Plantser

There is much banter in the writing industry about the terms “pantser” and “plotter.” I believe they were coined by the NaNoWriMo community. To be a “pantser” is the write by the seat of your pants, to have no set route and to go where the story takes you. To be a “plotter” is to have a comprehensive outline, to know where you’re going and how you’re getting there before you even start writing.

I’ve tried it both ways. NaNo 2014 I was a pantser. I basically had a character idea and some settings ideas and I went from there. It was the seed to my novel, and I’m super glad I just did it. But to be totally frank, the result was… unsatisfying, to be diplomatic about it. For my second and third drafts, I was (/tried to be) a plotter. Even though I loathed writing outlines and the process was disheartening and soul-sucking compared to just writing narrative, I was sure that the reason my first draft had failed was because I didn’t know where I was going when I started.

Well, my second draft, while being much better than my first, was still far off the mark of what I want to eventually end up with. I don’t believe that it benefitted from an outline as much as I had learned a lot from the first try, but after I finished it, I didn’t have that perspective. From where I was standing, it looked like I had a second draft that was much better than my first and it had had an outline: ad hoc, ergo propter hoc. But I was several chapters into my third draft when I realized that I was going at my story from completely the wrong angle.

And I realized that writing the outline had contributed to cementing this wrong angle in my head.

Not to mention that starting over after writing a comprehensive outline was… well suffice to say that I was more ready to give up writing forever than to write another comprehensive outline. More than that, though, I wasn’t sure yet where the story was going to go. I kept trying to work on an outline and getting stuck on things that I couldn’t predict. And I was getting very frustrated with not writing narrative—the only fun part of writing. (Hashtag my own opinion kthxbai.) So I decided to start writing and see if it went anywhere.

The beginning I wrote was both strong and terrible: strong because I think I started in the correct place, narratively, and terrible because it was disjointed and semi-coherent. That was partially because I was in a semi-panic while writing it and as a result was having terrible aphasia. I kept not being able to find words, so instead using the much more formal words for things than my narrative voice justified. But I said fuckit and kept writing, because it felt like running away from a predator: didn’t matter if I tripped, I fucking got away.

As I write more, my voice comes more easily; the sequence of events happens more naturally; and as ideas come to me I feel very free to incorporate them if I want to—no restrictive outline to stick to like glue. As a result I really feel like this draft is where I’ve been wanting to get to all along. I still feel like it is almost certainly not the final draft. Much polish and sanding and restoration will be needed once I’ve finished writing it. But I may have finally found the thing that I won’t have to rewrite from the ground up.

Anyway. I recently read a term that I had previously not heard of: “plantser.” This is a hybrid planner-pantser. For me, that means I know the starting point, I know the themes, I have a cast of characters (some of which may not end up making appearances), I know the twist, and I know what Cassidy needs to do to “win”—but I don’t know the exact journey she takes to get there, and to be honest, I don’t know if she wins or not, yet.

So, put me in the plantser camp, because I need a little structure—a little, but not too much.

Word count: 10,916 (⪤)

•••Hey, did you know? I’m fostering kittens! Come follow my tribulations on my kitten blog! Paw-Purr-azzi•••

New Year, same resolutions

Hello faithful readers,

I haven’t been posting much recently. This is primarily because I have nothing at all to say. Holidays are crazy for me as much as for anyone else, and I have made very little progress on my book. In the month of December, I participated in Advent of Code, a daily code puzzle for programmers of all levels. I got considerably better at Java, doing these puzzles. So, that made me happy. But I did use it as an excuse to not write.

There’s always one of those, isn’t there?

To be fair, I have also been exhausted nearly all the time. Right now, the screen is swimming in front of my eyes. I have to trust that I’m not typing gobbledygook because I tend to be a fairly good typist.

My idea for Cassidy keeps evolving, in good ways. I’m excited because it seems like it’s not evolving its main construction anymore, just minor details. It’s all good stuff.

