I am a huge fan girl of Larry Brooks over at Storyfix.com. (You should be too. Go check it out and then nominate him for your favorite writing blog.) He’s a huge proponent of story architecture, which–next to Debra Dixon’s GMC–has been the single most illuminating craft concept I’ve ever read. Because he advocates something […]
Everybody’s got them. Those scenes that we wrote during our first draft either because a whim told us to or because the outline seemed to dictate that we do so. Those scenes that when we come back during revisions (or possibly during the first draft because you keep beating your head against the same scene […]
After a week in which I wrote 8586 words in blog posts (just here–not counting what I’ve done on my cooking blog Pots and Plots), made a major revision and reoutlined the last half of my current WIP, and made a revision/edit pass on the existing 40k of my current WIP, I needed a break […]
It’s been a big week here at Shadow and Fang. I think I’ve written my two longest blog posts to date. If you’ve stuck with me this far, congratulations. You clearly have stamina! So far I’ve talked about Why The Pantser Fears Plotting, My Problems With Pantsing, the Craft and Organizational methods I use in […]
So yesterday I talked about the aspects of craft that are very important to my plotting. I warn you, this is another tome and has lots of screenshots. Bear with me. Today I want to talk about organization. I think this is one of the stereotypical fundamental differences between pantsers and plotters. There’s this notion […]
My going from Pantser to Plotter has been a multi-step process. There is a misconception, I think, among pantsers that to be a plotter you must become some kind of Plot Nazi with notecards and color coded charts and every single aspect of every scene figured out before you ever put pen to paper or […]
When Lynn did her call for Left Behind and Loving It contributors this year, I decided right off that I wanted to do a series chronicling my shift from pantser to plotter. It’s a conversion that many have made and even more fear. There’s this idea that one is born a pantser or a plotter […]