At first I was afraid, I was petrified…
And then I started taking a realistic look at the problems that pantsing was causing me. (Warning, I am about to shamelessly mix metaphors)
Tangents
When I write by the seat of my pants, I have a really bad habit of going off on tangents. Like psychotic rabbits on speed, bouncing off the wall of plot tangents. Some “what if…?” idea will occur to me and I’ll run with it, displaying that same enthusiasm that usually accompanies fresh ideas. Except that instead of Sexy Next Book, it’s Sexy Next Plot Idea. Nevermind that SNPI may have no bearing on the heart of my plot. I’ll go back and tie it in during revisions. Nevermind that SNPI is the height of self indulgence because I really want my heroine to take this new turn in life and quit her job and open a bookstore, even though there’s a killer on the loose. You see my point? Without having at least a loose outline to hang the plot on, I’m absolutely guilty of going off on tangents. Tangents that I ultimately have to cut during revisions. Tangents that I wasted weeks or months of writing time on, the holes of which (after cutting) must still be filled. This is a monumental waste of writing time.
The Dreaded Valley of the Shadow of the Middle
Ah yes, the DVSM. I despise the DVSM. This is the point in the writing journey with every single book where I start to question my fortitude because once I run out of that initial creative steam, I am left standing on the precipice of the DVSM with no idea what happens next. Which leads to tangents (see above). I limp through, throw a bunch of scenes in, which theoretically get me from the first third to the last with nothing more than creative ingenuity, spit, and duct tape. Such construction does not a good novel make. Middles are the weak spot for SO MANY novels and account for a huge percentage of the volume of New York’s slush piles. And I honestly believe that weak middles are very often a symptom of pantsing. Not always, but very very often. They are the fatty, flabby, un-toned abdomen of your novel. And over here in the other corner are the plotters, with six pack abs on their novels. C’mon, don’t you want those six pack abs?
The Rambling Road To Finished Is The Roadtrip From Hell
Every book is a journey. We’ve all heard that metaphor before. And it is. As a pantser, you’re starting out on a road trip with a vague destination in mind, maybe you know your travelling companions. Maybe you just know where you want to end up. But you set out without a map. And inevitably you make a wrong turn. A lot of them. And what should have been a grand adventure turns into the Roadtrip from Hell (or perhaps to Hell, depending). You hooked a right by that gas station 50 miles back and now you’re in Deliverance country. Or maybe the ghetto. Or any other number of places you do not want to end up on a road trip. And even if you make it to the end of this Road Trip From Hell and get a finished draft, there is still the issue of–
Massive Revisions Necessary
Yep, revisions. You pantsed your way all the way to the end of a manuscript. Now you have to turn it into something salable. You have to wade back through the mess and see what’s salvageable. Because that’s what revisions are, very often, when people pants (not always–some pantsers wind up with a very solid book at the end, but I’d say they are the exception rather than the rule). Revisions become a salvage mission to cut out the usable material and figure out what you can do to renovate the poor foundation you started with, shore it up, and create something more solid. It’s a balancing act. And sure, it can be done. I’ve finished 4 books this way. A couple of them even turned out decently and not entirely full of suck. But the graveyard of abandoned projects littering my hard drive is good proof that there are many dozens more that I didn’t.
The long and the short of it is that pantsing (for most of us) is hideously inefficient. You waste time and effort on tangents and wrong turns because you didn’t take the time to plan your trip out ahead of time. Some people are okay with that. If you’re that person, then pants to your heart’s desire. But if you’re like me and writing is not your primary occupation and you want it to be, then it would behoove you to think about learning to plot. Now lest you be frightened away, let me say this. Pantsing and Plotting are not either/or propositions. As one commenter mentioned yesterday, it really is a continuum with pantsing on one end and plotting on the other. If you are a hard core pantser, then maybe you just want to bump a couple of notches toward the plotting end. That’s totally okay. As with all writing, there is no right or wrong way to do things. Everybody has their own methods. Over the course of the rest of the week, I’ll be sharing with you some of mine, and maybe you’ll luck out and find something that you can make work for you.
Drop a comment (before tomorrow’s post goes up around 9) about what you dislike about pantsing and why it doesn’t work for you or why you may be considering becoming a plotter, and you’ll be entered to win a gently used copy of Nevada Barr’s Track of the Cat, first in the Anna Pidgeon series. As before, I’ll ship anywhere, but if you’re outside the U.S. it will be via a slow and affordable boat.
And as a quick update, the winner from yesterday of a copy of Touch A Dark Wolf is Peggy! Peggy, drop me an email at kaitnolanwriter@gmail.com with your mailing address, and I’ll get that out to you at the end of this week.
I used to reject plotting and outlining because I thought it kept me from actually writing the story. I saw “prewriting” as trap, a time suck that would prevent me from actually writing the story. I was a pantser, plain and simple.
So, I wrote four novels filled with lots of narrative motion and no real conflict. Each featured characters largely wandering around trying to figure out what was going one, because I was trying to figure out what was going on. That was when I realized I needed a plan before beginning to write my next novel. What’s more, I finally figured out something else–that writing a novel can begin before beginning to type the story’s text, and often to far better effect. So, count me as an enthusiastic convert to the darkside of outlining.
Thanks for a great post!
