I am a young author writing a fantasy series. When I first started writing, I had nothing more then a sentence of an idea, but I went along with it and just wrote what came into my head. I never really “planed” anything. I didn’t sit down at my desk and write down all my ideas, decide the best ones, and cleverly craft them together. I just wrote.
Now I am almost done with the first book. I have established my world, cast of MCs, antagonist, protagonist, rules, all that stuff. I have figured out how the first book is going to end, and I have faint ideas of what the next ones are going to be about. But I haven’t really “planned” anything.
My opinion on the subject is this:
My characters don’t know what’s going to happen. In real life, no one knows what’s going to happen. So why should I? I am simply narrating these events as they happen, not causing them.
I crafted my first book this way, and it turned out better then I could have ever imagined. I just kind of went, “oh, this would be a nice time to add in another character. Oh, she and the MC are getting really close, it looks like they’re going to be best friends. Huh. They did turn out to be best friends. I guess that makes this character a MC. She doesn’t know a lot of complicated words, I wonder why. Huh. She ran away as a child. That’s interesting.”
That’s pretty much how I write. And it’s been working amazing for me so far.
Is this the wrong way to go about writing, do I need more planning? Or is this just a kind of writing? I’m not really sure, all I know is I’m definitely going to surprise my readers if even I don’t know what happens next.
So my questions are basically:
What kind of writing is this?
Is it wrong?
Do I need to plan things out more?
Is there a better way to do this?