Last week I had a dream I was writing. I was super proud of myself for writing, for once. I was very close to the surface, coming up, and I remember thinking, “oh, I’m not actually writing. I’m dreaming about writing. But at least I’m thinking about writing.” Then I actually woke up and realized the thing I was dreaming about writing… wasn’t my story. It was something about a cat. I was very disappointed. But it all evened out because I ended up forgetting everything that I’d been trying to retain, anyway.

So, that’s pretty much what I have to show for the last month: a dream about writing about a cat.

No, no, hold your applause.

I’m not optimistic about finishing Cassidy this month. But I’m going try, regardless. No more excuses! Try not. Do, or do not. There is no try. (Timely Star Wars Quote™.)

I will report back at regular intervals. Stay tuned.

Beginagin

As I mentioned in my previous post, I recently completed a class on writing noir fiction through LitReactor. It was great to be writing and providing feedback on a schedule. Something about writing assignments exempts them from the anxiety and deer-in-headlights feelings that I have regarding any creative writing I do for myself. The class helped focus and define a few things that, up until that point, had been amorphous blobs floating in the ether for me. There was little that I explicitly didn’t know, but the class helped put a fine point on it. The biggest thing, for me, was the character building exercise.

How many of you have seen the exhaustive character sheets out there for “really getting to know your main character”? Forty-plus questions with things like “which shoe does he/she put on first,” “what’s his/her favorite flavor of ice cream,” and “would he/she go back in time and kill baby Hitler”? When I see those, when I’m first trying to build a brand new character, I immediately get entirely overwhelmed and give up, thinking, “the character will show me who she is as I go.” This does happen, to be sure, but it took me three drafts to get to the level of familiarity that her actions don’t seem foreign or unsupported. I could have gotten to that level by thinking about these questions first. The following list is stolen directly from my class (instructor Benjamin Whitmer, all credit [and praises and oreos] to him):

• Big personality: And I mean big. Think Tony Soprano or Richard III. The stronger your character’s voice, the more people will put up with them being bad. This doesn’t mean the character needs to big and blustery, just unforgettable.
• Distinctive appearance: This seems too easy to even mention, but it’s worth considering. Try to imagine Ahab without his stump or Richard III without his hunchback. Complicated characters often find themselves identified by that which has wounded them. These get fixed in the sharp, perfect details (Ahab actually has two: the bone leg and his scar) that fix the character in our mind. Often these are given us right from the introduction.
• Action: Character is action. As writers, our inclination is to create characters like us, who stand in the corners and observe. And, of course, there have been many great novels written from the point of view of characters who do so. (Including my favorite, Moby Dick.) But we’re not talking about Ishmael, we’re talking about Ahab. Our characters can’t be trusted except by what they do, and what they do should tell us who they are.
• Competency: They should be good at something. Particularly the thing that makes them a bad guy. If they’re bad because they’re violent, they should be very, very good at being violent. If they’re good at manipulating others – like Iago, for instance – they should be very, very good at that manipulation. And we shouldn’t be told what they’re good at: We should be shown them being good at it. Show them winning in a violent situation, successfully manipulating people to nefarious ends, making great crystal meth; whatever it is that they do well. What it is that they do well that makes them bad, should be shown in a way that shows it just as bad as it is. Don’t flinch from that, nor from the consequences of their actions. Show them doing harm.
• Incompetency: They should be bad at something. Particularly the thing that makes them sympathetic. If it’s their big heart that makes them love puppies, then show us them being bad at loving puppies (think of Lennie in Of Mice and Men). As with their competency, this should be shown, never told. You don’t need to sell the reader. Just small gestures to indicate there is more to them then what it is that they do well that makes them a bad guy.
• Desires: Your character needs to want something. Something bad enough to disrupt their normal life. Their desires have to be as big as their personality, and it has to be something that the reader can relate to. This does NOT ever need said. Often, at least for me, one of the pleasures of a bad character is figuring out what it is that they want: What drives them. And often times it is those characters that do not have easily communicable desires/motivations that I find most thrilling. In fact, they may not even be aware of their desires themselves. But you need to be.
• Fears: This is the same as their desires: Their fears have to be as big as their character. They will not always be entirely aware of them, and they should be shown in their actions. If they were transparent to the characters, they would not be fears. And, likewise, their fears will most likely be intertwined with their desires in ways that the character is not entirely aware of. (Like the rest of us.)
• Internal Conflict: This intertwining of their desires and fears will create a good portion of their internal conflict. Again, as Faulkner said in his Nobel acceptance speech, the only story worth telling is the human heart in conflict with itself. This intertwining of desire and fear is where that internal conflict comes from. They will be trying to run towards their desires and away from their fears, and in the best cases they will find that the two are inseparable.
• External conflict: This seems too obvious to say, but it is something that too often goes unsaid. Action is character, so the character needs to do things. But at the same time, things need done to the character. We need to see them under pressure, so that we can see the cracks. Anybody can behave at their best when there’s no pressure, but it’s during the tough times that you see character exposed. Likewise, no matter how bad they are, the more we see the external pressures on them, the closer we will feel to them. So put the screws to them. Everybody, and I mean everybody, is more interesting with a gun to their head.
• Code of Behavior: Notice that I did not say moral code, or even ethical code. I don’t really care about their morals, if they happen to have them. Asking for a moral code implies the need for the writer to make moral judgments about their characters, and I’m firm a believer that’s the last thing you want to do. So don’t worry about their ethics or morals: Worry about what they will and won’t do. They should have reasons for that, sure, but you don’t need to care to judge them. Just show them playing out.
• Proximity: Write close. No matter how bad your character is, never forget that it’s their story. The reader won’t forget it either. First person or close third person with heavy usage of the free indirect style are good ways to get there. Just by staying with the character, by watching their immediate reactions, the reader won’t be able to help develop a certain sympathy, even if the character is not necessarily sympathetic.

