I want to know why we have to choose?
The truth for me is I am both. Don't get me wrong, I could never snowflake and an outline seems way too much like eighth grade English class. *shudder* But I don't sit down at my laptop with one line "It was a dark and stormy night" and expect to get an entire novel out of it.
I flow chart. This is the flow chart I made for CHOSEN on a white board. I even color coded it, 'cause duh, it looks cool. And honestly, it was a pretty good plot. Only what I hadn't planned on, was once I REALLY let my characters take control, they didn't always follow the flow chart. Somewhere along the top line, where it bends to the next line, Will started getting other ideas. And guess what?
His ideas where better.
The truth for me is I am both. Don't get me wrong, I could never snowflake and an outline seems way too much like eighth grade English class. *shudder* But I don't sit down at my laptop with one line "It was a dark and stormy night" and expect to get an entire novel out of it.
Sure, it takes one idea to get a novel started, and with me one idea can be a combustible tangent-- the idea gets started in my head and explodes into a story in days. And I suppose I do plot, in my own way.
The flow chart for CHOSEN*
*don't look too closely
I flow chart. This is the flow chart I made for CHOSEN on a white board. I even color coded it, 'cause duh, it looks cool. And honestly, it was a pretty good plot. Only what I hadn't planned on, was once I REALLY let my characters take control, they didn't always follow the flow chart. Somewhere along the top line, where it bends to the next line, Will started getting other ideas. And guess what?
His ideas where better.
Wow.
By the last line of the flow chart, I barely hit on the points listed. Hell, the ending even changed. The day I knew I was writing the end, Will started doing things that didn't follow the plan. I literally shouted at my laptop. "What the f--k, Will?" (Fact: When I write Will, my language deteriorates.) But when I calmed down, I realized that I let him loose and it was what he would actually do in that situation. The result was much better than I planned.
Now I'm writing HUNTED, the sequel to CHOSEN. I had a plan. Instead of writing flow chart, I made a nice four page bullet point list. I even color coded things like action, clues, foreshadowing. I ain't gonna lie. I felt really smart.
Guess what? It didn't work. I sputtered and stalled.
Bottom line is I start writing and the characters don't always follow the plan. They don't get crazy and completely change the story, but we don't always get from Point A to Point B and end at Point C the way I planned it.
For me, writing a story is a lot like a multi weeks/months brain storming session. Ideas feed off one another and get my imagination rolling.
Scene: Tina gets into skirmish with John. I write Tina defending herself (I never know exactly how this goes until I write it) I write that Tina kicks John in the crotch.
My brain: Wow, Tina just kicked John in the crotch. What if she crushed the family jewels and John now holds her responsible and plans revenge.
I hadn't planned this twist. I didn't even know Tina was going to kick John, let alone in the crotch. (I can't wait to see the Google searches for this blog post.) And I may or may not use it, but it's idea I wouldn't have until I wrote the scene.
As I mentioned, I stalled on HUNTED. I had 38,000 words written this summer and knew the last 8-10K were just wrong. The problem was I couldn't figure out why. For a many reasons I won't go into here, I let it sit and moved on to TWENTY-EIGHT AND A HALF WISHES. I pulled it back out this week, and after a recent revision of CHOSEN I figured out the problem.
And with that realization the dam of ideas broke loose.
I've spent the last few days revising what I had previously written on HUNTED, moving scenes around, changing dialogue, adding new scenes and I'm finally at a place where the old words are either used or will be trashed. I have my old color coded four pages of plot points to tell me where to go next but I realize a lot of the old ideas don't work anymore. I know the end, but I have a wide open crevasse to get across from here to there.
It is simultaneously terrifying and exhilarating.
As I took my children to buy pumpkins, the scene that happens next came to me. And a few scenes after that. I see a hazy path to the end, the end I planned months ago. But I've grown enough to be flexible to not freak out. I've decided to embrace this foggy unknown and run with it. I'm excited to see what happens to the story during the next few weeks.
I can't wait to look back from the other side. Hopefully.
KU or MU? *ahem*
ReplyDeleteThere is another local option.
Yay!
ReplyDeleteI love hearing about the story that is working in your head. I just love that you are working on this story again. Hooray!!
Kristi
I fall in the, um, well. I guess I'm both. Neither. I dunno.
