivational point given all the changes going on in my world, but now that I finally have an actual office space in my house again, I'm going to give it a crack at some point in the new year.

Good luck in your endeavors!

yay! more to look forward to from GL, too!

Thanks, GL.

So my current project has evolved into something different than intended. It originally came from two musings:

1. The Titans have never had a battle against the forces of Darkseid, while both Young Justice and the Legion have.

2. It'd be nice to do a story set in 1980 that does for DC's Len Wein/Marv Wolfman/George Pérez Era what Darwyn Cooke did for DC's Julius Scwartz/John Broome/Gardner Fox Era.

In the original plot, Orion was female, feline, and golden-skinned -- that is to say, Koriand'r in all but name.

There was no Scott Free or Big Barda. Instead, Dick Grayson would have shed the Robin identity and taken the Mr. Miracle mantle from Thaddeus Brown.

There would have been no Raven and no Cyborg. Gar would've been shot dead by Terminator while on a jungle mission with Speedy. Terminator leaves Speedy for dead, and Speedy's unlikely savior is Cheshire.

Aqualad would have come into his own to help drive the Deep Six away from Atlantis.

Wonder Girl would have taken over the Wonder Woman mantle after Diana sold out to the patriarchy.

Barry Allen would have been turned evil by Darkseid and DeSaad and destroyed New Genesis. Wally West would sacrifice his own powers, but not his life, to end Barry's threat.

Oliver Queen would have suicide-bombed the Pentagon.

After all the remaining heroines and heroes band together to dethrone Darkseid, Superman would become the new ruler of Apokolips, vowing to turn it into a paradise.

What am I going to do instead? It's still coalescing, but I'll have something ready soon. I just thought I'd share the original plot.

Lots of interesting twists and turns Fickles. Looking forward to reading more.

Thanks, Thoth, I appreciate the compliments.

The reason I'm not going to be doing that plot is that I think it's just too grim, even if it does have a happy ending. New Frontier had serious aspects and real-world stuff, but it was still fun.

I've been re-reading EDE, Lash, and Mattropolis' Groovy 70s Titans threads in this forum to get a better sense of what I have in mind.

Glad you like the original plot as is, though. You're welcome to use it if you want. Anyone is welcome to interpret it their own special way.