Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-1916997-20150312220054/@comment-260553-20150825175711

Most television series that are not sitcoms or purely episodic in nature operate in similar fashion, with the overall beats of a given season-wide storyline being discussed and laid out in broad strokes by the showrunner(s), with individual episode arcs and storylines also being contributed by other members of the writing team over the course of a season, with adjustments/alterations to individual episode ideas being made to accomodate the overall narrative flow of the season as previously laid out.

Once Upon a Time, in spite of public perception to the contrary, does very much adhere to this model. There HAVE been a couple of obvious instances where the pre-planned broad-strokes season-wide narrative has been changed, resulting in things that make it seem as if there's no overall narrative plan, but said instances are very much the exception rather than the rule, and it's unfortunate and sad that public perception regarding the way in which the series is run has developed contrary to what the reality actually is.