Tag: plantser

Plantsing

It’s less than two weeks till NaNoWriMo, and I’m working on motivating myself for another year. I don’t have any new ideas for books, but I’m writing a book I tried to write for NaNo in 2016. It’s light and fluffy — it’s a romantic mystery that involves Santas, and I’m going to have to find time to outline it before I start.

There are, according to NaNos, pantsers and planners. Pantsers are those who write freestyle, by the seat of their pants. Planners are those who come in with a complete outline and follow it carefully.

I’m a plantser. Plantsers have a bare sketch of topics and fill them in freeform, and later edit for sense. We have not so much an outline as a list of chapter headings and a bare idea of what those prompts mean.

It’s a fun way to write for someone who trusts their imagination and trusts they can pick up all the plot holes in the edit.

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For all my Maryville MO readers, NaNoWriMo starts November 1st. You can sign up — you know you want to write a novel! — at nanowrimo.org And if you decide to write a novel, please come drop in to the Board Game Cafe Thursday nights in November (November 1st, 8th, 15th, 29th) from 6-10 PM for a writing space with other writers! 

From my retreat —

As I look out, I see the wooden-railed back porch, and, from there, the lake. The sun on the choppy water makes the waves appear like shards of glass. I have been writing on my new novel for a while after making last-last-last minute edits on a previous novel while waiting for Richard to do a lookover at two more.

I had hoped to get more done today — my usual daily goal is 2000 words; today is a 1000-word day unless I get a second or third wind. I’ve done good work though, on editing as well as starting a novel. I admit I had a head start though in terms of laying out the plot.

According to some writers I’ve run into at NaNoWriMo, there are three ways to go about writing a novel:

  • Planning, or making a detailed outline;
  • Pantsing, or writing almost stream of consciousness;
  • or Plantsing, which is somewhere between the first two. 

I’m a Plantser. I don’t want to use an outline so detailed that my novel has been written for me, nor do I just want to coast by the seat of my pants. (I did that for my first novel, which grew from a handful of short stories and a suggestion that I finally write the novel already. I’ve also edited and rewritten it N times, where N>5.)

So I had already plantsed this novel right before finals week. The titles of sections, chapters, and subchapters serving as my outline, and synopses of each piece serving as my plot reminder. This leaves me room to play with language and character — I need to be surprised when I write.