Pre-Planning

How do you pre-plan your stories? I usually write a plot, a long description of all of the characters, and then write out all the pain points and some subpoints of what is going to happen. However, I never get very far with this strategy and was looking for some tips!

I usually like to start with a small plot line, maybe like 1 or 2 sentences top. It's just like a main idea for me. Then I write up character bios that fit this plot. After that, I write a rough sort of overview of what's going on with my story, start to finish. It's kind of detailed but still quite loose so that if I have a new idea while writing, I can easily put it in. I find Chapter planning to confining and if you have a new idea, you have to change the whole plan to include the idea. If you want to see that rough overview, just NaNoMail me and I can send it over for you to have a look at.

After that, I write small location bios, in case I need to describe a location, and then write a semi detailed summary of some of the points in my story I know I'll have to explain, like magic in my novel and such.

You could also try the Snowflake Method. You can easily find it online.

Every year, it seems like my outlines get more and more detailed; what I've found that works for me is to outline in scenes instead of chapters.

I work in Liquid Story Binder, so I have all of my basic world-building information in one Builder, separated into several categories like dress, food, magic, etc. Each individual story [thanks to Nano, I now have a series!] has its own story-world Builder; this includes the chronological outline, plot locations and whatever else that particular story needs

I'm going back over my idea for this year from the beginning and using Victoria L. Schmidt's Book in a Month method to put things in order. She has it set up so that you are writing while building the background stuff i.e. the characters and outline, but I'm doing that first and will eventually get back into typing the text again. Writing it as I go along (pantsing it) wasn't working too well.I'm also using a Tiddlywiki file that is set up along with her writing method to record the steps. That way I can look up things I've written in the early steps easily later. The Tiddlywiki file is available through her yahoo group here:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/VBIAMClub/

I start with a Phase Outline, with short descriptions of each scene. (One to five hand written lines.) This gives me an idea of where the story starts and ends, though I am flexible about making changes. If I'm being efficient, I keep track of the characters, locations and artifacts that appear along the way, writing down notes. (I'm still refining this part.)