The Spark that Sets My Knickers Ablaze or Lights My Way (Melissa Robbins)

Earlier in this year, dry, grassy areas caught fire along the highway in our town, sending my neighbors into a frenzy.  Neighbor helped neighbor.  Firefighters showed up to battle the fires to keep them from spreading and damaging the houses.  Children watched everything in awe. 

We asked the firefighters how the fires got started.  One said he saw sparks shooting off a trailer on the highway.  With the dry conditions and that darn Kansas wind, that’s all it took. 

“Uh, Mel.  The topic is your writing process, although we won’t complain if you start talking about hunky firemen.”  What does this have to do with my writing process?  Take that spark the fireman talked about.  If you’re panster, that spark would set your knickers ablaze and you would take off, writing like a fire frenzy.  I’m picturing Thunk (from The Croods) who thinks the fire is biting him so he runs into the tall grass and sets the entire field on fire. 

Now me, I’m a plotter.  I’ll take that spark, light a torch, and stake it into the ground.  Then I’ll circle it and to make my teachers proud, I’ll ask the Who, What, Why, When, Where, How, and the What Ifs.  Let’s go back to that fire by my house.  What if the firefighter didn’t see that trailer or what if they discovered it was arson?  What if a neighbor wanted to burn down his house for the insurance money or to cover up a murder?  My “spark” could be an incident or a character.  What if one of the homeowners was a single woman who gave a bottle of water to a fireman.  That one act of kindness could melt his cynical heart for whatever reason.  Romance!  Or one of the kids witnessed the heroism and the event reminded him of his dad who, also a fireman, died in the line of duty.  The possibilities are endless. 

I take another torch and, using the fire from the first torch, I light it.  Then, I run ahead or hop into my car and drive all the way down to the end of my story and stake that new torch into the ground.  This is where I want my story to end.  Then, I run or drive back to the first torch.  I can see the last torch.  I know it’s there.  With more torches, I start to light my way to the last torch.  First they are sporadic, spots were certain things must happen.  Some call them turning points.  I use Alexandra Sokoloff’s screenwriting method of plotting and she calls them act climaxes. 

More scenes are written.  More torches light my way.  Sometimes, characters light their own torches and go a different way.  As a writer, I have to decide if that’s good or bad.  Keep that bucket of water handy to douse any unwanted fires. 

Same goes for when I finally reach my last torch.  I may turn around and go yuck, that’s not a very pretty path of torches or my last torch is in the wrong place.  Some get extinguished altogether.  Some get moved around.  New prettier torches may take their places.  Only you know when the path of torches is complete and beautiful. 

Now go find those sparks and light up the world with your stories!  

Plotter? Pantser? How about an 80/20 hybrid? (Melissa Robbins)

I HAVE to know point A and where point B ends up so I can leave a trail of bread crumbs (clues) along the way.  I’ve read that some mystery writers can pen a story without knowing who the killer is until the end.  Nope.  Not me. 

Besides using the great plotting method by Alexandra Sokoloff (her Elements of Acts are awesome), a simple spreadsheet helps me plot out a mystery.  I list each character’s name at the top and below that, I type in his or her agenda, secrets, etc.  My first person heroine may not know what’s going on, but I have to know. 

But like the title suggests, I’m a hybrid and only too happy to follow a character who leads me in another direction.  He or she may reveal a secret I didn’t even know about!  I just have to be careful my characters don't leave me astray.

The key with writing, whether you're a plotter or a pantser, is use what works for you.  

Plot? Pants? Both? Oh My! (Penny Rader)

This month our topic is "Are you a Plotter (outliner) or a Panster (seat-of-the-pants) writer?  Why?" 

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Plotting doesn't come easily to me, so I went trolling online for some help.  Below are snippets from articles that intrigued me.  I urge you to click on the hyperlinks and read the articles.  They are chock full of great ideas.

 Also, if any of these are helpful to you, print them or save them.  You never know when something will disappear online.  An article I planned to use for this post was available two days ago, but not today.


