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Riane Profile
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Initiate

Registered: 04-2003
Location: Australia
Posts: 19
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Planner or pantser?


This topic has been of interest to me of late, because in the past six months I've moved from the 'pantsing' camp (writing by the seat of my pants) firmly into the planning camp.

My question is: Do you plan your writing in advance (either a novel or a shorter piece)? If yes, how much detail do you use for your plan? If not, how do you approach the writing (i.e. do you have an ending in mind or just let the story go where it wants)? And one final, related question: do you use story structure (e.g. 'Three Act Structure') to help you shape your writing?

And for a bit of context, here is my answer to those questions. I used to be a firm pantser, loving the thrill of sitting down to write and letting the story go wherever. The problem was, every time in the past that I sat down to write I ended up with my plot in knots that I found impossible to unravel. I never really had a clear idea of my endings, and so my stories floundered.

A few years ago I came across the Snowflake method (which I noticed some people have discussed elsewhere), and as a pantser I found it interesting but I still struggled to apply it to my own writing. The problem was, I always had trouble zooming out on my stories and seeing the big-picture of the plot. I'm a details person, and so I can write scenes reasonably well but once I have to take the large view I get stuck.

Then, about two months ago I discovered a book called Story Engineering by Larry Brooks and it turned my writing upside down. What it helped me to understand was story structure and suddenly the big picture view was no longer difficult; I understood what needed to go where in my stories for them to work.

Case in point: I pulled out a short story I had written six years ago (for an anthology project over at Scribe's, actually) and within a couple of days I had transformed it from a defunct 6k story into a solid outline for two novels. I was actually a bit stunned that this thing that had eluded me for so long was suddenly clear, and I had the proof of it in front of me. I have now written just shy of 37k for the first novel, and that is in the space of six weeks. (Granted, I had two and a half weeks of holidays in that period, and I wrote 30k in those two weeks.)

It still boggles my mind that this short story, which I had almost given up on, is now well under way to becoming a novel. And the primary reason for that is the two revelations I've had about story structure and planning. I know I will never be able to go back to pantsing an entire novel (well, trying to)—I am very firmly in the planning camp now.

The beauty is, I am still able to pants the hell out of the individual scenes of the novel (the scene level is the most detail I have for the story), and so I feel like I get the best of both worlds: I know where the story and each scene is going, but it is not so minutely planned that there isn't room to let my creativity spin itself in interesting directions.

With my planning document in hand, I am managing to write a chapter a week (roughly), which equates to around 5k words. I have never been this productive in the past, and writing 5k always felt hard, but not so any more. (Well, it's hard in the sense that it requires my brain to be active and creative, but not in the sense that I have to figure out what the heck to write every time I sit down.) But even when the words are difficult, it's still inherently rewarding.

So, how do others approach their writing? Are you a planner or a pantser? Why?

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Reading: Burn Bright by Marianne de Pierres
My writing blog
The Fantasy Writers' Library
5/15/2011, 1:37 pm Link to this post Email Riane   PM Riane
 
Firlefanz Profile
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Lady of the Land

Registered: 05-2003
Location: Germany
Posts: 6984
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Re: Planner or pantser?


Riane, I'm so glad you're here!

This is a great topic. I'm in the same position as you have been for so long: I'm a pantser. I've tried planning stories, and I think my fantasy series has a good overall plot ark, but ... whenever I tried to plan a story with an outline and an act structure, all the fun went out of it.

I firmly believe that good plotting and planning makes writing a LOT easier. I just never found a good way to do it. The Snowflake didn't work for me. The Three Act Structure isn't bad at all, it feels logical and makes a lot of sense. It just never worked for me, either.

So I'm very much looking forward to Story Engineering. It's already on my book list, and I'll get it with the next batch of books from Amazon (just have to earmark the money for it).

I'm also very, very glad you're turning that short story into two novels! Wow! We both knew there was a whole world behind that (if it is the one I'm thinking of). I'm so glad you discovered it now!
 emoticon emoticon emoticon

Last edited by Firlefanz, 5/15/2011, 2:07 pm


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- Firlefanz

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Pastor Rick Profile
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The Reeve

Registered: 07-2005
Location: Texas
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Re: Planner or pantser?


I sometimes plan my way right out of a story if you know what I mean... The Anthology project is showing me some new ways to get around that though. I like the pantser method when doing a flash challenge and I like to think I can do decent over-arching story outlines but getting things to tie together is a pain...

