Mary Catelli's Erraticly Updated and Exceedingly Ill-Organized Journal

Had my Gamelit characters prep their spells in advance, rather than assign on the fly.

One prepped a spell three times.  Another prepped another spell three times.  Both spells usable on one person at a time. . . . 

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Lord Shang would be an interesting model for an Evil Overlord.

For one thing, he was all for stern laws, strict punishment of minor offenses, encouraging people to inform on each other, etc. And blamed the destruction of the state on the "lice" which include sophistry, but also, on one hand, music and beauty, and reading the Odes, and on the other, brotherly loyalty, caring for the aged, and reading the Histories.
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J. R. R. Tolkien had problems with this.  In one letter, he wrote that the problems the hobbits had with the Old Forest and the Barrow Wights, and later the whole Fellowship with the mountain pass, were not directly caused by Sauron.  But he had notes saying that the Ringwraiths roused up those evils. . . .

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I try -- I try very hard -- to nail down all the plot in the outlines.  But the best laid plans. . . . there's nothing like sitting down to write to discover what weaknesses your outline has.
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stick the story in the cheese press and start to squeeze. . . . sigh
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Like the sonnet, the webcomic is a restricted form.  Which can help.

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Sometimes your plots do not spring upon you new and unexpected subplots, or minor characters.
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The quest structure has its advantages -- would have to, to remain a perennial plot -- but it has its requirements too.
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When the outline is skipping merrily along, characters are prone to reveal unexpected traits.  The intended source of reliable information lies flat on the page, so with a tweak, he lies through his teeth to the hero, and that revives him to even overabundant life.  What's really annoying is when you thought you had come to the climax, and a character does that.  Or even in the denouement.

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Sometimes when I'm going along -- writing, outlining -- I just get a wacky idea.

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