The 8 C’s of Plotting: Worksheets (Lara Willard)

• Captivation
• Change
• Complication
• Confrontation
• Collapse
• Comprehension
• Curve ball
• Culmination

A Date with Kate – Plotting (Kate Walker)

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Training Yourself as a Plotter

• Read Read Read – learn the plots that make successful romances in the past and in the present – and the ones that have failed.
• Watch soaps/dramas/films – stop it halfway – or at the end of the episode – ask yourself: Where is it going? Who will end up with whom? 
• Read newspapers/magazines/watch people stories on TV – use them as your characters - see if you can see what will happen – check it against reality.
• How could you rework a fairy story?
• With every story you read, watch, hear - think about what was behind it, who is involved, why it happened - and consider what will happen next. 

The Great Debate: Plotting Versus Pantsing (DB Jackson)

First, let me say this:  Each writer has to find his or her own way.  Between the extremes of no advanced plotting whatsoever and outlining down to the most minute detail, lies a broad spectrum of possible approaches….

Second, that spectrum I mentioned really does provide a myriad of possible approaches.  I think there are few writers out there who are pure pantsers or pure plotters.

And third, the term “organic” means different things to different people.  I believe that on some level ALL writing is organic.

Finally, allow me to say this:  I think that for aspiring writers especially, some level of plot outlining makes sense.


How Plotting & Pantsering Affects Everything You Write, Pt 1 (Vince Moore)

Pantsering and plotting are similar to being left or right handed. Each person tends to favor a dominate hand and yet each individual also tends to make ample use of both hands.

Types of Pantsers and Plotters:

• Type I Plotter: this is a writer who was born a plotter. This writer may even think plotting is the only way to write. 
• Type II Adult-onset Plotter: this I believe is the most common type of plotter. Most Type II’s have tried pantsering and can’t make it work. 
• Type I Pantser: I think almost all pantsers are lifelong type I’s. I have yet to meet a pantser who was once a plotter but had to give it up
• The Plotting Pantser: this is a pantser who may be ‘passing as a plotter’. She keeps changing the plot as new ideas arise with almost every chapter.
• The Pantsering Plotter: this is a plotter who may be passing as a pantser. She starts writing without a plot in true pantsering fashion but then keeps building a plot on the back end of whatever she has written.

How to Write a Book ( OJ Omololu)

9 Steps for Plotting Fiction (Taken from the Verla Kay Message Boards)

1. Triggering event
2. Characterization
3. First major turning point
4. Exposition
5. Connect the dots
6. Negative turning point
7. Antagonist wins
8. Revelation
9. Protagonist wins

Nanowrimo Prep: The Index Card Method and Story Structure Grid (Alexandra Sokoloff)

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Make two blank structure grids, one for the movie you have chosen from your master list to analyze, and one for your WIP (Work In Progress). You can just do a structure grid on a piece of paper for the movie you’ve chosen to analyze, but also do a large corkboard or cardboard structure grid for your WIP. You can fill out one structure grid while you watch the movie you’ve chosen.

Get a pack of index cards or Post Its and write down all the scenes you know about your story, and where possible, pin them onto your WIP structure grid in approximately the place they will occur.


The Outline Dilemma—Plotting vs. Pantsing (Beth Hill)

Plotters

• Plotters can write character-driven or plot-driven stories.
• It’s quite likely that plotters know the story’s ending.
• A lot of plotting is imagining what if.

Pantsers

• The pantsers often just begin writing with the smallest kernel of a plot or with only the shadow of a character that snares their interest.
• If you’ve got sticky notes posted as reminders on every surface of your office, you’re probably a pantser.
• Pantsers may actually have more notes in the margins of their manuscripts than plotters will (since plotters keep their notes in the outline)...
• Pantsers...may face plot tangles after writing the first draft that the plotter doesn’t face 
• Pantsers also enjoy the excitement and enthusiasm of putting story to paper without first hashing through the story.

...there is no right method.

You’re the writer. Use your tools in ways that make you succeed.