This applies more to noir heroes, who are more accurately called anti-heroes, since noir is by definition told from the point of view of the person performing the illicit act. Think Double Indemnity or The Postman Always Rings Twice. But, aside from the language that specifically applies to “bad guys,” the same advice easily applies to “good guys.” And if you can distill your character down to the qualities above that actually seem to want an answer, you suddenly have a solid foundation upon which to build your character. After that, you may find that it’s easy (and fun!) to answer questions about ice cream and baby Hitler.

Now, one thing I want to emphasize from the above “worksheet” (or whatever): desires and fears. It is extremely easy to herp-derp through that, but do yourself a favor and don’t say, “My character wants lollipops, and my character fears not having lollipops.” It’s overly simplistic and ridiculous, if you think about it. For instance, you, dear reader, want tickets to the next San Diego Comic Con. You really really really want them. But do you really fear not having them? After all, you already don’t have them. I think we all have sortof amorphous “I’m afraid of never getting what I want,” but we all have much more immediate, defined fears that rank higher in our attention than “what if my dreams never come true.” As my instructor said, think about how the desires and fears intertwine: what terrible outcome, in the course of pursuing his desire, will your character be unable to avoid causing? It should end up being a clear choice between the two. Get what you want and fulfill your darkest fear… or neither.

I will put up my character breakdown that I did for this class.

Alec Walker

• Physical characteristic: Terrible scarring as a result of a factory explosion.
• Competency: Leading—with an iron fist.
• Incompetency: Connecting with his son.
• Desires:
  • Internal goal: Form a loving relationship with his estranged son.
  • External goal: Work for the Good of the Company, bring son into the fold.
• Fears: Learning that his life’s work has been an illusion of fulfillment.
• Internal conflict: Company vs Son
• External conflict: Self vs Son
• Code of behavior:
  • Will: Use manipulative, fear-based tactics to achieve his ends.
  • Use blatant threats to achieve his ends.
  • Use actual aggressions, short of violence against humans, to achieve his ends.
  • Use his fearsome appearance to achieve his ends, if all else fails.
  • Won’t: Use violence against humans to achieve his ends.
  • Ask nicely/beg.
  • Go out in public.
  • Go anywhere where “normals” can see him, unless absolutely necessary.
  • Show appreciation for underlings, or anyone but his bosses.

