"someone else provided an incredibly detailed story-line. Much to my suprise, I found this a very creative experience."

Leila says something not entirely unlike this about writing for Working Partners, and I can imagine it too.

There is a reason why even the most rebellious contemporary poets keep on going back to the sonnet as a form...

It would be an interesting exercise to make a roomful of pantsers write - say - a short story where it's pretty closely prescribed what would happen. And do the reverse with the planners: forbid them to plan and make them start with the first sentence.

Emma

I think that not doing much planning of the whole novel, or not really knowing where you want to end up, doesn't much matter if you pay real attention to each link of the chain as you get to it: that it's convincing, compelling, interesting.

Yes, I think that's true. And in fact, often I turn back because the section ISN'T compelling/convincing. The fault in the plot isn't visible, but the cracks in the execution tell me this is not where I should be heading.

Also I think maybe some pantsers do more planning than they realise. I don't make a formal plan or write much down - but I do have a pretty clear idea of what boxes I'm going to tick, in terms of plot and emotional journey. So I know what I need to have achieved by the time I get to the end.

The fault in the plot isn't visible, but the cracks in the execution tell me this is not where I should be heading.

I think this is somewhere where experience tells (although some writers are born with more 'experience' than others, of course): it's not that you get things right all the time, but you get them righter, sooner, and get better at knowing sooner when they're going wrong, and having a better idea of what to do about it.

Mostly.

maybe some pantsers do more planning than they realise.

And some planners do more pantsing than they realise... I've just planned my next novel. It all looks terribly organised on my grid, and this one's in a notebook not loose pages, so it looks positively anal. And then I realise that my 'plan' for a 14,000 word chapter is about twenty words. Only 13,980 words to pants my way through, then. Ten times.

Emma

I do compare it in my head to a journey, and yes, there are blind alleys. The trick is to recognise them as you get to them (or afterwards when you're editing) and feel no compunction about cutting them out.

Yes, I think this is where pantsing falls down for those with less writing experience and are not prepared to backtrack or delete scenes/chapters.

<Added>

In Fantasy, especially, it can result in episodic adventures, and new characters popping up out of nowhere, and before oyu know it you've got a 300K mss on your hands.

If I were writing a "how to write" book (which thank god I'm not) I think my first chapter would be:

The most important key on your keyboard is the "save" button. The second most important key is the delete key. Learn to use both. Often.

I realise it's a short chapter

It would be an interesting exercise to make a roomful of pantsers write - say - a short story where it's pretty closely prescribed what would happen. And do the reverse with the planners: forbid them to plan and make them start with the first sentence.

I agree. I guess, it's all about having the flexibility to use whatever approach best fits the story. But thinking about this further, perhaps writers do need to understand and be adept with structures fairly early on. When I went to Odyssey, I definitely saw the advantages in teaching new writers structures, e.g. the 7 point plot form for short stories. Because without it, their stories tended to be shapeless and meandering. Once structure is in one's bones, I think it's safe to just cast off into the creative unknown and see what turns up.

Having said that, it can be a little frustrating that some magazine editors are rather conservative about plot structure, and will reject a story if it doesn't have a main character with a clear problem that they try/fail/succeed (or not) in solving, with a resolution at the end.

In Fantasy, especially, it can result in episodic adventures, and new characters popping up out of nowhere, and before oyu know it you've got a 300K mss on your hands.

This is very true, unfortunately. The plot shape of many big fantasy novels seems to be: first 50 pages of first book - establish main characters and the quest point; next 2000 pages of the series - have characters run/ride/fly around the woods/oceans/mountains for no reason at all other than to use up space; last 20 pages - climax/resolution of plot.

Terry

I often think that if you're a pantser and you've written the synopsis, you lose interest in writing the story because what's to be surprised about?

Yes, that is a risk, so probably better to do it when you're onto the second half of the novel. But then if they're the sort of writer that's going to stop if they get bored with the story, how are they going to manage the editing stage?

Flora, I love your post!

Just been catching up with this thread, and trying to think about your original question, Susannah - how I would (as a complete and utter pantser by constitution and habit) find a course which required me to think ahead...

Hmmm.

Well, the first thing to say is that it would probably do me a lot of good to be forced to attempt to plan ahead. Like Naomi, pantsing has led me to a situation where there are certainly several 'failed' novels in a drawer. And even the not-quite-so-failed ones are noteworthy primarily for not having much story. Almost none, in some cases. Sigh.

But would I be able to do it? Generally when I am writing I have no idea of an end-point. With two of my books (MTLL and CW), they have had the overall structure of a romance, so that at least I have known that Ms X must get it together with Mr Y by the end of the book. But with both H&M and TTOL I had no idea while I was writing whether the two MCs would get together - and indeed in H&M they don't. With both of those books I genuinely approached the last few chapters still wondering if the MCs' relationship could work or should be given a chance to work... I do always know where each chapter is heading as I begin it, and sometimes I have an inkling of possible directions of the chapter or two after that - but never further ahead. If I try to plan further ahead, I almost invariably find that my characters refuse to go where I had planned to take them. The bit I've already written and the forward glimpse just don't end up marrying - like two bits of railtrack that end up being different gauges when they meet. or the forward scene I'd had in mind feeling, when I get there, like something from a completely different book!