Planners Versus Pantsers (Suzanne Church)

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I've tried both techniques. I tend to write short fiction as a pantser and novels as a planner.

In my opinion, two books on planning and analyzing plot and structure are particularly helpful for Planners. Writing the Breakout Novel Workbook by Donald Maass and Save the Cat by Blake Snyder.

… my favorite planning tool…Excel to create a multi-worksheet planning file.  … Essentially my spreadsheet is my bible (or codex if you prefer) and can be especially helpful if I need to set the novel aside for a while.


Plotter or Pantser: The Best of Both Worlds (Cindi Myers)

By now you’ve probably identified yourself as either a plotter or a pantser. Whichever approach works for you, I’m convinced you can learn from writers who take a different approach.

If you’re a plotter, try flying by the seat of your pants. Maybe not for a whole book. But every once in a while... Ask your characters to tell you what they’re going to do next.

If you’re a pantser, try plotting out a chapter, then writing it. See if it helps you write more quickly or more easily. Experiment. See if thinking about your book as a whole at the beginning of the process helps shorten the rewriting phase.

There’s no one way that’s right or wrong. The important thing is to write the book. It doesn’t really matter how you get there. But don’t be afraid to experiment with writing methods as a way to challenge yourself and keep your creativity fresh.


Plotters, Pantser,and Percolators (Karyn Henley)

I've discovered that I’m more of a Percolator. Percolating is a mixture of pantsing and a plotting. Here’s how it works for me: I dedicate a composition book to the project I’m starting. Then I go through Donald Maass’s Writing 21st Century Fiction or his Breakout Novel Workbook, both of which ask thought-stimulating questions that I apply to my specific story. I let my story idea percolate through each question, and I jot answers in my comp book. Without fail, I discover characters and motivation, see possible scenes, hear dialogue, and so on.


Story Planning Worksheets (Jami Gold)

Jami has lots of great worksheets.  You’ll have to go to her page to access these:

• Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat Beat Sheet (plot arc oriented)
• Larry Brooks’s Story Engineering Beat Sheet (plot arc oriented)
• Master Beat Sheet Combining Save the Cat and Story Engineering (plot arc oriented)
• Jami Gold’s Basic Beat Sheet (plot arc oriented and stripped down to basics)
• Jami Gold’s Scrivener Template for the Basic Beat Sheet
• Michael Hauge’s Six Stage Plot Structure Beat Sheet (character arc oriented)
• Jami Gold’s Romance Beat Sheet (romance arc oriented)
• Jami Gold’s Elements of a Good Scene Checklist
• Jami Gold’s Elements of a Good Scene Worksheet

To Plot Or Not To Plot…That Is The Question (Destiny)

Are You A Pantser?

1. Do you commence a new novel based solely on an idea, character or sentence?
2. Do you often say, “I let the book tell me where it’s going.”?
3. Do you view writing as taking a road trip with only a vague destination in mind?

Are You a Plotter?

1. Do you get inspired and then write an outline?
2. Do you get giddy doing chapter summaries?
3. Does the thought of not knowing whether your character is a mustard or mayo person make you anxious?

…there is no wrong or right way to write you novel. The bottom line is you have to write it! Whatever methods you take to get to that finish line is the right way for you.

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The Ultimate Plotting Tool for Pantsers: Your Novel in 9 Sentences (Joel D Canfield)

A tool he learned from Larry Brooks…stating each of these in a single sentence will give you a clear easy-to-follow path through your novel.

