To Have a Plan

So it occured to me a couple week ago after reading Susan Dennard's (author of the Something Strange and Deadly series) blog that when it comes to writing, people are absolutely sunk without a plan.

I'm not necessarily talking about pantsing stories versus plotting them out, though it certainly does factor into it on some level.  I'm talking more about goals and ideas.

In her blog, Mrs. Dennard mentioned that up until recently she believed herself to be a pantser, someone who writes their stories with nothing plotted out ahead of when she writes it.  Then she remembered her notebooks--she takes pictures of them occasionally, but she fills her notebooks with tidbits of story and notes and will often fill out more than one.  So while she definitely doesn't plot her books step by step of the way, she doesn't really set out with no idea, either.

I had a similar revelation, too.

See, I'd tried being an official plotter, but by the time I was finished writing down my outline I was thoroughly sick of my story and didn't want to touch it with a ten-foot pole.  See, there was no surprise left, and when I'm writing, I like to discover what the characters are going to do, what their reactions will be.  So I left it alone.

Then when I focused on another story, I started putting down notes about the characters--building character sheets of stuff I needed to know/didn't want to forget, and I even broke down and wrote another outline.  I learned my lesson from the first one though, and made it vague enough that I could deviate from it a little bit if I felt I needed to.

I won Nanowrimo that year, too.

Then somebody asked me after I explained some detail I'd written down from one of my multiple novel ideas if I was a plotter.  I paused for a second and realized--after thinking about all the stuff I'd put in my hard-won discounted Scrivener program (the discount was one of the prizes for winning Nano)--that with all of the notes and the plot outline and everything that I was at least somewhat of a plotter.  I was definitely by no means the pantser of writing that I was back in high school.

Plotting?  Pantsing?  I'm not sure if anyone is really completely one or the other.  After all, how can you write a story without at least an idea of how it's going to go, or end.  Even most dungeon masters have an idea of adventures the players are going to go on in games of Dungeons and Dragons.

So yeah.  I don't completely believe in one or the other.  I think what everyone needs to do is find their happy balance, their medium.  Otherwise?  Writing just ain't going to happen.

As for my life?  I'm going to be getting a desk today or tomorrow.  I finally cleared out half of the junk in my room and now the floor is sparkly clean and shining (as much as brown carpet can shine, anyway).  Hopefully that will inspire me to get out of the new pit my superhero novel has dumped me into with a tricky metaphor I can't figure how to get around being cliche.  Still the first chapter, too.  *sigh*

Next week I'll be discussing lessons I've learned (and not learned) from Nanowrimo, as well as what the heck that funny word is.  Have fun writing!