Creative Planning

Planning - I hear your groans. For many, many people, planning is a thing of nightmares; having to intricately plot every movement within your book/piece of work and then pulling out your hair in despair when things change and you don't know how.

I am one of these people: I hate planning because it never goes as planned. My characters are always taking over and controlling their own destinies. I'm just a slave to their needs, writing down what they're telling me to.
Well, I decided that for the book I'm wanting to write (not planning to write, of course) I should have an ounce of control over what goes on so I invented my own way: creative planning.

Apologies for the bad quality photo - on the computer it's so much better but I can't seem to transfer it well.

 This is very loose: there are no rules and you can pretty much interpret it however you want but what I did was collect together a bunch of quotes that I wanted my characters to say or that fitted into the story then I laid them out in order to show a vague story arc. Then I wrote them all onto an A2 piece of paper along with drawings to illustrate each quote. For me, this is the easier method of planning. I have what I need in one place. I do also have a notebook filled with post-it notes covered in quotes and bits I may need, as well as a character outline for three main characters.


Do you have any way of escaping the terror of meticulous planning?

Lydia