Comments on: An “organic” story

By: Kathleen / KatieDid Design

Kathleen / KatieDid Design — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 23:47:19 +0000

Well… like I said, I just finished going through Donald Maas’s Writing the Breakout Novel. So of course, every single topic he covered, I applied to my own work in progress, in two steps. The first step was “Have I included this element of a good story?” But then, if/when the answer was yes (or became yes), the next step was “Have I PORTRAYED this at the appropriate time in my story?”

That was enlightening! For example…the sections on character development, I discovered I’d done pretty well. But then I realized that quite a few of those all-too-important aspects of character development, I’d planned on not portraying until far into the story. And while that might work on one level, it could also cause readers to give up early on in the book because the character doesn’t “seem” complete yet…or interesting…or likeable. So I realized where snippets of information that needed to be subtly woven in.

And then, I had planned on my character’s big moments to come quite a ways prior to the external story’s climax. The one depended on the other. But I realized that this might cause my characters to grow stale, if they stop growing. Therefore, I realized that I need to either keep back some of my planned character growth for AFTER their “big moment” or else I need to plan even more character growth. This way, the important big moment realizations and growth can allow my plot to hold together, but my story can continue to grow in ALL aspects.

So this is how learning to plot is helping me. At least, I’m pretty sure this WIP is going to end up significantly stronger than my last, because of this plotting work.

By: Rachelle

Rachelle — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 22:59:00 +0000

Great post! I think even those who say they don’t plot still do it subconsciously. You’re always thinking about your story and characters when you’re in the middle of writing. Lots of times I’ll get a glimpse of something for my characters while I’m doing laundry, changing diapers, or other tasks I’d like to escape from. I think we need to dispel the myth that you don’t have to plot–it would’ve helped me as a beginning writer to understand the benefits/necessity of plotting.

By: Jordan

Jordan — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 22:39:18 +0000

@Annette—Oh deadlines. Oh dear. But that’s a great point—pantsing requires a lot more revision time than plotting (but they both take revision, and not just in the wordy stuff!).

@Andrew—You raise an interesting point in your comment. Yeah, it can be a lot of fun to be in the thick of it with your characters, to be just as uncertain as them—but even after you’ve plotted, it’ll still be an interesting ride.

By: Iapetus999

Iapetus999 — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 22:09:19 +0000

I think the magic of pantsing is that you’re throw in there with your characters. You don’t know what’s going to happen, you don’t know how you’re going to get them out of the predicaments they get into. If I had solved all the sticky issues before hand, it wouldn’t have been so much fun. I think there’s a thrill in not knowing what’s going to happen next.
OTOH, sometimes you can get really lost, writing out thousands of words that don’t work, and then have to back track.
One think that I’m having a little trouble with in my “plotting” experiment is that I think I’m throwing too many themes in there. I want to give my characters this magical transformation and insights, but I wonder how I’d fit that all in. I want my character to grow, but I think it’s unfair to expect them to receive a lifetime of experience in 100K words. Maybe this will come out in the actual writing…some ideas will stick and some will fall by the wayside. Should be an interesting ride.

By: Annette

Annette — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 22:01:56 +0000

I’ll never go back to pantsing as long as I have deadlines. It takes too much time to go back and fix things you could have gotten right the first time. I’m still learning that I need to plot more than I already do–I’d save myself more time as it is if I’d do that.