Thursday, January 10, 2008
My Love Affair with Plotting Methods
In the writing realm, you generally run into three groups of writers: plotters, pantsers, and plantsers. If you’re a plotting newbie, let me give you my take on plotting methods.
Plotters meticulously map out the details and nuances of their novels in order to make sure their characters stay on the straight and narrow thereby alleviating the possibility that their story will derail and of their characters run amok. Pantsers laugh in the face of planning as they sit at their computers and allow their story to spring from their fingers, thrilling in the unknown. And, plantsers are somewhere in the middle. This hybrid group recognizes they need some sort of planning as to avoid wandering willy-nilly about their novel with no real goal in mind.
My first attempts at writing were straight up pantsing. I sat gleefully churning out page after page of creativity, allowing myself the liberty to run wild and free through the story, like Julie Andrews running across the mountaintops in Sound of Music. Ah, the elation! Ah, the wild, blissful abandon! Until I bothered to read what I wrote and realized I had no clue where I was going, how I got where I was, or if I even cared what happened next. Inevitably, I would stare at my computer screen like a child in Walmart who’d lost her mother.
After a few attempts at writing in this fashion, I decided I was sick of my gypsy-like writing tactics and swung completely full-circle. Before I started my next book, I vowed, I would plot the entire thing out, leaving nothing to chance. I would know where I was going, by god, before I started. So, I sat at my computer. I made spreadsheets and outlines. I did character analyses and I did a storyboard. I plotted and plotted until I strangled the very breath out of it. By the time I sat down to write that book, I hated everything about it. The characters felt stiff, the plot felt stiff, and I felt stiff from all that time slaving over it.
My most recent efforts fall in the plantsing category. I began with a tentative outline and some scenes sketched out, but now that I’m in the fearsome middle, I’m afraid my characters aren’t motivated enough and that I haven’t set up enough conflicts along their way. So, again I’m questioning my recent strategy, wondering if there is some other plotting technique that would help me.
I have read a couple of books I’ve found helpful with moving along plot. One is You Can Write a Romance Novel by Rita Clay Estrada. (Yes, that Rita. The Rita that THE Rita for RWA is named after). This book mentions setting up each scene with a goal so that it’s driven by an action and has a reaction to that action. Many writing sites online speak of the multiple plot twist/black moment theory I mentioned on another post. Basically, you set up your book into a few “acts” with each culminating in a mini-black moment before the final BIG black moment.
So, help a fellow wench out. What plotting techniques (if any) do you use/find most effective? Help Help Help, I'm in the dreaded middle! Also, are you a plotter, pantser, or plantser? And what aspects of each method do you like/hate?
Plotters meticulously map out the details and nuances of their novels in order to make sure their characters stay on the straight and narrow thereby alleviating the possibility that their story will derail and of their characters run amok. Pantsers laugh in the face of planning as they sit at their computers and allow their story to spring from their fingers, thrilling in the unknown. And, plantsers are somewhere in the middle. This hybrid group recognizes they need some sort of planning as to avoid wandering willy-nilly about their novel with no real goal in mind.
My first attempts at writing were straight up pantsing. I sat gleefully churning out page after page of creativity, allowing myself the liberty to run wild and free through the story, like Julie Andrews running across the mountaintops in Sound of Music. Ah, the elation! Ah, the wild, blissful abandon! Until I bothered to read what I wrote and realized I had no clue where I was going, how I got where I was, or if I even cared what happened next. Inevitably, I would stare at my computer screen like a child in Walmart who’d lost her mother.
After a few attempts at writing in this fashion, I decided I was sick of my gypsy-like writing tactics and swung completely full-circle. Before I started my next book, I vowed, I would plot the entire thing out, leaving nothing to chance. I would know where I was going, by god, before I started. So, I sat at my computer. I made spreadsheets and outlines. I did character analyses and I did a storyboard. I plotted and plotted until I strangled the very breath out of it. By the time I sat down to write that book, I hated everything about it. The characters felt stiff, the plot felt stiff, and I felt stiff from all that time slaving over it.
My most recent efforts fall in the plantsing category. I began with a tentative outline and some scenes sketched out, but now that I’m in the fearsome middle, I’m afraid my characters aren’t motivated enough and that I haven’t set up enough conflicts along their way. So, again I’m questioning my recent strategy, wondering if there is some other plotting technique that would help me.
I have read a couple of books I’ve found helpful with moving along plot. One is You Can Write a Romance Novel by Rita Clay Estrada. (Yes, that Rita. The Rita that THE Rita for RWA is named after). This book mentions setting up each scene with a goal so that it’s driven by an action and has a reaction to that action. Many writing sites online speak of the multiple plot twist/black moment theory I mentioned on another post. Basically, you set up your book into a few “acts” with each culminating in a mini-black moment before the final BIG black moment.
So, help a fellow wench out. What plotting techniques (if any) do you use/find most effective? Help Help Help, I'm in the dreaded middle! Also, are you a plotter, pantser, or plantser? And what aspects of each method do you like/hate?
