Why I Stopped Planning My Stories, and You Should Too

For the past couple of months, I had this long list of ideas of articles that I would one day write. And yet, these articles weren’t being written. I had no reason not to write them; I mean, I had thorough plans and clear outlines with all my research done for many of them, all I had to do was write. So why couldn’t I do it?

And I’m sure I’m not the only one who has had this problem.

If you go through my post history, you’ll see a few articles such as this one and this one spaced weeks apart. These were articles I had planned days or even weeks in advance, and finally gotten around to writing them. And yet, they felt like the most work during the writing process compared to my more recent ones.

Some of you may know that I have a podcast called Philosophy Over Tea, and these stories were just my scripts but turned into articles, which should’ve made them pretty easy to write, you would think. But somehow, having all the information already there just made it harder to write.

So I decided to try and stop planning my articles, and just write them.

And lo and behold, I have written (though not always published) an article, sometimes even two, every day for the past few days!

What does not planning actually look like?

Not planning a story beforehand is really more akin to planning while writing, as opposed to not planning at all. But here are the general steps my writing process tends to follow for these stories.

1. Find a topic. The first thing I always do is look for a good topic. A good topic to write without planning is one that I will preferably already have some strong opinions or experience with. Choosing a strong topic allows you to keep a steady stream of thoughts throughout the writing process, reducing the chance of a writer’s block.
2. Choose key points. Now that I have a topic, I try to make my writing more specific. Having a broad topic is great, but it makes it difficult to actually begin the writing process. So choose two to three topics or areas that will get your point across the best, and write them down.
3. Write down my thoughts. At this stage, I allow my thoughts to run wild. I am just a passenger on this wild ride, doing my best to make sure my fingers can keep up with my thoughts. I write as though I am talking, explaining my point to myself or to a friend near me and pretending that the backspace key does not exist.
4. Structure the story. Getting all your thoughts down is great, but to a reader, it just looks like a jumbled mess of nonsense. Structuring and formatting your story properly provides more value for the reader, while also making the editing and rewriting processes easier for yourself.
5. Edit, edit, edit. Edit and rewrite your story. Make sure it has proper spelling, grammar, punctuation, and that it is readable and accessible to your audience. Make sure it provides value to the reader or to yourself and does it the best it can.

Optional: Wait a couple of days. With some stories, such as this one, I like to wait a couple of days before revisiting them. This allows me to look at it with a fresh pair of eyes and improve it before finally hitting that publish button.

Not only have I written more, but I have found myself enjoying it far more too. Writing has changed from this sort of task where I had to make my thoughts that I had written down weeks ago and had no emotional connection to any more into this wonderful bit of time where I get to be creative and let my mind run wild.

If you’re having the same issues I was, where you just can’t seem to enjoy writing even though you have so many ideas planned out, try just writing without a plan!

Now this does not mean that I just write my first draft of a story and publish it — that would lead to some very unreadable articles. I probably edit and improve my articles more now that I did before, just because editing now feels like another opportunity where I can add more to the article and make sure my ideas are fully expressed.