Plothead

In my previous post, I mentioned that I picked up a WIP I had started this summer and temporarily abandoned to write another manuscript, TWENTY-EIGHT AND A HALF WISHES.

Last week I revisited HUNTED. Frankly, I expected a complete rewrite with the exception of the first chapter. But when I read, I realized some of the scenes just needed tweaking-- cutting things out, changing dialogue, adding things back in. The tone of HUNTED changed, the end point was the same, but instead of taking a Greyhound bus, my characters were taking the Bullet train.

And it's just what it needed.

I also posted I had reached the point of running out of old words to use; I'd either used them all or thrown out the rest.

It was all blank pages before me.

I love me a blank page.

I let my imagination loose and scene after scene tumbled in my head and it's a race for my fingers to get it all down. A burning story is like a new lover-- (pft, like I would know...) --you want to be with them constantly.

Only real life gets in my way.

I have five kids living in the house, four of which seem to want my attention at various points of the day. (What's up with that?) Sometimes even all at once. For different things.

But these characters in my head of are demanding bitches. I stop writing to deal with real life and they're there in my head, playing the loop of the next scene in head. Some days, especially like today, when I'm thick in my story and itching to write but dealing with Halloween costumes and laundry and yet another pair of panties full of poop (my three-year-olds, not my own,) I find myself only partially here and the other part of me lost in my head. My kids ask me a question and it takes three tries to hear them. Or I'll watch them play and realize I'm staring at the wall.

I straddle both worlds and some days I'm more in the land of make-believe than real life. This makes me feel badly for my children, whom I know some days aren't getting the attention they need from me. Yet I'm unsure how to change it other than race through the story in my head and purge it from my system.

Imagination is a blessing and a curse.

Are you a Plothead?

Hi, I'm Denise and I'm a Pantser

I'm gonna confess right up front that's not entirely true. It's a huge debate, a line drawn in the sand. It's like a team rivalry -- are you a MU or a KU fan? (Sorry, I'm from Kansas City, it's a HUGE deal here) I've noticed the same thing with writers. Which are you? A Pantser or a Plotter? And depending on where you fall, you've got an ally or a rival, because one type has trouble understanding how the other functions.

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.

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.