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5/15/2011, 9:18 pm Link to this post Email Pastor Rick   PM Pastor Rick Blog
 
Riane Profile
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Initiate

Registered: 04-2003
Location: Australia
Posts: 19
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Re: Planner or pantser?


A word of warning about Story Engineering: Larry Brooks takes a while to warm up to his topic, but once you get into the meat of the book it pays off, particularly the section about story structure.

I think the story structure thing has been the biggest revelation for me. I know what you mean about the Three Act Structure thing not working for you—I actually felt the same way when I read about it in Writing Fiction for Dummies (by Randy Ingermanson, another great book) and Plot and Structure by James Scott Bell. The difference, when I read Story Engineering, is that I didn't just understand the 'this piece should go here and this piece should go there' idea—I suddenly understood the why. And now that I get the why, I'm finding examples of this story structure all over the place in novels and movies.

This doesn't mean, of course, that said rules/guidelines can't be 'bent', but as with any such guidelines, it's important to know what they are first before you try to break them. (Works the same with grammar—you gotta know the rules to break them effectively.)

I separate thoughts about story structure from planning. The reason planning works for me now is because I get story structure. And planning is just so much more efficient than trying to find your story through multiple drafts. I think part of my struggle in the past was the thought of doing countless drafts until I 'found' the story I wanted to write. It's not that I don't expect to have to edit once a first draft is done—I just feel more confident that I won't have to edit in order to find my story; I'll be editing in order to refine it instead.

Pastor Rick: I agree about pantsing for flash fiction. For something that short, pantsing really does work best. And I still pants my scenes (the longest of which has been about 3500 words, I think…).

My difficulty in the past was that my 'short' stories always felt like they wanted to be novels—the ideas were too big for a story of that length. I just didn't know how to grow them so that the stories worked. Now I do. (Well, I hope I do. The proof is in the planned pudding, as they say.)

Last edited by Riane, 5/16/2011, 6:40 am


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Reading: Burn Bright by Marianne de Pierres
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The Fantasy Writers' Library
5/16/2011, 6:39 am Link to this post Email Riane   PM Riane
 
Reythia Profile
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Knight of Honor

Registered: 11-2005
Posts: 1883
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Re: Planner or pantser?


quote:

The beauty is, I am still able to pants the hell out of the individual scenes of the novel (the scene level is the most detail I have for the story), and so I feel like I get the best of both worlds: I know where the story and each scene is going, but it is not so minutely planned that there isn't room to let my creativity spin itself in interesting directions.



I haven't read the article you linked to yet, Riane, though I probably will when I have more time. But this quote basically sums up how I write longer stories. (Like you, I "pants" -- a great new verb! -- shorter pieces completely.)

I like to have a broad plotline laid out before I write more than a chapter or two. Really, I've got a whole series of one-chapter story-starts, which I haven't had time for, or haven't been motivated to, or realized it wasn't possible to plot out a full story. Those are probably all dying a long but painless death.

The ones I do go further on always need a long-term goal in mind. The conflict gets decided right away, as well as at least a vague idea of how to resolve it. Any crucial plot points also get decided.

From there, I move to a shorter-scale viewpoint. Before writing a chapter/section, I write or at least mentally determine a 3-10 sentence description of what needs to happen in that chapter. Everything else gets pantsed. And then when I'm done with the chapter or come to a point where I'm stopping for the night, I write myself a handful of bullet points for what needs to come in the next few chapters.

Usually, by the time I'm a few chapters in, I have a 3-line-per-chapter outline of the next ~5 chapters pre-written, as well as the broad full-story plot conceived of. That gives me enough structure that I can "pants" without losing track of the story too much.

I find that when I edit, I still have to chop out whole sections because they were just "fun" and not "book-worthy", but that's okay. A lot of times, writing them was helpful even when they end up deleted, because I learned more about my characters or setting, which made later things easier to write.

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David Meadows Profile
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Registered: 09-2003
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Re: Planner or pantser?


I plan. Down to a sentence level of detail sometimes -- I have entire sections of dialogue in my head before I even start typing.

As I've said before, this is why I have never tried writing a novel. I don't think I can hold that much stuff in my head emoticon



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5/26/2011, 10:52 am Link to this post Email David Meadows   PM David Meadows
 
Riane Profile
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Initiate

Registered: 04-2003
Location: Australia
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Re: Planner or pantser?


quote:

I like to have a broad plotline laid out before I write more than a chapter or two...Before writing a chapter/section, I write or at least mentally determine a 3-10 sentence description of what needs to happen in that chapter. Everything else gets pantsed...Usually, by the time I'm a few chapters in, I have a 3-line-per-chapter outline of the next ~5 chapters pre-written, as well as the broad full-story plot conceived of.


