User blog:Kgman04/A "Behind-the-Scenes" Look

Well, I've noticed that many people all around the web post how they plan their stories, or how they decide on certain aspects of the story. So, I thought, why not share how I do mine? I have a very bad case of Writer's Block right now, so this might get me going.

Materials
I use the following.
 * 70-page Notebook
 * Pencil (I never use a pen)
 * iPod touch
 * Scrap Paper (tons of it)
 * Spare time

Procedure
Alright. The first thing is, a theme. When I began Total Drama Action...?, I had an epiphany=like moment, and was just inspired to make a story full of OC's. Now, having the inspiration was one very important thing, but, there's a lot mroe. I had to think of a theme. Naturally, the usual came up: School. But I wanted to be original. For some reason, the TDI theme just doesn't appeal to me (that is, when I'm writing stories). It took me a while, but I decided to just replicate TDWT, on a smaller scale, with a good plot behind it.

Then, there came the character creating. Character creating was frustrating for two reasons.
 * 1) I didn't want to copy any stereotypes. It took a while to think of them, so I decided to think of eight, and leave eight out for users to sign-up for. (BTW, at the end of this blog, there are two characters I was going to use for TDS but never did. You can use them if you want. :P)
 * 2) My pencil kept breaking. >.>

Finally, after getting Amanda, Brian, Claire, Luke, Mitchell, Sydney, Timothy, and Valerie out of the way, I wanted to think of interactions. The downside? I only had eight of the characters, so, I couldn't do much. Therefore, I waited until I got my sign-ups. In the meantime, I was already thinking of locations to visit, challenges to do, team setups... and all of that went on my notebook.

All of the above was done on the same day, at home. However, at school or anywhere else, if I had an idea, I typed it on my Notes app on my iPod. It helped a lot.

Then, I had to draw characters, but, I could write a whole 'nother blog about that. -_-

Then, I got back to Interactions, and immediately pitted Mordecai and Luke against each other. I just automatically felt a Heather-LeShawna-like tension between them, without even writing yet. Then, I made a list of relationships. Niko and Valerie felt obvious, Mordecai and Emilie felt weird, but understandable, and, er... well, the rest... you'll see in the future chapters.

Now, for Chapter planning! I plan in excruciating detail when it comes to my FF's. I divide my chapters into three main sections: Beginning, Challenge, Elimination. They're even labeled that way. Beginning is the recap of the previous episode and the scenes before the challenge. The challenge and elimination are self-explanatory. Sometimes there's a pre-elimination scene, but, I don't do that much. Oh, this is also where the scrap paper comes in handy. For example, in the New York City challenge, I had a ton of ideas. Being in NYC myself, I was nearly going to make one chapter into an entire book. But I trimmed my 15 challenge ideas, and merged three of them together.

Then I get writing. Writing is just.... natural, to me. If it sounds good, I write it. I honestly don't put too much thinking into it, the lines just flow into my head, and a picture eventually gets painted.

I choose my elimination order in a very strategic manner. It's not like, "Oh, this person sounds like winner-material." Brian got sent home first for a reason: He and Amanda fill the same role, the annoying one. Also, for some reason, I felt that a boy had to go first, so, he was my pick.

Then there's proofreading, which, some of you can tell, I'm terrible at. But the typos are corrected, fragments are extended, run-ons are cut short... everything.

And, finally, that's it. I think. I just really felt the need to make a blog about this, dunno why.

Also, here are the TDS characters.

Julian: (The Workaholic) Julian tends to always be working, no matter what type of work it is. Whether he's doing homework or chores, he just never ceases.

Monica: (The Clueless Tomboy) Monica skates, surfs, slides, anything that gets her moving and playing. Although she isn't the brightest, she has enough smarts to get moving around in almost every sport there is. She's unable to get a boyfriend, since they don't know whether or not she'll beat them up, or make an idiotic comment.