Karen GoatKeeper's Blog - Posts Tagged "pantser"
Plotting a Book
I am again studying up on a writing skill for my writers' group meeting. Plotting: a simple step by step action plan the main character follows to get from the beginning of a novel to the end of the novel.
Is plotting really so simple? Where does that set of steps come from?
This brings up the plotter vs. pantser debate again. But there is a new twist for me.
A recent Writers' Digest has an article on this aspect of plotting. It includes a set of questions so you can rate yourself on the plotter/pantser continuum. Of course I took the survey.
Now, I love NaNo. That 50,000 words in 30 days is so liberating. It is a pantser's paradise. I would throw down a few plot ideas and be off and writing as fast as my clumsy fingers could make their hopefully coherent way across the keyboard.
But, according to that survey, I am mostly a plotter.
I can't be. My life is chaos. My house is a disaster zone. My garden is a weed's Eden. I am always trying to do too many things in too little time.
Except the survey is right.
My day is organized around a list of projects. Under the clutter everything in my house has a place it is supposed to be and eventually returns to. The weeds may outrun me but my guerrilla warfare takes its toll on them.
And my writing has a plot series of bullet points and character sheets.
All is not lost. NaNo gives me a month of freedom to throw all the organization - well, most of it - to the winds. Maybe that is the real reason I look forward to November madness. It's a break in the work of writing, a time to have fun.
Interestingly enough, that is a point made in the Writers' Digest article. Even the most organized plotter can use a time of pantsing to get the stodginess out of their writing.
Is plotting really so simple? Where does that set of steps come from?
This brings up the plotter vs. pantser debate again. But there is a new twist for me.
A recent Writers' Digest has an article on this aspect of plotting. It includes a set of questions so you can rate yourself on the plotter/pantser continuum. Of course I took the survey.
Now, I love NaNo. That 50,000 words in 30 days is so liberating. It is a pantser's paradise. I would throw down a few plot ideas and be off and writing as fast as my clumsy fingers could make their hopefully coherent way across the keyboard.
But, according to that survey, I am mostly a plotter.
I can't be. My life is chaos. My house is a disaster zone. My garden is a weed's Eden. I am always trying to do too many things in too little time.
Except the survey is right.
My day is organized around a list of projects. Under the clutter everything in my house has a place it is supposed to be and eventually returns to. The weeds may outrun me but my guerrilla warfare takes its toll on them.
And my writing has a plot series of bullet points and character sheets.
All is not lost. NaNo gives me a month of freedom to throw all the organization - well, most of it - to the winds. Maybe that is the real reason I look forward to November madness. It's a break in the work of writing, a time to have fun.
Interestingly enough, that is a point made in the Writers' Digest article. Even the most organized plotter can use a time of pantsing to get the stodginess out of their writing.
