Are you a Cranky Pantser or an Evil Plotter?

So I love to travel. I know it's a given for most people, like saying "I hate needles" or "chocolate is magical" but...I really do! When it's just me or me and my dear hubby, we could have no plans at all and have the grandest of times. No itinerary, schedule or tickets needed. I'm a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants kind of...uh...flyer. Well, you know what I mean.

But I don't "pants" everything. I DON'T PANTS WRITING. I can't! I've tried and I can't. In fact, I started a new story a few weeks ago. Something fun and light(ish), no pressure or revising just yet, just that heady exhilaration of creating a new world, looking through baby name books for new characters and writing every errant thought down just in case it "fit" into the plot somehow. That's right...I figured I'd pants the while darn thing.

This time I CONSCIOUSLY put away my Scrivener and my outlining tools, my chapter by chapter drawings and my (literal) character sketches. I said to myself, "Maybe plotting takes the fun out of it. Maybe pantsing this thing will get it out in 17 days like Elana Johnson's POSSESSION or one of Natalie Whipple's infamous three week novels. I can do this. I CAN JUST WRITE." Grass is always greener, am I right?

But I got one chapter! Then another, then...nothing. Nothing whatsoever. I scraped and thought, plead with the characters and scrabbled for the setting but NOTHING. Not even the handsome hero was giving me anything (and he was the one chatting me up from the beginning!)

So I gave in. I sketched out my heroine and hero, drew the apartment, the school, the missile silos. I outlined chapter by chapter what was happening, labeling Act One, Two and Three, giving each scene a single word emotion (Fear! Dedication! Frustration! Triumph! Hunger! wait, that last one was just me...) Basically, the deepest form of OCD outlining that you can do without actually writing the dumb book.

And my brain heaved a sigh of relief. I gave it a few days to sink in...and then began to write again, literary itinerary in hand.

I've seen the other side, ladies and gents, and I'm happy to return to set up camp in PLOTTER territory. But what about you guys? Have you crossed enemy lines? Find it agreeable or scary? Were you once a plotter turned pantser or vice versa? What made you switch? Of course both are equally effective but...ISN'T PLOTTING BETTER THAN PANTSING? COME WITH ME! FOREGO YOUR PANTS FOREVER!



Uh, maybe I should phrase that differently...

Ride that elephant over the plot-Alps, Hannibal!

So once again, I find myself traveling on a Friday so please forgive the brevity of this post (anytime I say that, I'm reminded of that Simpsons episode where Marge writes Ringo Starr and he replies to her--and all fans'--letter: "Please excuse the lateness of my reply"...anyone remember that? Crap, am I digressing ALREADY?)

I'm in the final stages of yet another revision. But it's good this time around! After long days and nights of stewing and stressing over the storyline, I think I've figured out a really difficult point in the manuscript: the climax.

And as I've figured this part out, other things are coming together, too! Red herrings that I factored in before are coming to fruition. Characterizations that I struggled for before are blossoming right before my eyes. My main character still needs to find a way out of that hideous dress she's wearing, but we'll find a way to do that! Appropriately!

It's like Hannibal from the A-Team always says, "I love it when a plan comes together." When we reach this stage of putting things together, streamlining plotlines, etc. I think we can amaze ourselves when we realize how much we've actually thought it through.

We are great writers. Or great writers waiting to happen. Perseverance is the key, of course. But don't forget to take time to lean back and smoke your metaphorical cigar, glorying in your brilliant plan.


Mr. T type sidekick optional, of course.

Thinking in Circles

Another re-purposed blog post from Free the Princess today. I won't bore you with the details, but suffice to say that this was the best idea my over-tired brain could come up with. This post originally appeared on March 16, 2010.

One of the things I've started to do in developing my stories is try to figure out holes in the premise. To do this, I think in circles around various parts of it. This means I'm trying to come up with reasons why the story can't work the way I want it to work.

Sometimes my circular thinking takes me into different avenues of research. Like psychology for one. I've blogged about Alice and Janey before -- my two psych major friends -- who are now helping with the emotional arc of CALLARION AT NIGHT. In particular, Alice has been tremendous with her opinions in terms of story development and how to manage Moriah's emotional life.

My research has ventured into weapons, clothing, technology, even consumer goods of the Victorian/early 20th century. All of this to fill the circular question "Is this possible?"

Sometimes I'll find my theory isn't possible. That's where the thinking in circles comes in handy. If different routes to the same solution don't hold up under this circular thought process, then I take a different route.

What about you folks? Do you try to poke holes in your stories before you write them? Or do you wait and see what happens?

NOTE: Yes, I know I suffer from plot hole disease in my writing. This is a different kind of logic gap.

The Benefits of Planning

"Writing is easy; all you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein." -- Red Smith, sportswriter.

We all know writing is hard. There's a minimum of seven* things you have to consider when writing a novel, short story, etc -- Plot, Character, Setting, Consistency, Timeline, Accuracy, and Pacing. If one is even the slightest bit off the mark, then the entire story goes off-kilter and you lose time trying to figure it out. If you don't know your character inside and out, for example, you might have them act a way they normally wouldn't simply because they have to in order to move the plot forward. If your timeline's off, then you might state something happened Tuesday in one section when it needed to actually happen on Thursday. If you're inconsistent, then you have Character A say something on page 26 which they completely contradict on page 246.

You get the idea.

So what's a writer to do? You can write and rewrite and go over each new draft with a fine tooth comb, or you can plan things out ahead of time. Planning's not for everyone, not by a long shot, and woe be to anyone who tries to change your style to fit theirs. However, it works for me, and I'll tell you why: I lose my place much less often.

Case in point: Work's in one of its busy seasons now, and had been steadily getting more intensive prior to that. Because of this, I've not had as much time to work on CALLARION AT NIGHT during the workday like I did last year. Which has necessitated that I do a lot of work on nights off from the part-time job and waking up early on weekends to get writing in. I took it upon myself then to compose a Scene Development document for each chapter of the story. It's not done yet, but my goal is to have these different areas figured out for each scene in each chapter of the novel. This serves a twofold purpose: one, I get a deeper picture of the scene, and two, because I have the scene scripted out I know what to write simply by looking at it.

This Scene Development document is not an outline. That's important to note, because I know some of you might be thinking that already. No, what it tells me is the major motions of the scenes -- the turning points and the character goals and whatnot -- those background moves that influence the on-screen action. By knowing those, I know the scene. And when I know the scene, I can write it much smoother and be free from the concerns of "what comes next?"

That's the big benefit of planning, I think. You lose that pause in momentum from wondering what comes next because you already know what comes next. You planned it out; looked at it from all sorts of angles, and made 100 percent certain that your characters are being logical and acting in the way they would act. The end result of this, I think, is a tighter story with leagues more impact simply because you the writer have a better handle on the action. That's what I think at least.

What say you, fellow wordsmiths?

* EDIT: Because Adam pointed out that I miscounted.