That pretty much sums up the approach I'm using now. emoticon

For the collaborative project I'm working on at present, my co-author and I knew that we had to have our story structure set out before we started or else the process wouldn't work. When we were planning I still didn't feel confident enough in my understanding of plot to come up with the structure, but my co-author did and so he created a spreadsheet for us which listed every scene we would need to write for the novel, described as a single sentence. We have condensed scenes into one or expanded them into more than one on occasion, as the writing has progressed. We're a little over our estimated word count at present, but once the first draft is done I know that the edit should bring it back into line.

I felt stuck with my solo projects, however, until read Story Engineering and the story structure lightbulb suddenly went on in my head. I planned out a whole two novels, with complete chapter breakdown on a spreadsheet, within a week. And by and large I've stuck to that plot list so far (I'm just over 25% through), expanding a little as I go.

This has taken so much of the pain out of the writing process that I'm frustrated I didn't get this earlier. I now know, when I sit down to write, exactly what I need to include in the chapter (in terms of character development, plot points etc) but I still have space to let the characters surprise me (which they have on multiple occasions). It's like having a map: it doesn't stifle creative driving, and it doesn't hinder the view along the way, but it does help you to navigate your way to the final destination.

I feel like I get the best of both worlds now. And I can say, "I'm going to write a 5k chapter this week" and know that, barring an unforeseeable disaster, that will actually happen. So liberating!

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Reading: Burn Bright by Marianne de Pierres
My writing blog
The Fantasy Writers' Library
5/26/2011, 12:13 pm Link to this post Email Riane   PM Riane
 
JessieLong Profile
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Master

Registered: 01-2004
Posts: 120
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Re: Planner or pantser?


Planner, definitely. Up to the point of never actually starting to write.

Forward planner, I'd say. Clear ending, clear beginning, some clear ideas for the middle, although if I ever start the actual writing, things quickly get out of the path I planned and I end up adding more and more scenes/chapters for stuff I never planned to write. (case in point, a throwaway comment between two characters on a randomly added party scene lead to three massive chapters added to the story. Granted, they are the most fun ones, but still, I needed nine chapters to reach the point where at the planning stage, chapter 1 ended.)

Three act structure, hm. I refuse my creativeness being caged by others' arbitrary ideas about how my story structure is supposed to be. I guess I write the same way I used to do programming: start at the beginning and advance linearly toward the ending. No flow charts, no core programming before starting to write the subroutines.

Now, I really would like to write again. I guess I need a better time schedule...

Last edited by JessieLong, 5/26/2011, 4:06 pm


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Reading: Mostly comic books...
Writing : Marla Fleetwood and the Magic iPod
Backburner: Electric Ladythief, Scion and Ratface; The Rose and the Sword (books); Seekers (comic book series); Grey Submarine (series)
5/26/2011, 4:01 pm Link to this post Email JessieLong   PM JessieLong
 
Riane Profile
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Initiate

Registered: 04-2003
Location: Australia
Posts: 19
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Re: Planner or pantser?


quote:

JessieLong wrote:
Three act structure, hm. I refuse my creativeness being caged by others' arbitrary ideas about how my story structure is supposed to be.


I agree about not letting creativity be caged by ideas…but I have to say I disagree about the arbitrary thing. I don't see three act structure as being arbitrary at all (although I'll admit that for a long time I didn't get it at all and hence didn't use it).

I have actually come to see this kind of structure as something that is incredibly freeing rather than constricting. I like to think of it as akin to having structure in a building: there are certain elements of a building that are required in order for a building to function—foundations, walls, roof. Of course, you can design those foundations and walls and roof in any number of ways, but if you omit them altogether then you don't actually have a building any more.

The more I understand about this kind of structure, the more I am finding it in the stories I love reading and the movies I love watching. And I can now see why certain novels don't provide the same level of satisfaction as others—because they are lacking in story structure to some degree.

For me, understanding story structure has been empowering: I can still exercise my creativity as much as I did before, but it no longer feels aimless. I don't have to build a hundred versions of a house in order to stumble across the essential elements that cause it to stand up and do what it's supposed to do. Yes, I'll still have to edit, but I won't have to use my draft as a way to try to find my story.

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Reading: Burn Bright by Marianne de Pierres
My writing blog
The Fantasy Writers' Library
5/30/2011, 10:34 am Link to this post Email Riane   PM Riane
 


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