Alright, I'm going to have to confess—I don't plan my stories.
THIS DOES NOT MEAN YOU SHOULDN'T EITHER! Writing without a plan just works better for me. I've always found planning boring. I play by ear. I start off with a couple of beginning plot points and go from there. And I don't make it up all the way—by the time I'm halfway or three-quarters of the way through, I know how the rest of the story goes. Writing out a plan has always made my stories stiff and made me feel creatively limited.

However! This does not mean planning is bad! Planning is a great way to lay out your plot, if it works for you! If you do enjoy planning, you'll probably already have a preferred method of doing so, so I won't suggest any. But, I will give you some advice for when devising a plot, whether you write out plans or not:

Keep it simple! Leave room between your plot points, don't delve into detail. Make sure you have space, make sure you have gaps to fill in, to play around with. No point writing a story if every word is mapped out for you.

Don't be too rigid! This connects to my first tip of keeping your plan simple. Leave room for extra plot points, for red herrings, for plot twists. Make sure your plan is flexible, because if you're like me, you'll have new ideas popping up at random as you write. The plot is the skeleton of the story, you should be able to build and create around it.

Put down all your ideas! This tip is mainly for people who write out plans. If you're anything like me, you'll have some ideas for certain scenes you want in the story. WRITE. THEM. DOWN. Even if it's a brief bit of dialogue or a nice description you thought of randomly, make sure you don't forget it. "Premade" scenes like this can help you with the flow of the story and ensure you don't get lost between plot points.

Stick to the plot! This is for people who don't write out plans. Sometimes, when you're writing, you might suddenly think of a cute scene or flashback that would be really fun to write. But wait! Is this idea relevant, or are you going off on a tangent? Like I said before, the plot is the skeleton of the story. Everything has to stem from it. Even if you don't know the entire plot yet, you must at least be able to see one or two steps ahead. Think of the next plot point you have planned. Will this scene lead you in that direction? If not, probably best to leave it out for now. Plot points are rest stops on a long journey, be careful not to stray off the path!

That's all for today. Whether you plan or not, I hope these tips helped you!