Stories work themselves out?

There needs to be a little bit of direction to push towards. The more story is blatantly out there the less work players have to put in while writing. It really depends on the people involved I would think.

There needs to be some sort of direction even if its minimal. You don't have to actually create something that's 'the main storyline' right off the bat, but you do need to at least let people know what direction they should look in. Otherwise everything will likely just fall apart for the most part. Too much freedom is deadly.

I tend to plan ahead, but leave the journey to getting there almost completely blank. I have big moments I aim to work to throughout the story, but dont tend to know how I'm going to get there. That way, if something comes around and changes the course of my story, I can postpone or pull that goal forward depending on how things play out

Uh... unless it's a sandbox RP, I'm really unsure how a story can work itself out without direction/structure. If you have no explanation and no structure then I really don't know how you'll know what to do in a world that you didn't create. That just seems like a recipe for disaster.

Unless you're referring to character stories, which in that meaning... Meh. I don't like to plan out everything my character does because that can be very limiting, especially as the GM introduces new and exciting things to the roleplay. I play it by ear most of the time.