Plotting for Pantsers

Feb 11, 2009

I love these expressions: being a plotter vs. a pantser (a writer who works by the seat of her pants, rather than from a strict outline.).  I’m a bit of both, but I have to confess I do revel in my pantsie moments.  Makes me feel all powerful and my characters feel more real if the world shapes as I watch it. I like my artsy inclinations and indulging in the loosey-goosey.

Until Tuesday morning.

I had started work on Familiar Demons, Book 2 in my new Zoë Pendergraft series, and I had a pretty good feel for the big picture, and so thought, “Right, time to dig in.”

And when I sat down to write… day one was great… day two… ugh!  I got mired in tedious weirdness and wrote 2,000 useless words.  I was so annoyed at myself and frustrated with the pantsiness of it all that I sniped at people who like me.  Considering what a miracle that is some days, this should show you what kind of foul mood I was in!

So today I needed to reevaluate, and I think I got myself back on track.  I recognised that my concept was good at the “big picture” level.  I understand the characters and the world, I just hadn’t written down those pesky details.

To deal with this I made a file I called “What Do You Want?”  Each character got a heading of their own, and beneath that I wrote what their goals were.  One character’s motivations included dealing with being suddenly unemployed, because losing her car and eating cat food doesn’t appeal.  She also has a little personal mystery to solve.

This part was easy.  I was able to sketch in details for characters that had been shadowy for me before (because they didn’t appear in Book 1) and now it all felt much firmer.

Then under each motivation I wrote Tasks: things to do that would help them get to their solutions.  Like if one character has secret feelings for another, he might organise some way to spend more time with the object of his lusty affections.  If another character’s reason for being is to protect the person they love, then they might discourage said love from taking a certain impending trip, regardless of how important this trip is to the goals of that person.

This led me to questions like: How far would he go to achieve this?  Sometimes multiple answers came to mind, and I wrote it all down, sometimes noting if I thought something was too far out to be actually done, but left it in because I wanted him to at least consider the more extreme option.  And besides, maybe… just maybe..when the time comes, I’ll let him do the unthinkable.

I feel much happier today, because now I have not only my overview, but a list of about 20 specific actions that my characters need to undertake in their efforts to meet their goals.  So all I have to do is put them in order, disrupt  well-laid plans with circumstance, hide a few things, throw in misdirection and lies, and I’m all set.

Plotters of (by?) the Pants Unite!  We can do it… hell yes we can!