1. The Hook
2. The Setup
3. The First Plot Point
4. Response (including First Pinch Point)
5. The Midpoint
6. Attack (including Second Pinch Point)
7. The Second Plot Point (including the “All is Lost” Moment)
8. Climax
9. Resolution

~~~

Did you find any of these helpful?  Are you a plotter, a pantser, or a combination of both?

Plotter or Pantser? Why? by J Vincent

Plotting a story, that is outlining it, is one way for a writer to get the tale they want to tell to take shape.  This involves imaging the action from the beginning to end and in some detail.  Not only are chapters sketched out chapter by chapter but at times scene by scene. 

A Pantser, as in “by the seat of your pants,” envisions the whole story in general, or at least the beginning and the end but not very many details. In this method the writer lets the characters tell the story their way with their details.

Both methods work albeit, better for some writers than others.  This week I read an article in which a scientist studied the connections of cells in the brain.  He stated that these connections are the identity of the person.  I believe how your brain is wired will determine how you end up writing.

When I first started writing I outlined in detail.  Chapter and verse, so to speak.  Outline before me, I would start typing (yes, typing not keying) my story.  It would usually go fine for a chapter or two and then one of the major characters would throw a spanner in the works.  (I HAVE been watching and reading too much British writing!) The spanner, that is wrench, became apparent to me when I could not get the story to go forward no matter how hard I tried.  At that point I usually rethought and reworked my outline and then continued until another spanner came along.

This became very tiresome.  I was losing writing time redoing the book outline.  So I became a pantser.  If the characters wanted to tell the story, fine.  I’d envision the beginning, perhaps a few scenes along the way, and that the hero would get the heroine or visa versa at the end.  This done I would write.  I remember The Curious Rogue especially as it wrote itself in six weeks. I was frantically typing away that last week because I was more than curious to learn the ending.  I knew the hero would get the heroine but not how. I also decided I was mildly insane.  How on earth could characters I created with a story I saw in my mind write their own story?  This was before WARA, before I knew any other writers.  You can’t know how relieved I was to learn this was not an isolated event but something that happened with other writers also.  It has happened to me several times.  I wrote the last half of Honour’s Redemption in two weeks.  If something works I tend to stay with it.

So which am I—plotter or pantser?  I’m my own version of a combination of both.  Partially by nature and partially by chance.  It is a lot like asking “Why am I a writer?”  I can give some reasonable explanations for why I became a writer but in the end I think it has more to do with how my brain is wired than anything.  Heredity and environment—that’s why I write the way I do.  How about you?

Writing. Difficult? Sometimes. by J Vincent

The hardest part of writing isn’t research.  Research is exciting and seductive.  I’ve been searching for the location of British HQ in Spain during the latter stages of the retreat to the Lines of Torres Vedras in 1810.  Each clue I come across fires excitement.  There is much to be said for the “hunt.”

The hardest part of writing isn’t deciding the setting--the where and when.  That’s pretty well set for me with the Napoleonic Wars.  It isn’t discovering the characters.  “Discovering?” you ask?  That’s what it is like a lot of the time.  I had a perfectly vile villain who now in book four I learned actually had a heart.  Characters are like friends--you never know them completely and they can surprise you.

So what is the hardest part of writing?  Well, it’s the writing.  It’s the day to day sitting at the keyboard and hoping the words flow and forcing them (or trying to) when they won’t.  That usually isn’t good writing but a book will never get written if you don’t make yourself put words down one after another.  Some times the words gush so fast my fingers can’t keep up with them.  It’s like watching a movie and being a court reporter, afraid to miss anything.  Other days it’s similar to pulling pin feathers for those of you lucky enough to have had to “dress” chickens.  I never thought that an odd term until long after I stopped doing it.

