I always love reading about how others approach writing.
Sublime Text is my go-to text editor: all the shortcuts and mass editing capabilities are a real time saver. The game files are synced through the cloud so I can resume where I left off on my phone or iPad (the app I use on iOS is Textastic, both editors are easy to setup for ChoiceScript syntax highlighting and Textastic is cool because it lets me test the game on the go, too). I write and code at the same time, I figured that out thanks to this invaluable thread. When I have an idea for the setting or characters, or anything I need to write down that doesn’t fit in the story yet, I use Evernote to keep all that organized.
During the day, all I manage to squeeze out are a few hundred feeble words. The magic really happens after I go to bed. I’m an insomniac, so I use the time between laying down and actually going to sleep to just write, when it’s just me and my thoughts in the dark. That’s when I crank out the most - and I think the best - writing. I guess when everything is calm and dark, it’s easier to both concentrate and let your mind wander, let go of the crippling doubts, and not obsess over word choice (leaving that until the editing phase later). When I finally manage to get to sleep - which isn’t every night, annoyingly enough - my characters invade my dreams and give me new ideas. (But then I have to write it all down before I forget, which eats into my sleep time… arh, writing isn’t healthy for me… =P)
For a new project, I start with a character, and some feeling the character has, maybe a situation. Then I basically question (torture?) the character relentlessly until they tell me where they’re from, what happened, how they think, what keeps them up at night, their beliefs and fears and doubts, their aspirations and regrets etc. Often I think I have them all figured out but they almost always end up surprising me.
My outlines are vague. When I try outlining in any detail, ideas elude me and I feel like the least creative person alive, it’s planner’s block. So even if I feel like I’m going in blind without an outline, I force myself to just start writing the first scene I have in mind, and then the ideas start flowing again as I go. Sometimes interesting details pop up unexpectedly, and I make a note of them because I might want to use them later on (either in the form of plot elements, or a new character or a plot twist).
I try to force myself to write in a linear way, I’m afraid that if I jumped around like @Lizzy, all I’ll have left to write at the end are the boring-but-necessary scenes. It’s easier to make “boring” scenes interesting when I have a future exciting scene to look forward to. (Interestingly enough, “boring” scenes in my mind are the action-packed ones. The “exciting” ones are the ones where characters are just sitting around talking. Go figure.)
This is my first time trying my hand at IF. I’ve only written short-ish stories up to now. I love coding and having conversations in my head, and what better way to marry the two, right? The fact I have such a basic outline for the project I’m working on does worry me since this is longer and more involved than a short story, but I guess I’ll figure it out as I go, as always.