Don't Overthink It

The red squiggly lines under "overthink" and the fact that my computer just auto corrected "overthink" to be "over think" must mean it's not a real word.  Well, I'm making it one, here and now.  Overthink is an official compound word, along with overthinking and overthoughts.


Anyways.


Hello, everyone.
   I thought today I would discuss the danger of overthinking story plots because overthoughts have grown in their mental appearance rates recently.  My older brother and I are currently co-writing a story--it's loads of fun--and we seem to have a problem, typical of us nerds, to overthink some aspects.
   For maybe three months or so, we've kept each other up till midnight or later, discussing various aspects of our story's plot.  You all would have NO idea how much our current working has changed from what its original seed was...really.  :)
   So CDO (OCD, but with the letters in alphabetical order as they should be) person that I am, I'll be doing two things here in an outline form:

1.) I'll be exhorting you all to co-write a story.
   Josh and I originally, originally, originally decided to do our story because we felt like we weren't spending quite as much hang-time together as we had used to and wanted to find something mature to do that we both liked, something not video games.  :P
   Not only have we grown together socially and spiritually, but as I mentioned, I found that co-authorship is TONS of fun.  I get to pick his brain, and he picks mine.  It's exhilarating to see how he writes a story...and weird at the same time.

(I mean, how can you do a story plot and character development all at once?  It's so much easier to just write the plot and put in character development where it's needed.  *pointed glare*)

2.) *clears throat* I'll be exhorting you all to not overthink your stories.
   Often, we authors can get overwhelmed with the numerous aspects we want to include in our stories, all the drama and epicness and particular dialogue scenes...just because they're "awesome".  For a good plot to emerge, those overthoughts should be written down and forgotten, and when the actual writing comes down, it's not hard to just copy-paste and bam--
   Epic scene.
   Also, in terms of overthinking (stop auto-correcting you darn computer), remember that if you find a loophole, you don't have to change the threads of your story.  You merely have to close the loophole.  Well...like this:
   Josh's and my group needs to get from place A to place B, but there's no reason for them to do that aside from the fact that the plot NEEDS them to.  ;)  So, instead of trashing the idea that the group gets from place A to place B, we merely came up with a legit, back-storied reason for them to go.
   Sounds simple, right?
   You'd be surprised how many times we tried to trash legit stuff because we couldn't find motives.

   In a fiction story, the whole world is yours.  Don't stress about reasons or motives; those things come easily if you add in a small back-plot.  When creating a plot, keep the word "play-doh" in your mind - be moldable, shapable, and when you're done, don't be fickle and doubtful of if you've got a good thing.  You can still cover the cracks with more dough or chip away at old things you don't want.

Keep it simple.  Keep it flexible.  Don't think overthoughts.

Write on!
Clove