Making Plans?

I am around 1700 USCF rating but I am having trouble coming up with plans. I come out of the opening fine but struggle in creating a plan during the middlegame, I have no idea on what to play. What are some tips on finding/making a plan? What steps or ideas do you all use? How do you know you make the right plan for the position? Thanks in advance.

Here is a simple middlegame planning idea.

A simple way to develop a middle game plan is to perform the following steps.

1. Scan your opponents 5^th, and 6^th ranks (3^rd, and 4^th if your black)

2. Look for weak pawns, and or weak squares.

• Weak pawns and squares are Pawns, and squares that cannot be defended by another Pawn.

• Knights are excellent pieces on weak squares.

• When deciding on weak squares, and weak Pawns to attack, the closer to the center the better

Study game which have your opening.  GMs have many good plans that you should copy.  Study basic pawn structures, they should provide where on the board you should play.  Pawn structure also dictates weather the plan should be piece play or pawn play.

figure out what your opponents plan is/will be and work off that.. and a bad plan is better than no plan.

I found that this book was essential for me in learning how to find good plans, "Pawn Structure Chess" by Andy Soltis. I read it right around when I was your rating too, I was 1800 at the time.

The first question you need to ask yourself is, How do I know that the  game I am playing has reached the middlegame stage?  In order to  answer that question you need to know what pawn breaks are.  The bottom line is that almost all openings have at least one and most times several middlegame plans of attack that are well known by  the masters who play  those openings.  Those middlegame plans are detailed and explained in many opening books.

Hope this limited info. helps.

Some possibilities for middlegame reading:

Python Strategy by Tigran Petrosian

http://sagarteacheschess.blogspot.com/2015/09/python-strategy-book-review.html

Petrosian’s Legacy by Tigran Petrosian (1990)

https://web.archive.org/web/20140708103409/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/review309.pdf

Petrosian: Move by Move by Thomas Engqvist

"Engqvist gives us a rare treat and a genuine, sympathetic understanding of one of chess' greats who nowadays tends to gets lost in the shuffle!" - Michael Ciamarra (2014)

Grandmaster Chess Strategy by Jürgen Kaufeld & Guido Kern

https://web.archive.org/web/20140708093410/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/review812.pdf

Pawn Power in Chess (Kmoch) >> Pawn Structure Chess (Soltis)

I thought Soltis' book was much better than Kmoch's.  From what I recall, Soltis' book is significantly more practical.  The recently-revised edition is even better than the original.

Read that, and play through lots of high-level games in your opening (Chessexplained includes the opening in all of his online videos, so just search his channel for your opening and watch all of his games:  https://www.youtube.com/user/Chessexplained/playlists)