ReplyDeleteFour books ago, I was pure pantser. I didn't know what was going to happen beyond the next minute, let alone the next chapter or beyond. And that was fine. I went down some false paths, backed up, tried again, and eventually made my way to the end.
It worked, I enjoyed the process, and the book sold. Win!
Book two was a little difference, in that I had a general structure in mind before I started, but it was hardly an outline. It wasn't even a treatment. But it did give me a target to aim for. And that worked too, though the target changed as I went along. Book sold. Win!
Book Three was more pantsie than anything else, but as I got about 3/4s of the way into it, I realized I needed to get a grip on what was going on. I ended to creating scene cards for every scene and putting them on a board. Then I moved them around, figured out what scenes were missing and what scenes were superfluous. It was the most structured I'd been so far. But, of course, it all started seat of the pants.
Book Four was very different for me. I was trying to decide what to do next, so I spent a lot of time planning. I worked on two different story ideas, and as I went along they got increasingly detailed. Soon I figured out I wasn't all that interested in one of the ideas, so the other took hold. I ended up writing about a 20-page treatment, quite detailed, before I wrote even one scene. I sent the treatment to my agent, who said, "Yeah, write it." And then I wrote the novel. Sold. Win. (Out next year.)
So which do I prefer? I dunno. There were advantages to both approaches, as there was an advantage to the merging of the methods. I finished manuscripts from both angles.
I will say this. My first book took five years to write. Of course, I had no contract and so no pressure except what I put on myself. Book two took two years to write. No contract until it was done, but still, time pressure was there. I needed to not take TOO long to finish if I wanted to build a writing career.
Book three also took two years. Fortunately, due to the lead times in publishing and a little good luck, the gap between each book was only one-and-a-half years.
Book four, the one with the detailed treatment (or outline, or whatever it's called)? One year. And, really, eleven months. One month "plotting" and eleven months writing the novel.
Honestly, I do think having the outline made the writing go faster. Not that I stuck too close the outline as I went along. Part one, for example, was pretty tight, but I veered off the outline in part two, and by part three I was pretty much pantsing it.
So what do I suggest? Follow the method or methods which work for you. On the whole, readers don't care how the sausage was made. They only care that it tastes good.
Bill, I am thrilled and humbled that you commented on my blog! I love to hear other writer's processes, especially successful ones. I also love that all your books have been different. So far, all mine have been too.
ReplyDeleteLastly won't bacon get jealous you referred to sausage instead?
Bacon isn't made. Bacon simply is.
ReplyDeleteInteresting post. I claim the "pantser" title but do a mixture of both as well. I do outlines (though not very detailed) and then rarely ever pay attention to them when doing the actual writing. But I usually don't write a novel till I have a good portion of it planned out inside my head. As long as someone doesn't try to change my methods, I'm good with either side. ;-)
ReplyDeleteThis post comes at a timely moment for me. After spending more than *10* years on a novel, which my agent is poised to send out, I'm wondering what to do next.
ReplyDeleteThe one I just finished developed completely organically. I wrote a bunch of stuff, I sat back and tried to figure out how it fit together, I made an outline, I tried to fit what I had into the outline, it grew on its own, I made a different outline, and so on.
I had no sense of deadline, and wasn't at all sure anyone would ever see it except me. But as I consider what to do next I feel all sorts of pressure. It's hard to shift from polishing to brainstorming from scratch. I have some ideas floating around, but as soon as I start to arrange them into an outline they wither and die.
So I like hearing about these different approaches, and I really appreciate being reminded that there isn't One Right Way To Do It. I learned that lesson the last time. But I guess I needed a reminder.
I'm with you. Typically I would say I'm a Pantster, but I'm trying out this whole backwards outline thing myself. I think we all have to find a happy middle between the two. Maybe we need a new term to describe those of us in the middle. Middlers? :) Great post!
ReplyDeleteHehe - in the heat of nanowrimo things can get a little crazy, but it's times like those I find it useful to have an idea of where I'm going. I've tried pantsing without plotting and things just get silly.
ReplyDeleteI call myself a spiral plotter: there are some pieces I have to have in mind or I'll blather on endlessly, but the only way I can figure out the details or the middle bits is to write my way up to them--the way becomes clear in the up-close pantsing.
ReplyDeleteIn between pantsing moments I do more charting, likewise in many colors, but I can't honestly say that it's coded.
And KU, an option? Not seriously . . . ;)