I usually write long, chaptered fics (I've written ficlets and one-shots, but those are secondary, one-off things. The sit down and actually work at it, every-day writing I do it for longfics), almost invariably OTP-based, but usually with action or h/c plots. The last time I wrote a fic that was just straight romance rather than action/drama, I spent the entire length of the big bang challenge I wrote it for freaking out that my big bang fic had no plot, and my co-writer had to keep reminding me that a relationship plot *is* a plot ("You read romance novels on a weekly basis! You know the fic has a real plot!").
I write most of my long fics with a co-writer, and the two of us generally do a scene-by-scene outline first, and then write the fic with the two of us sitting in front of one computer together and me typing (when in different physically locations, we talk on the phone, I type, and then I email her each 200-500 word segment as we go. Or I type the scene in lj comments). Dialogue is often the first part of a scene that gets written, with us going back to add in physical descriptions.
One real benefit of outline is that it lets us work a fic out in detail when we first get the idea for it (usually when in the middle of writing something else) and then save it to go back to it later. And having a structure set in place before we start writing makes writing much easier, because most of the heavy lifting of plot, structure, etc. has already been done when we start writing.
My co-writer reads the beta commentary and does the editing, because I hate editing and she likes it. Plus, I've found that criticism works well for me when a story's in the outline stages and hasn't actually been written yet, because then it feels like brainstorming ideas with someone, but can be anxiety-inducing when the fic's already partially written, when it feels like being graded -- I can do it, but it's easier to make her do it for me (I never wanted to look at term papers when the teacher handed them back to me, either. I had to *force* myself to see what grade I'd gotten, and then force myself to read the notes the professor had written on it). Which is one reason why we like to send our outlines to be beta-ed -- plus, major changes in structure or pacing or plot that would be impossible to do once it's written without gutting the fic and starting again from scratch are easy in the outline stage.
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I write most of my long fics with a co-writer, and the two of us generally do a scene-by-scene outline first, and then write the fic with the two of us sitting in front of one computer together and me typing (when in different physically locations, we talk on the phone, I type, and then I email her each 200-500 word segment as we go. Or I type the scene in lj comments). Dialogue is often the first part of a scene that gets written, with us going back to add in physical descriptions.
One real benefit of outline is that it lets us work a fic out in detail when we first get the idea for it (usually when in the middle of writing something else) and then save it to go back to it later. And having a structure set in place before we start writing makes writing much easier, because most of the heavy lifting of plot, structure, etc. has already been done when we start writing.
My co-writer reads the beta commentary and does the editing, because I hate editing and she likes it. Plus, I've found that criticism works well for me when a story's in the outline stages and hasn't actually been written yet, because then it feels like brainstorming ideas with someone, but can be anxiety-inducing when the fic's already partially written, when it feels like being graded -- I can do it, but it's easier to make her do it for me (I never wanted to look at term papers when the teacher handed them back to me, either. I had to *force* myself to see what grade I'd gotten, and then force myself to read the notes the professor had written on it). Which is one reason why we like to send our outlines to be beta-ed -- plus, major changes in structure or pacing or plot that would be impossible to do once it's written without gutting the fic and starting again from scratch are easy in the outline stage.