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29 comments:
Wearing the baggy, saggy clown pants here. Cannot plot until I'm almost at the end and see exactly what has to happen the get there. Then I usually don't stick to it. I don't understand my process (process? we don't need no stinkin' process)...and I also don't remember writing stuff when I read it after. It's like somebody else is in control. So I can't help you. :)
These plantsers are popping up all over the place :D
You don't like gypsy ways, eh? hehe.
Anyways... there are two things that have to happen before I sit down and write.
I have to know one goal for the chapter I am writing, then when I go back and layer that chapter before moving on to the next, I have to... HAVE to see character growth, they need to either accomplish something or know something about themselves they didn't know before. (This I got from a friend Linds, who got it from jenny cruise :D) So I follow it, and it seems to make the work tighter as I move along. Because I cannot plan the book, or even half the book before I write it. I don't work that way.
this also works really well when I am editing. I read over the work and ask myself, how is this protagonist different at the end of the chapter, how have they grown with the story, if there is no growth... well there is probably something missing. Just my penny!
I have no true identity yet. It seems along the growth chart as a writer I'm still at the embryo stage. When I grow up, though, I think I'd be pretty comfortable being a plantster!
I couldn't be a hardcore plotter. I know myself too well and that is all I would do. I would spend a good year or two plotting and re-plotting and never write. In the same vein, though, I would need a little direction to get me moving along. So, the plantser works for me.
I've been a planster with my original,but before that I was a definate panster. I create a story from the black moments then I start writing around them:)
And here I thought I coined the word "plantser" yesterday. Argh!
Plantser here, all the way. I don't have to know every detail and the plot usually comes about organically (thanks, Janga!) as I go along.
I'm big on the questions. What if this happens here? What if she doesn't KNOW that? What if he is really this? You'd be amazed how much plot you can find just by unleashing the three year old in your mind and letting her drive you nuts with questions. Endless questions.
Tiff - IF you know what you want to achieve with each chapter, then you're plotting. hehehe Deny it all you want but you've got an egg of an idea before you touch that keyboard and that counts.
very minor plotting! I know one element to get me writing, there is often more than one goal present in each chapter. I just have to say.. In this chapter Adrian and Nick have to talk and I need to know what there plan is...
I think most writers do that, even all pantser... I'm a panting kinda gal *w*
If I didn't know you so well, I'd think that "panting" bit was a typo. But it's not. LOL!
You plot!
Indeed, you do know me well *w*
I pant :D After the story, after the hero... I mean... hehe.. now stop making me tangent!
Maggie - so you have writing amnesia? Does that mean you also don't recall how painful it was to get the words on the page? I sure would like to get some of that. :)
Tiff - I like the gypsies, but not the gypsy ways. Hanging around pantsers makes me remember that there is supposed to be some excitement to the process. However, if it gets tooo exciting for me, I get all carried away.
I do love your tidbit of info about plotting. I wonder if I were to incorporate that into my planning. I have been messing more with storyboarding, but not as elaborate as outlining.
Irish - I say experiment. It's the best way to find out what works. Because three definitions doesn't cut it. There are so many gradations of plotting/pantsing/plantsing that even when you figure out where you fit, you'll still question your method. LOL!!
Lisa - writing around the black moments, what an interesting way to look at it. So, you plan the big conflicts, then figure out how they happen?
Ter - do you ask your questions as you write or do you ask before you write?
Panting, tee hee!!!
The first story I wrote was totally pantser. Big mistake for me. Then I tried plotting and ended up pantsing. I still ended up with chaos.
I don't want to be a ship aimlessly wandering the seven seas without a compass and the inability to read the stars.
So here is what I am finding works for me. When I come up with an idea I write a short blurb, then I write the first scene or chapter. By this time I'm getting a feel for my h/h. Once this is down I loosely plot gmc for the rest of the story. I say loosely because I need to be prepared for those moments when a gale wind throws you off course. This happens a lot when my characters become demanding about how they want their story told.
My biggest help is brainstorming with some of the gals at Fanlit Forever. Brainstorming billows my sails and gets me to my destination quicker.
If you're stuck in the middle I'd look back at the beginning. What are the major conflicts so far that have happened to keep your h/h from their goal? What conflicts and triumphs can you give to them to make them grow not only as a couple but as individuals?
I've been reading a lot about middles lately so it must be an all around problem. I'm in the middle of revising the middle, but not really stuck, even though I had to rewrite a chapter here and there.
Apologies for rambling. Good luck.
Renee - thanks for the suggestions! I think I need to take another look at my GMC (or lack there of) and see if I can get myself back on track.
And of course the sea analogy is always welcome around here.
Marnee~ angst has always fueled my writing. So I enjoy plotting a story by thinking of the black moments I can present, then I plan how to begin to get there and the reactions of my characters in the situation. I always know the big black moment and how I want it resolved, but planning how to get there is my hardest challenge. I'm terrible with beginnings.
I'm going to show my lack of experience and ask what a GMC is?
