allisnow

There was a time not too long ago when I was completely into fanfic and fandom and couldn't envision myself coming up with original plots. Over time, that's changed. I don't know if it's just a side effect of getting older (I've been writing fic for about 10 years now... not a long time, really, but more than a third of my life!) or just because there's no show on right now that I'm super, super involved in. In any case, I've been edging into the original fic world a little bit here and there. Mostly in terms of plotting, world-building... not so much the writing yet, but I figure I'll get there in time.

I'm having frustrations right now with my current project. I have a world, complete with geography and politics and competing religions. I have a cast of characters, major and minor, with backstories of varying complexity. I have a structured magic system.

But I don't really have a plot. I have a vague idea of the antagonist and what she wants, but I don't know how she's going to go about it. I don't know what my main character wants, either, other than keeping her family together. Obviously these are huge missing pieces which usually by this point in the plotting process have fallen into place. Maybe I'm overthinking it, because I wouldn't do this much pre-planning with fanfic, but this is different, and I want to know what I'm writing before I start writing. I guess I'll just have to keep mulling it over until inspiration strikes!