Friday Free for All : Pantser or Plotter?

Hello my lovelies,

I’m going to make this post short. A blessed event has occurred in the house and I want to enjoy it. What you ask? Both of my girls down for a nap at the same time, lol. Today I’m going to answer one of the questions I’m asked the most.

Previously I would’ve always answered plotter. The first thing I did when an idea drifted into my head was sit down and plot it. I did it old school with a thought web and then a Roman Numeral outline. It helped keep me on track and avoid the gumming up of the gears that can happen when you lose focus and your mind and writing wanders. Then something amazing, amusing and frustrating as heck started to happen. My characters went rogue. No amount of planning, plotting, begging or refusing to write what “they” wanted would budge the stubborn buggers once they decided who they were and what was right for them. I know some of you are going, but their fictional characters, you tell them what to do. Not so my friends. :Shakes head: For me my characters are like a living entity with a personality , a past, a face, and sometimes a very strong opinion. It’s become such a normal occurrence, that I’ve changed the way I wrote all together.

I think a story is best when it comes from a real place and speaks to you in a “Soul” level. So I don’t want to resist the direction the muse and my characters aka minions want to send me in. So I became both a pantser and a plotter. Why have one or the other, when you can take some from column A and some from Column B? I do a brief outline, usually in my head now, but occasionally on paper. When the character reveals something to me I go with it. In the end my story is always better for their input. I take things one scene at a time. It’s always been my habit to view my story like movie in the sense that I “see” it scene by scene. So for me it’s scene 1, scene 2. Just like in a movie/show every scene moves my story in some way. This method really helped me tighten up my writing, add depth,, and make my characters come to life.

My number one goal writing, next to entertaining readers and making them feel something, is improving. I’d like to think when people read one of my stories from when I first started ( Yes I cringe a bit) and one of my latest there’s a huge amount of growth.

How do you write and why? What tips have you picked up along the way for development?

Thanks again for tuning in and reading my rambles. I’m off to enjoy the silence that rarely occurs in my home these days. 