7 Levels of Planning Your Fanfiction - Which One is Right For You?

Last video, we covered three approaches to outlining and the pros and cons of each: planning, where you outline everything; plantsing, where you outline some things; and pantsing, where you outline nothing at all and write by the seat of your pants.

But ultimately, those are three very broad approaches that don’t provide much guidance. How much does someone need to plan to be considered a “planner”? What’s the bare minimum a pantser needs to have before they can even type the very first word? That’s what we’ll be covering in this video: the 7 levels of planning your fic.

Part 1: Should You Outline Your Fanfiction?

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A little about me: my name is Cora (she/they) and I'm a creative writing graduate, professional copywriter, and self-proclaimed fanfic writer extraordinaire with over 10 years of experience here to help you live your best fanfic writing life! Subscribe to my YouTube channel for your regular dose of dreamy fanfiction tips. 💞✍️

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[Notfallkaramell]

My outline is, mainly, just a bullet point list. Not necessarily split into anything (I tried chapters, what I planned for two or three chapters was only enough material for one), just story beats and beats of the beat.

[august]

Level 1- Basic Premise
Level 2- Thought Dump
Level 3- Major Plot Points
Level 4- Chapter-by-chapter
Level 5- Scene-by-scene
Level 6- Beat-by-beat
Level 7- The Zero Draft

[jujuoof]

I have a drastically different writing process, so I thought I’d share:

1. Getting an idea in the first place, often inspired or occurring in already existing media
2. Developing that idea with heavy brainstorm! This step will establish characters and their designs, deepen their personality and story, important scenes, world building and relationships. I do this by daydreaming and listening to music, personally.
3. A vague list of things you want to include in a CHAPTER, only proceeding chapter by chapter.
3.5 This accounts all the research I do and character sheets I may make for my chapter
4. A draft sheet that’s a mix of describing what’s happening and how, dialogue, and basically a rough “sketch” of what you want to do
5. Digital polishing: you write it for reals this time, perfecting your sketch into something bigger, more descriptive or not, and in general figuring things out more clearly before making your final version
6. Grammarly

[rowanspindlecreek]

When I first started writing I was firmly in the pantser camp. Give me that first spark and away I'd go only to hit 10, 000 words and the fix die. Now I do most of my planning around a mind map. From there I start taking all those ideas and turning them into scene cards while asking myself "If I want plot point E to happen I'm going to need plot point D, and B. Plot point B could also tie into F if C happens...." It's convoluted, it's messy but so far it's been fun and a real pleasure to allow all the ideas to flow

[Notfallkaramell]

About the "not sticking to the outline all the time", my outline is done, but I added a side plot regarding the MC's father, as well as a side plot with two characters that explains some of the main plot, you know, stuff you would think is important for a story.

[BBlink]

historically, every time i’ve tried to outline i’ve felt my inspiration for that fic die… as if writing the ouline was enough to just get it out of my system. trying to work on this though

[kels]

I found your channel recently and I have literally been binge-watching it like crazy. I really appreciate the tips and more than that I love the vibes here. They are so supportive and friendly. I write incredibly short fics usually ranging from 1500-2500 words. I want to try to use some of your tips to write my first longer fic nothing crazy just like 10, 000 or whatever I can get out. I'm waiting for this semester to be over as I am taking a break from school and will have more time to write. Until then I'm going to keep watching your videos for the vibes.

[iteite]

As I said in the previous video to this one, I wanted to try a different approach to how I write, and this was super helpful to give me an idea on how to start! I don't think I've ever done more than level 2 (and even that was just writing a couple ideas I didn't want to forget, nothing too detailed). I think for starters I'm going to try to get to level 4 and write ideas for every chapter, and see how that goes. Thank you so much for this!! I will be binging your content the following days, I'm loving your videos!! 💕

[Suzanne_sf]

I write as a pantzer. I seem to daydream at night the entire story as I go along.

[vaivatm]

I just found your channel like 2 hours ago, but I'm OBSESSED !! You're videos are so fun to watch and really helpful :3

I often search for videos related to fanfiction, but I usually only find videos for people writing original works (not fanfiction), and most of the time they're just... general problems. Your channel has specific topics which people don't talk about that often (or atleast I can't seem to find), so I find them extremely helpful!