Marnee - these questions either happen when I'm driving or trying to sleep and thinking about the story. Or often when I'm talking to a friend and we're plotting together. I'm much better at helping others plot than plotting for myself. Damn it.
Lisa - Didn't we have this conversation already? LOL! G=Goal. M=Motivation. C=Conflict.
These are all the bane of my existance...
Forgot to mention, I really like Renee's process. I think I could work with something like that.
If I survive today (short is due today and I'm still editing!!!), I need to really look at creating a more substantial and organized process.
That lost child in Walmart comment cracked me up! This is so apt...and I empathize completely! I too started out as a complete pantser, with maybe a grain of an idea of the ending. That was the closest thing I had to a plot--an idea of what I was working towards but I didn't flesh out that scene much except in my mind.
Then once I managed to write a book basically this way, I read it and realized: God, this sucks. Even more so than a regular sucky work of mine--this has no...nothing! Poor Elizabeth, that's all I have to say. So then I tried plotting and failed. Miserably. I tried plotting different novels. Failed miserably.
Now I do a plantser method. I do have this Plot Grid that Carol Bennett (an author who spoke at one of the MORWA meetings) gave us--and it was absolutely brilliant. Okay, so it was basically a three-act structure with three additional boxes for "catalysts", plus boxes for setup and resolution--but seeing it on the page seems so easy to fill in and plot it out. It's just enough plotting and scenes to get from beginning to end.
Most of the time I can't get it to fill out properly, but occasionally I can...and that's when I think I might be doing okay with the book.
*sing-songy voice* Tiff is a plotter, Tiff is a plotter! *skipping circles around Tiff*
I really like Renee's process too (and Tiff's is kinda like it in a way as well)--Renee's is more flexible. But once you get to the middle, read over and ask yourself if the conflict addressed in the beginning is being taken care, how are they growing, et al...I love that.
And Terr's totally right about the question asking. That helps. (And Marnee, the questions would be all the time. Do you think a 3 year old stops asking questions just because you're currently in the middle of writing? No.)
I think distilled that's what everyone is really saying--keep asking QUESTIONS--once the questions have all been answered, that's where everyone gets bored and thinks they've overplotted it...but there are always more questions to ask. At the very least, you can back up the story and answer one of the questions differently and see how that would have changed the outcome of the story to see if it would make it better.
Oh, back up and answer a question differently. That's a great way to go. That's sort of how I got to my current beginning. In the original version, he almost hit her with a car but he stopped and she stopped and then she walked on and no harm no foul.
BUT, in the current version (notice I say current instead of final) he almost hits her and she has to literally leap out of the way bringing herself a bit of harm and freaking him out. They end up meeting, arguing, hating each other, calling each other names - and it's MUCH better than what I originally had.
Though if I don't keep backing up I may never go forward. So that's also a dangerous way to go...LOL!
I am a pantser. I always have been for the measily almost two years I've been writing. I write the end. Read over it and then I write the rest of it. That's just how I work. If I don't write the ending, I don't have direction to direct my characters. Anything that happens from the beginning on, it's anyone's guess. But that end.. that's all that matters to me.
Great blog Marnee!!
Writing the end first. There's an idea! Though I don't get to know my characters *really* well until I've written about a quarter of the book, then I have to go back and make sure everything's consistent.
But, then if I wrote the end first, I could always adjust when I got to the end again.
I'm kind of liking Renee's approach myself. I'm also intrigued by that chart you were talking about, Hellion. That sounds pretty helpful.
It's funny, after checking in this morning I decided to do a little housecleaning with my Word documents. I did not realize I had written so much stuff. I laughed at Maggie saying that she didn't remember writing stuff. I sat and read 8 pages of a story I can't for the life of me believe came out of my brain... and then got totally frustrated cause I wanted to know what happened next and it just ended in the middle of a sentence!!!
Irish - you crack me up! LOL!
I don't really forget things as much as surprise myself. I'll read something, chuckle or sigh, and think, "That's good."
Then I read something else, it sucks, and I throw a pillow or something heavier.
Well, hell, Irish--finish the scene! That's the solution!
I think I've heard Alicia speak...or maybe I've just seen her articles. She's famous!
Thanks for the link. I think once I stop the insanity today, I'm going to burry myself in study mode for a few months. I took a Margie Lawson ecourse last October but have yet to really read and study the lectures. I highly recommend her classes and I know there is invaluable stuff in there.
Those lectures, the books I've acquired in the last several weeks and that blog might be the only things I read for a while. Except my darn real school books which I've been ignoring all week. That's going to catch up to me on Sunday. *sigh*
I'm going to have to dig out my EDITS lectures, aren't I? *sighs* I did buy highlighters the other day, just for that purpose...
Should I write or edit though? Oh, why pick one, I guess. Do both!
one thing to note, the editorrent just started not too long ago so there aren't that many posts. It's like my daily lesson in writing. I love how they share what irritates them and what they like in a ms.
This is me sidebusting:
*looking lost and aimless*
Vagi
ignore me, Plus, I can't help. No surprises there.
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