Since the RWA National Conference, I have believed that I was a hardcore pantser – someone who gets a story idea and dives, blindly, into the mist and trusts that the story will present itself. In workshops at the conference, I heard other hardcore pantsers talk about their writing process. Several of them are multipublished and even bestsellers.
I even went to a workshop in which the presenter had the participants evaluate themselves and I came up 100% pantser.
I went home convinced that God was bashing me over the head with a two by four (which He does often because I’m so thick headed) to tell me that He wants me to be a writer. The picture on the misselette the Sunday after the conference, in the church in Orlando, Mary, Queen of the Universe, was of “Jesus, the Storyteller.”
I decided to attack my writing as a true pantser – no planning – just writing.
I haven’t finished anything since then. I’ve started several books and they have all stalled.
So, I’ve decided that I need to figure out how to plot and I’m stumped. I get so caught up in the rules, and forms to fill out and things like the Three Act Structure and Goal, Motivation and Conflict, that I freeze.
I know I need to have guideposts or something. Something to shoot for or head for when I’m writing, but as a pantser, I don’t always know where I’m going until I get there.
If any of you are panters who are reformed or who have advice on how to keep the mist from overwhelming me, please help me figure out how not to get lost.
I’ve only written 3 books, and each one has been tackled differently.
The first one was a complete pantser and editing was a pain (it went through many re-writes, but it’s a story I STILL love).
The second I tried to plot it out (chapter by chapter). It worked pretty good up until the 9th chapter or so, and then veered into a totally new direction. Once it veered, my writing flowed better. Did I waste my time making that outline? I think so.
The third is a mixture between the two. I kind of knew who my characters were before I started writing (and what their back story was before I wrote the first word). I didn’t waste a lot of time making an outline, just wrote down conflicts/scenes I wanted to get to.
I say write the way it makes you happy. I still wonder how my book is going to end and that’s what gets me motivated!
Hey Nancy.
First piece of advice, stop worrying about the labels and write. Your own rules are the only ones that count for your story. All the other rules were designed by people writing other stories so of course they won’t work, at least not completely.
Second piece of advice, give yourself permission to be different, to shape your own rules and define your own label (I think that label part is called branding).
Last piece of advice, stop angsting over the process and the labels and just do it.
That’s my three HO’s.
Pretned I’m your kindly grandmother and listen as you would to her; I’ve found that if I plung ahead and get a first draft on paper that IS my plot to build on. As I then type it into the computer I begin to flush it out. If you draft on computer that would be your first draft. Then as I research and mull it over in my mind, more plot comes out, more good dialogue comes out, and soon a good book is taking shape. I have an acquaintance who’s doing the same thing you’re doing; DOUBTING YOURSELF!!! She moans and groans to me that she jumps from one thing to another because she can’t remember this rule or that rule, can’t find the right action verb, ete. etc. I told her to drop everything, pick one of the manuscripts, and get a barebones first draft down on paper. You need to do the same!! As the others said, worry about rules, labels, and guidelines later, in the revision stages, and when a publisher says, “Change this, or change that,” NOT NOW. I wrote my first novels drafts totally out in a notebook. They were rough, had little dialogue, no research, they were terrible. I learned as I went along and now have novels that earn 4 and 5 stars. QUIT PROCRASTINATING AND GET AT IT! WRITE! NOW! Good luck and God bless, Sandy Wickersham-McWhorter http://www.sandywick.com
Nancy I ama panster but I did summarize the story I’m workingon now based on the idea I had for it. That is as close to plotting as I can get. I just think we each ahve to do it our way. But we should make sure we write everyday. I find that works best for me.
I’m not a published writer, and also I know for sure I am 100% plotter. But I’ve come to believe that its important to … not outline, but sketch your book from end to end. Write it all down – what’s going to happen; leave out all description; put in actions (just the verbs please), and what snatches of dialog come to you. It’s like doing a sketch of a painting. Painters sketch it with different lighting conditions, and tweak this and that, before getting down to applying the paint for real.
It’s different from an outline. Try to create every scene – a note about where the characters are (not detailed description). I did one for my current WIP that’s about 10K words. I could see the emotional development. Key scenes flowed out. And you get to see how things that happened in the beginning played out at the end – -like a mini-story.
One teacher called this method a ‘Game Plan’ — and it doesn’t have to be 10K words.
Here’s another website with this technique:
SNOWFLAKE PROCESS. http://www.advancedfictionwriting.com/art/snowflake.php
Ok, so, um … you KNOW me, right, my friend? So you then KNOW what I am about to say … I believe I created a SPREADSHEET that I KNOW I have shown you (big grin) … Not to mention the article I forwarded from http://www.advancedfictionwriting.com/art/scene.php on Writing the Perfect Scene …
I’m actually neither. Or a mix of both. I dont’ write down my “plotting”. It stays in my head, but I’m always a bit ahead of what I write inside myhead. But if I write it down…. it is too strict for me. I feel like I can’t change and move with the development. Because what I write is NEVER exactly what I have in my head,no matter HOW long I’ve thought of that scene. I also usually have an idea of the ending scene by about half way through the blog. Sometimes that does the trick, and others,not so much. I did one book at which once I’d finished everything in my head, I knew it wasn’t finished. Somehow the “Villain” wasn’t right.
AHHAAA, the villain wasn’t right becuase there were TWO villain’s! GOTCHA. Course I didn’t figure that out until I’d already hit 80K.
I don’t get hung up on the mechanics of plotting. I get hung up on the “I don’t know where to go next” so I like to know at least a little ahead, and that’s what makes my muse happy. 🙂 ANd where I’m going. But writing it in an outline doesn’t work. Good thing I have a good memory, eh?
Nancy: first of all, I say write. You can’t ever finish anything if you don’t and don’t worry about framing it if it doesn’t work for you a good Critique partner or editor can help you with that. BUT, that being said, ifyou want to improve your writing and have your stories make sense to everyone and tell the story you really want to tell, then you need to learn about plot, whether or not you chose to write like that is up to you. Likely, if you are a pantser, what you really are is a writer who cares more aboutt he character and the development of the character than the story–there are great stories that do get published that are all about the character and their arc but character driven only stories are rare, and more often it is the plot of the story that will sell your book.
I write this from experience, as a panster who learned the value of plotting 🙂 One method that really helped me was the “Snowflake method of plotting” read more about it here: http://www.advancedfictionwriting.com/art/snowflake.php I also liked Vogler’s book “the hero’s journey” and Robert McKee’s “story” is what helped my first novel be published
hope that helps!
camille
Nancy — I’m not published, so take anything I say here with that particular grain of salt.
My advice is this: Write what you know. No, not the usual bromide; what I mean is this: Write the part of the story you know. If you have the characters really clear in your head, write about them. Maybe you won’t use those character studies directly, but they’ll help you to see what those characters need and want — which is halfway to providing you with the all-important goal/motivation/conflict.
Or maybe you see the conflict and revelations, but the characters aren’t as clear — write out the scenes of conflict regardless of where they might be in the story (if they even show up at all).
Me — and I’m such a pantser that I would go into instant rigor mortis as a writer if I even tried to write to a formula — I write the beginning of the story and go as far as I can, then I write the end. I leave blanks and I “underwrite” meaning I know I’m not putting in all the detail and depth that my story will need eventually. By writing the ending, I learn what the characters will need to do in the gap(s) I’ve left.
Maybe other pantser do things differently, but I still think it’s helpful to take what’s in your brain and get it into words.
Good luck!!
Magdalen