Writing Hack: Grocery List – lifehack.org:
The plan is that you start thinking about all the various things you want to include in your piece by looking at the “grocery list” of things you want to see covered. Say it’s a superhero story. I am writing Panda Man #51 and it’s the first story in an arc. I say, “By the end of this piece, Panda Man will have his identity uncovered by Mrs. Jaegerweller, the annoying neighbor with the prosthetic head. We’ll see his peanut allergy rear its ugly head again. He’ll run afoul of the local Immigration Rights group.”