I've been reading fanfiction for about 3 years now and have tried writing my own before, but I never really commit to it and didn't take it as seriously as I do now. I've always loved writing and creating stories as a kid and I recently rediscovered my passion for writing and really want to write my own fanficiton ^_^

Personally, I'm kind of a hybrid. I usually have a sense of direction where I want to go with the story, but don't have much planned. At the same time, I tend to write some scenes in such detail that they end up in the chapter exactly as I wrote them in the plan.

One thing I really like to do is handwrite a vague plan instead of writing in pure text digitally. I also like to draw little chibis acting out the scenes and they make the process so much more fun! Using different ways to express my ideas instead of only using plain text makes planning the story out so much easier for me :D

Thank you for this video and all the content you upload !! You're a great creator and I hope you gain more recognition in the future ^w^

Kudos !! (´▽｀)

[ilikeminecraftgaming]

I tend to hop from 1-5, it usually depends if I’ve already came up with a idea or not and how I want to build on from there or how I’m feeling on that day and the type of fic.

[FeeBee]

I have a thought dump folder where I write out the very basics of an idea just to get them out of my head to leave room for what I want to continue writing. I also have done stories where I cannot decide what direction that I would to go down so written out both to help me decided which one is the best one for long term for the story. One of my stories, it recently spun off into a 3rd story in that series and then worked out with different thought dumping how to get it back to two stories but keep the things that Li ked from the third story.

[Kazakun]

I gotta admit I do get bitter over the fact that “pantser” is what stuck for what I do. I will only ever call myself a discovery writer, and I cannot use the other term. Why? Because it’s cemented in my mind that a “pantser” is someone who goes around and pantses people. Y’know…where they pull a person’s pants down? Hence why I can’t use it. XD

[fisheyme]

I've been at the fanfiction game for almost 20 years. It's so cool to see fresh perspectives on writing and developing fanfiction. Keep up the great work!

[FireflyOnyx]

My outlining level is much higher than I expected, ranging from 4-6 depending on the specific arcs and scenes. I even have had a few chapters that could be ranked a 7 later on. Perhaps I have simply been consumed by the outline, never to be free of it's constant evolution. Time for outline draft three.

[-bitdillpickle]

Im typically a full on panster but more recently I've gotten into the habit for fics more then a one shot to write 1-3 sentence summary. I find this really helps guide the story, lets me know how many chapters, and keeps me motivated.

[dyingrat]

Thanks for this video! I’m normally a bit of a pantser, but I realized I’d need an outline for the longfic I’m planning, and this video gave me some information about it! I ended up just bullet pointing any plot points, dialogue ideas, scenes, etc and then separating it into chronological order.

[bonnietelocole]

I like to bullet point random ideas I have for my fic in the top of its file. I don't always keep the ideas, it's just good to have the list on hand so I vaguely know where I'm going. I once scrapped half an outline into my writing graveyard file because I wanted to rewrite some of it, and rework or replace the rest of the scrap. Bonus to having a writing graveyard: I get to restore any amount of what's scrapped if I decide I want it, and it's restored 100% without being affected by my poor memory!

[meadowhearthfire]

Thank you!!! This video actually inspired me to gather up the major plot points (after looking up what a major plot point in a story is) of a fanfic I'm working on (that may or may not see the light of day) and put them in a separate text doc in the Scrivener project for the fic.
Thank you so much!!!

[Wince_Media]

I use the snowflake method of writing, which is basically doing all 7 stages of outlining in order. (So ststting with a summary, then basic story structure, then chapters, then beats, then a draft 0) This allows me to have the freedom to take the story anywhere i want while avoiding any major issues with getting stuck. Its important for me to know all aspects of a thing before delving more into specifics. For my outlines, im always kind of informal, such as (characrer A is like "oh no" and character B goes to them) which helps me lift my semi-perfectionism blockage. Then, once the putline is filly done, all i gotta do is polish things up without worrying about what i need to wriye next. All i gotta do is check whats next on the outline and write that beat/line of dialog.