As I’ve illustrated above, you can see that the breakdown is nice and short. As long as you know what it’s saying, you don’t have to spell out every little thing. And now, you can guess how your character is going to react to most conflicts.

Well, this was a really, really roundabout way of saying that, after learning these things (and that thing in particular), I’m starting over—again. Luckily, I think the narrative I’ve written so far can mostly stay intact, but I’m rewriting the outline. And I’m rewriting it in a way that makes more sense to me (and thus will end up being more useful for me). I am about 800 words into my new outline and I already like it more.

So, progress is being made. Now if only I could just slay that mothafuckin’ dragon of anxiety that keeps popping up every time I open my Cassidy document, I could really knock this sucker out.

Wish me luck, faithful readers!

Writing again!

I am writing again! And it is good! I have almost completely finished my outline—I’ve gotten to the point where most of what’s left to outline is stuff that is staying mostly the same from Cassidy1. That in and of itself is sortof a double-edged sword, since outlining that is boring. And boringly outlining things is unappealing. But I shall power through! Because on the other side of the outline lies... The Narrative.

I’ve been making incremental progress over the last couple of days. Real Life has been complicated, with vet visits happening three out of five days this week. I try to open the file and peck out a line or two despite the mental distress that my sweet little furballs inspire. Also, someone in my writers’ group is going through something extremely exciting that I’m really not allowed to talk about. But I am thinking about it quite a bit.

Right now I’m feeling full of warm fuzzy goodness to be part of a writing community. It’s a small one: pretty much just my writers’ group. I know I could join something bigger, join a forum or a fandom or something, but I’ve always preferred smaller, closer circles. I am just eternally grateful that my group is one that is so goddamned supportive and giving. What would I do if Rachel didn’t like me harassing her on a daily basis, moaning about how hard writing is and how I’m a special snowflake because I’m struggling with writer’s block? I would probably give up, to be totally honest. It’s good to know that writer’s block is ubiquitous, and that I’m not a special snowflake, but that so what, that doesn’t make it not terrible and real, so here have some hot chocolate and quit hitting myself. It keeps things in perspective to know that the most passionate prolific writer I know has days that she plays WoW all day and doesn’t write a single word. (Though, sorry, Rachel, the title of most passionate and prolific may be transferring to Becky before too long.)

I have a tendency to think that there’s a method to do things, a “right way,” like the five-paragraph essay. If I don’t do my outline with this particular formatting, I’m doing it wrong! That sort of fixation is the killer of creativity. Talking to people who all do things different ways gives me the courage to do things my own way and not worry if it’s “right,” because it’s my own and all it has to do is work for me.

I feel like I should try to blog about something other than writing. My daily struggles aren’t super interesting. But it’s all I can think about at this point, so it’s all you get. Until next time, faithful readers!

This book stole my brain last night.

Last night, I was having a little trouble falling asleep. I’d just picked up a new book, shortish; a scant 167 pages. I decided that rather than play phone games (against the rules after 11pm), I’d read a few more pages before trying again to fall asleep.

Though I watched 2am go by, I couldn’t bring myself to stop. There were no chapters, and the “hard breaks” were… not that hard. Finally, minutes after 4am, I finished the book.

Maybe ten pages before the end, I was thinking things like, “Okay, we’ve heard all this before; why are we going through this again; ugh, get out of your head already!” The “twist ending” that I had believed was the twist ending was visible almost from page one and it seemed to be getting more and more obvious as the book went on.

However.

I’m not going to spoil the book at all. I’m just going to say. I was surprised. I managed to fall asleep, and when I woke up this morning, the book was still with me. Solidly. I woke up with Branden at 7:30 and wasn’t able to nap at all, despite considerable exhaustion. And though the fog of the narrative has let me go, I just have to say. This book is one of the tightest I have ever read. It is reminiscent of Hemingway’s six-word story in its capability to pack a ton of punch into a pint of words. It. Is. Creepy. And powerful. And… shiver.