On the other hand, I guess I do usually have a hazy notion of the next main 'peak' in terms of the drama of the story. ("What drama?" - I know, I know). But just not of final end-points, nor even the detail of the bends of the road ahead between me and that next peak. if you were to have asked me at, say, the mid-point, or even the two-thirds point, of any of my novels, I would genuinely have had no idea how most of the story strands were likely to resolve themselves.

Maybe the thing to do is to suggest to your pantsers that they experiment with the possible virtues of planning - make them 'guess' ahead. But just don't force them to stick to it if they find when they get there that their plan seems to be for someone else's book entirely!

Rosy x




<Added>

If they get a third to half way through and still don't know how it's going to end then they're probably going to be in trouble.

Just noticed this from Naomi... Bugger. (But why? As a reader, I like to be kept guessing about how things will turn out, right to the end. As a writer, too... how can you possibly know until you get there and see?)

I like to be kept guessing about how things will turn out, right to the end. As a writer, too... how can you possibly know until you get there and see?)

I think the issue with this issue, as it were, is: What do you mean by 'the end'?

I usually don't know whether A will end up in B's arms kissing, or B will end up in A's arms dying, or they'll be walking off separately into the sunset, or all the other permutations of A=/-B.

But that's different from not knowing what I'm aiming for. What I do know right from the beginning is that the whole of this story is about A and B and their relationship, and that the big, last scene will be the climax of whatever that is. So I can cheerfully build my bridge - brick by brick, first a pier, then the first half of the arch, then keystone, by second half of arch, to the next pier, across the river towards the far bank where that happens. And by the time I get there, I'll know which of those outcomes is the right one.

Which is where I'd want a good sense of where my students are with their writing, before I decided how much to talk about the very abstract issues of structure. If they've got lots of writing under their belts then yes, because they know how to conjure up imagined things and write them fully, and just need more help to underpin them so the narrative drive works. If they haven't - if they're new to everything to do with writing - I'd be very cautious about giving them too explicit a template for structure and narrative drive, because I think their work will end up as painting-by-numbers, lay-figures on a bare stage...

Emma

But with H&M, Emma, it didn't even occur to me until shortly before it occurred to him, that Rycarte was falling for Martha. So it was only for the final quarter or so that I knew that one of the big issues I had to resolve was whether they would end up together or not. I genuinely think that for me, often it isn't only the answers which are obscure to me as I write, but sometimes also even what the questions are.

R x

<Added>

At the beginning, H&M was going to be a book about Rycarte, and whether a man could win over the feminist dons of a women-only college - and about the morality of a 'tainted' donation-with-strings. I just stuck Martha in to be a sort of barometer of the sensible strand of female/feminist opinion. But it ended up being a book about her being torn between college loyalty and personal career needs, between work and family, between her marriage and a relationship with a much more apparently suitable man, who was in love with her. I had no idea that any of those issues would emerge until... well, until they emerged. I don't know my characters until I begin to write them - we haven't met! - so how can I know what their story will hold until I write it and find out?

Similarly, I had no idea when I began TTOL that it would be other than a funny Peter Mayle-style story about an Englishwoman getting the wrong end of the stick when attempting to deal with quirky French peasants. I really set out to write a comedy. But Catherine didn't turn out to be funny when I got to know her, she was more thoughtful and sort of contained, so the book didn't end up funny, either. It ended up being about love and loss, and loneliness, and the redemptive possibilities of friendship and community, and what it means to belong to a place... and the economics of sheep-farming in the 21st century in a remote mountainous area of Europe.

I'm not being coy or funny or cute. This is genuinely how the process feels for me.

R x


<Added>

The thing is, I guess, that I am such an utter pantser that I simply cannot understand (I mean, I can understand it with my mind, in a theoretical sort of way, but I cannot relate to it with my writerly understanding) how a writer can know what a book is going to be about - what it is going to be like - until she writes it.

how a writer can know what a book is going to be about - what it is going to be like - until she writes it.

And I can't - I mean, I can know in a theoretical way but not a writerly way - know what word to put in front of another word, unless I know roughly what I'm trying to do - where this scene is going. Sort of. Though I'm often surprised by the tone and shape and proportion of the scene, and I have sometimes found that someone won't do what I'd planned for them, and I either have to change what I've planned, or retro-fit a more convincing reason for them to behave as I want, I'm not often surprised by where it ends up, as it were...

Emma

I find it fascinating, Emma, hearing how pantsing (or at least semi-pantsing) works for you. Not sure ay of this is helping Suannah, though!

R x

It will - not had a chance to read through it all carefully. Off to teach now, so won't get a chance to read and reply till thursday morning, but thanks all for bringing your excellent minds to this challenge!