Most days it’s a matter of just doing it.  Sit down, put the hands on the keyboard, and type.  If you’ve prepared well--that is, you’ve gotten to know your characters and you’ve plotted out the story--the words will come.  Perhaps not in a gush but with a steady enough flow.  If you are a “by the seat of your pants” writer as I am, you plot out the broad parameters of the story.  No, I’m not saying you only need to know that boy meets girl or vis a versa, girl gets boy and they live happily ever after.  I plot the different twists and turns of the story, though often I don’t know exactly what my characters are going to do.  Like recalcitrant children they often do their “own” thing.  I know the broad chapters and some of the scenes but not all.  So every now and then there is a hiccup of sorts where the action stalls.  At these times I try to just push the story forward.  I have learned that if I don’t take the right direction (right according to my hero/heroine) the story goes no where.  If that happens I simply backtrack and try again.  At this point you are probably wondering why I don’t plot out the entire book, scene for scene, like some writers do.  I’ve tried it and it just doesn’t work for me.  It uses up a lot of time as I throw out the outline from where my character deviated and rewrite it.  Over. And over.  Perhaps I’m just plot-challenged.  But different strokes for different folks, to use a trite, over-used expression. 

Different aspects of writing prove troublesome now and then but nothing is more rewarding than writing that final scene (there is no such thing as final in writing, only the last time--ask any writer if they won’t find something to change every time they look at one of their books!) and knowing you’ve created a story.  You’ve told a tale.  There isn’t anything better no matter what proved “difficult” on the way to The End.  

 How final is your writing?

 

Mistake or Learning Experience?

There are two kinds of writers.  Plotters and Pantsers.  Plotters tend to outline their stories and follow the outline faithfully.  Pantsers on the other hand, write by the seat of their pants or in a much more freewheeling spontaneous style.  I slowly evolved from a dyed-in-the-wool plotter to a hybrid with characteristics of both styles.  That I needed to be more of a pantser (read that my characters needed me to be) was brought home like a proverbial 2x4 up side the head during the writing of the fourth book in my Honour series.  Honour’s Redemption took an eternity to write.  Well, not an eternity but it seemed that long since I ended up writing the first half twice.  How did that happen?  Was it a mistake?

I had always outlined my stories and was accustomed to my characters occasionally going their own way.  It usually wasn’t a big detour and the story followed the outline more rather than less.  Forgive a small aside here: I’ve never been able to understand or explain how the characters I create act like my children in that they do their own thing no matter how I feel about it.  I worried for my sanity until other writers mentioned having similar problems.  The end result is the same--if I don’t let my characters have their way the story will stall out and go nowhere.  When it came to Honour’s Redemption the characters evidently decided I need a writing life lesson.

After outlining Redemption I started writing.  Somewhere around Chapter Four my hero and a couple of my minor characters started objecting to the direction of the story.  I put my foot down or rather my finders to the keyboard, and wrote on ignoring their protests.  By Chapter Seven I was getting uneasy about the tone of the story.  It was dark to a degree anyway but it was taking on a more sinister rather than redemptive quality.  I still refused to listen to what my characters were whispering in my head.  This was MY story I was going to write it \MY way.  The outline or the highway.

Then in Chapter Eleven a minor character was raped.  This scene was not in my outline.  “How could this happen?” I asked in stunned horror.  I, after all, was writing the story.  The incident had nothing to do with my image of my main characters’ journeys-- physical, emotional or otherwise and I did not want this incident in my story.  And the story was dead on the monitor or perhaps more realistically completely, totally stalled in my mind.  I tried rewriting the chapter to take it another direction.  That went nowhere.  I put it aside for a week and when I came back to it I struggled until I admitted that I didn’t have a glimmer of an idea about how to fix it.  I put it aside again.

Two months later, and over 200 pages into the book, I came to the conclusion that the only way the book would get written was to throw out what I had and start over.  I bit the bullet, reread the outline, and began again.  But this time I let the characters lead the story.  I steeled my nerves and re-outlined when they got too far off the Roman numeral track.  At the mid-point of the story I heaved a huge sigh of relief.  While the tale wasn’t following MY outline it did have the tone I wanted.  Evidently the characters also decided I had learned my lesson.  I wrote the last third of that book, 130 plus pages, in less than a week.  I usually write faster when I near the end of writing a book, just like I read faster when reading a book.  I can’t wait to find out how it ends in either case.  I mean, we all know boy gets girl or vice versa but HOW?  That is what I must know.  This time the words, the scenes just flowed from my fingers like magic.  Gives me a chill just to recall it.

I still plot but I learned from my experience with Honour’s Redemption and never stand in the way of my characters for long.  Are your characters as independent as mine?  Or am I a few keys short of a keyboard?