This morning I thought maybe I could still make it to the gym, but wisely I gave up on that idea fairly quickly and decided to tackle the internet instead, which I haven’t caught up on since Thursday. (That’s a lot of missed internet, folks.) I felt that it was probably a lost cause to try to write.

First thing’s first: the foster kitten needs to go in tomorrow for her spay surgery. Call and set that up, no big deal. Then, I decided that ordering my medication was probably a good idea. Which required me to call my pharmacy as usual, then not as-usual to call the neurology department at the hospital. That’s three phone calls for the anxiety of at least six! Have I mentioned that I hate making phone calls?

Then, at lunch, I grudgingly looked at the coupon I had that is expiring tomorrow for a free veterinary exam for my newly adopted kitten. No, I didn’t forget to do this before. I remembered it. I just didn’t want to. So I called and made him an appointment, just under the wire.

Then I emailed my Writers’ Group, to clarify our mission.

Hey, I’m usually a quarter this productive on my best day. WTF?

I was looking forward to playing Don’t Starve since before opening Tumblr, but now I’m feeling like I’ve done all that, plus blogging (plus reading an entire book last night)… maybe I should try to finish my outline. I mean, excessive italics don’t really matter much in an outline.

Today my rambles come in “short” or “ridiculous.” I guess you guys get “short.”

Omigosh omigosh omigosh plane ride tomorrow!

So, faithful readers, I have to admit my blunder. I realized on the 15th that I had completely failed to buy the plane tickets to Seattle. I had begun the purchase; I got all the way to the end, in fact. It escapes me that I didn't complete the purchase. I honestly don't know how that happened, because every screen of the purchase process was familiar to me. I guess I must not have clicked that final, fateful button. So, flying to Seattle got a whole lot more expensive. I am so pissed at myself.

On the upside, I did not fail to reserve a room, which I was doing concurrently to buying the plane tickets. So at least when we get there, we won't be wandering the streets begging for alms. (Actually guys, do you have any alms? Considering our tickets cost 134% of what we were anticipating, we could really use some alms. Anyone?)

We're going to do plenty of fluffy touristy things, but we'll also spend a greater-than-normal time just driving around, looking at architecture, layout, neighborhoods. I'll visit the University of Washington campus. Ride the monorail. I need to try to get a sense of living in Seattle in just 48 hours. I guess it's a good thing that Cassidy has only lived there for a week.

Well, Wednesday I was struggling with my outline and chatting with Rachel, who kindly gave me an in-depth critique of my second draft… which I had subsequently put off reading because I was finding the first few notes too emotional to deal with. I didn't think it was perfect; far from it. But the things that got picked on were unexpected, and I didn't have my armor up. So, I put off reading it until I was finished reading all my research reads—and then I conveniently forgot to read it once I was done.

So I was struggling with the outline! and realized that I hadn't finished receiving the critique from my second draft. So I sat down Wednesday and Thursday and reread my second-draft with in-line comments, then read her editor's letter. Having given myself time to know that what I was going to read wouldn't make me feel good and wouldn't be all the things I expected them to be, reading them was a lot less hard than I'd feared. I didn't agree with all of them, but those that I didn't agree with have been made somewhat irrelevant by the changes I already know I'm making to the narrative.

I finished reading all the critiques and started hammering away again at the outline. I made some progress, and I continue to be happy with the development. I'm starting to get invested in just the outline, where before it felt a lot like pulling teeth. And I'm realizing some more things that need to research. Like: If someone took an alias a long time ago, how does a PI trace that person back to their original identity? We all assume that without something like witness protection, we'd have a very hard time picking up a new identity, but honestly, how would you know if the guy in the next cubicle used to be named Harold Muller and wrote fliers for the IRA? Seriously, I'm asking.

On an unrelated note, have you guys heard anything about the London rents crisis? This is the only thing I've seen about it, but based on this it seems pretty messed up.

Until next week!