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Do you use the three act structure, or do you go along with whatever you think of without planning? How do you come up with ideas?

I usually just write a rough draft of my story ideas. When I found the one I like, I do an outline. After that, it's writing the prologue to beyond for me. I always try my best to fill in the middle to let it make sense to the overall story. I know how it begins and ends but the middle is always the hard part for me.

I don't do a 3 acts kind of thing... but I certainly try to ensure that there's enough of a climax vs. detailed narration to ensure that there aren't too many slow spots to make readers disengage. I go with what I enjoy when I read in YA as an avid reader myself, and go with that.

I usually don't plan out a book completely, as doing so can make me feel like I'm restricted on what to write. However, I always make sure that the story has enough of an idea that I have the climax and important parts already thought out.

I start with a situation and go from there. I generally will have an idea of main characters and let them interact and go from there. I try and steer it towards the situation that I had started with, but it sometimes goes away from it. I can't handle outlines. I do use character sheets though - I find them very helpful in remember specific details about them - especially the minor characters that I dont deal with on a daily basis.

I usually actually get the ending first, then the characters. From there, it's merely trying to write to the end using the characters. If something isn't going to work, they tend to let me know as their actions feel forced or not in their character design. It has led to me writing and rewriting chapters over and over again trying to sort out plot. But it's the best way I've found to keep my creative flow.

I find it easier to write in a "go with the flow" sort of way, so no planning and just a general idea of what I want and where I want the story to go. For coming up with specific ideas in the story I usually read books from the genre I'm writing or I watch shows that are from a similar/adjacent genre in order to better understand tropes, how to do them, how to not do them.