A B N A Vets Forum Pantsing vs. Planning

I was at a panel once about how various well-known authors write their work, and how much planning they do in advance. One thing pantsers (seat-of-your...) enjoyed was watching characters take over and the story go in unexpected directions. Jaqueline Carey observed that she didn't actually outline, but she did spend a lot of time thinking about a story in advance. She was asked if she ever found her characters doing unexpected things. "No," she said, shaking her head in wide-eyed amazement. "There's no room."

Stuck with me. At the time, I was transitioning between a pantser and a planner. These days, while I certainly miss the magic of watching events fall into place, I can still get a taste of it in the planning stage, and I'm far too unfocused to let my characters run their own lives.

How about you?

I fall somewhere in the middle.  My first novel was entirely seat of the pants until I got about half-way through it.  I had the basic premise, I got to know my characters pretty quickly as I wrote them, and I knew in general how I wanted the thing to end, with the major ingredients for the middle in my mind.  But I had no idea how I was going to put it all together.  The characters definitely showed me the way themselves.  But in the process I "wasted" a lot of time thrashing around with dead-end dialogue and side stories, and way too much description.  It really wasn't time wasted, though -- I learned a lot about my characters and my world in the process.  Only thing is, now I have to go back and cut a lot of stuff, and write more condensed transitional material to take its place.

Second book, I did lots more thinking in advance -- but nothing like an outline.  I want the characters to tell me where to go and what to do.  It's their story, after all.  I made notes, sketched out scenes, recorded whole chunks of dialogue out of sequence, and meantime, constructed the story in the manner in which it seemed to want to be constructed. As a result there was lots less revision necessary -- mostly just tightening, adding a little more punch, and tweaking style.

The other stories (there are many) are percolating now -- I'm letting my imagination deal with that, reserving judgment until I'm ready to actually sit down and write.

I agree to an extent to what Leah was saying. You present a situation and a setting around it, but your characters dictate where the story goes. You have to write the scenes based on what you think each character would do when challenged. To do they back down and cower, or step up and make a stand? The answer to that simple question can seriously change the direction of any story. I've re-written many chapters because I didn't honestly portray what a character would do. It wasn't like him/her to do that, and I made changes until it fit to what kind of person that character was. Sometimes it's nice to know where you're going, but sometimes it's better to go along for the ride and see where it goes. If you don't like the result, revisions can always make it better. At least we don't have to type each page on each piece of paper when doing revisions. Thank goodness for PCs, eh?

Hey, imagine working with a fountain pen (or quill!) by candlelight!

I suppose for me, either the story IS the characters, or the characters are created in answer to the story, or both. (That is, I say, 'I want to tell a story about the guy who broke the laws of magic. What kind of person would do that?') And then designing the story is a matter of saying 'how do I manipulate the setting and the characters to cause these reactions? And then this reaction?'

I'm afraid I can be quite brutal to my poor characters in an attempt to provoke the reactions I want. :-)

Since becoming a planner, I have experienced that moment where I say 'this isn't how a scene is supposed to go''. But that's leading me to another thread. I hope nobody minds!

I'm more of a pantser than a planner.  Generally when I start a new chapter, I have a rough idea what I want to happen, and beyond that the story takes over.  I do an AWFUL lot of revision, though.  Every time I start to work, I go back and read the last bit I've written on and tweak it.  Obsessive compulsive about it.  I must admit, I'm intimidated by planners.  They always seem so much more on the ball than I am!

They might be on the ball but do they have as much fun as a pantser.

I also spend a lot of time re reading.

I have recently spent a lot of time lately with my characters - not writing - just 'talking' with them, trying different scenes until I discovered one of my minor characters was gay. It changed the way the next scene was played.  I wrote it yesterday and it was a lot different that how I first envisioned it.

I haven't worked out how this will affect the rest of the characters. I'll have to talk to them about it.

Gayna

Hmmmm. . . . Gayna, I wish your lot would get together with my lot and have a talk.  My characters have been a bit recalcitrant lately, and I could use the help. 

I write exactly the same way. And in there is one of the most important realizations about writing for me: It's an iterative process. First you get the whole tree trunk into the room and then you whittle it down to a sharp arrow that flys easily and hits where it's supposed to.

My personal interests in writing are usually characters or even single character streaks first, then situations, then overall plot. I usually have a good feel for my character's feel and their plight and theme, I know which situations I want to put them in, and I usually know the journey's beginning, the key milestones and the destination. The way itself though, its detours and distractions, its wayside attractions and surprise obstables, bumps and shoots are made up as I venture.
As I learn more about the characters and their quest, notice recurring elements, see the defining points to them, I usually go back in revisions and focus the story towards those insights in a retro-fit.

For me it's the best way to write, and the one making the most sense, but one has to be ready and willing to put in the work. And it's a lot of work if you care about your writing.

And I have a whole notebook with fragmentary imagery, dialogue chunks, single plot events and character idiosyncracies as well, which I use to offload thoughts as they come. My most important tool, to commit things to paper, at ease that they won't go amiss, so my mind can come up with new things instead of being preoccupied with remembering old ones.

I've been making a lot of comparisons to sculpture myself lately-- I'm just roughing out the basic form right now! The refinement of details will come in revision!

But I'm going through a tough spot.

I actually get the mental image of Rodin's The Thinker in my head when thinking of another revision to a text. Funnily enough, The Thinker is actually a bronze statue. Hardly something the artist kept chipping away at.

Anyway, the analogy stands. Texts have to be refined and whipped into shape. Or as Hemingway said: "The first ten drafts of everything are s**t."

Sometimes I outine, sometimes I just write.  Usually I've written chronologically, but I'm jumping all over the place in my latest one. 

No, he didn't chip, but he probably scraped off a bit of clay here, daubed on another there, before the mold was made for casting.