Those “massive revisions” you mentioned? Yeah, that’s exactly why I decided to learn how to be a plotter. I want to look at my finished draft and see the potential, rather than a mess of mixed genres and a complete rewrite staring back at me. I need focus, and from what I’ve been working on with plotting methods, that’s exactly what plotting will give me. I’m crossing my fingers that my next couple of drafts (plotted) will be editable when I finish them.
You mean despite the reasons you named above? :p My biggest one is the rewrites. Major, major rewrites each and every one of them. I go off on a lot of tangents, lost in the DVSM and then when I finally manage to scrape my way to the end of the rough draft I look back over it and see that I’m on ten different plots, none of which actually connected and the original story is buried because of my pantsing ADD. So I’ve been slowing inching up the plotting continum… it’d be nice to see if it makes a difference.
My first novel was full of beautiful descriptions… and no plot. What? You don’t want to read a book about a woman wondering in a strange, but stunning, landscape? ; )
An outline is a wonderful road map.
“…creative ingenuity, spit, and duct tape. Such construction does not a good novel make.”
Yup, that’s one I’m going to remember. : ) Thanks for the post. Looking forward to tomorrow’s.
I’ve just hit the first of the massive revisions. I had to face the fact that not enough happened to keep anyone reading. It was too cerebral, locked in my character’s heads. So now I have some decent bits, but much is needed around it. I’d like for the second round to be a much more solidly built structure.
“And I honestly believe that weak middles are very often a symptom of pantsing.”
My biggest issue with pantsing. Yet every time I’ve outlined or plotted before writing my characters feel like cookie cut copies out of some B movie. Like I noted yesterday I need to find some happy medium. I’ll be following your workshops closely!
I definitely sympathize with the going off on tangents problem. I’ve had it happen with fiction on occasion, e.g. the one novel which turned into something completely different halfway through. It was SF, so we’re talking really different as in going from a spacestation invaded by killer aliens to a dystopic future Earth. I eventually abandoned the original novel, took some characters that I liked as well as the dystopic future Earth and wrote a novella. I may get back to the original manuscript some day, but the muddle is too much to face.
I also get the tangent problem with non-fiction. I spent quite some time cutting all the tangents from my MA thesis. Yes, it was satisfying refuting the theories of that obnoxious critic I dislike or using my academic powers to tear up that book/film I hate, but since both had very little to do with the subject at hand they had to go.
You sometimes even find other people’s tangents in published academic work, usually in the form of two pages devoted to tearing down the theories of some academic rival with very little connection to the subject of the essay. When I find one of those in a text that is on the reading list for one of my classes, I use it as an example to caution the students against such indulgences.
thanks for a great workshop. i am a panster – it is sad. my main issue is that i do the tangents….i am writing then – OMG great idea….and wander off after it….sigh. thank you for walking thru your process this week.
I definitely agree with everything you said about why pantsing doesn’t work for you (but against you!).
Pantsing has always given me weak scenes, weak (or nonexistent) plots, meandering middles, jam-packed-and-feverishly-rushed endings and a whole host of other problems. And that’s only if I make it to the end.
Pantsing has also given me the grand ability to write myself into a corner. As my plot creeps up on me I grab it and marvel at its beauty and complexity! And then I realize, jaw hanging open, that a) I haven’t given my characters the tools necessary to accomplish their major goal/to get through to the end without dying or being severely maimed and/or b) I’m not clever enough to work out such a plot, let alone do it justice.
Yeah, there’s another one: true pantsing ultimately deflates my confidence in the bad way!
I’m all about making little roadmaps that help me veer around those DVSMs.
Funny this came up recently on my blog over the generation of characters and it caused me, a die-hard plotter, to outline my working practice.
In case it helps, I repeat the plotting focused part of the comment.
“If there is one thing above all else I have learned about the scribbling game it is that there is no one single way to play the game.
I am a plotter, I go through concept, then outline plot, then draft plot, then I produce the time lines (bored yet?) then each plot scene and beat gets pseudo-scripted (short descriptions, events. Very succinct and put down at breakneck speed i.e. there is no “writing” involved only story telling), then I juggle scenes and events till the story is exciting. After all that I start to play with the words and about that time my characters have evolved into actors. (Natalie, wake up, I’ve finished describing.)
I have trouble with “seat of the pants” writing since I don’t know when to stop. I have a writing task set by our local writing group that should be about 500 words MAX, at the last count it is 35,000 and has no end. Ho hum, that’s just the way I am.
I’ll not shoot you for doing what works best for you. I couldn’t do what you do and I doubt you could follow my controlled regime.
As long as it works, do it.”
Just my way of doing things.
Very much looking forward to reading the rest of your posts about plotting.
The thing about pantsing is that it feels really good. It feels like writing! Pure creativity from your brain out your fingertips and onto the screen. And that creative high makes it seem to you that you’re freaking brilliant. Then you come down from that, come back to it later, and go–what the hell? A lot of the writing itself may, indeed, be brilliant, but the chances of it all relating and coming together with the kind of complexity we LOVE in a well-plotted novel (complexity being, IMO, the point of reading 100K words at a time) are a bit slim. It IS a lot of work to mine that first draft for a complete rewrite.
So what I don’t like about pantsing, as you know, is the waste of it. The waste of time, energy, and all those pretty words. And I don’t think a true pantster can save those cut bits and use them later on, except maybe one as a springboard beginning to another pantsed story.
Good for you, reformed pantster, for taking this on this week.
These are all reasons why I prefer to plot. I also like to have something to fall back on if I get stuck.
Margay
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