4 Things This Pantser Has Learned About Outlining

I've said it more than once before on this blog of mine; I'm a pure-blooded Pantser when it comes to my writing.

Most times I might have a vague beginning, an approximate end and a sort of squishy-malleable bit that constitutes the middle in my head when I sit down to start writing something new. Sometimes it's no more than a "What if this was going on, and then that were to happen? That might be cool..."  But in either case, the process is largely an unmapped journey for me - jump in that car. put the pedal to the floor and see what there is to see, baby!

And while that usually works out just fine for me with short stories and song lyrics, for writing novels... not so much. Not at all, in fact. Truth is, for something as big and many-headed as a novel, you need to have an outline to work to (unless you're Stephen King, but that's only because he is an anomaly in the fabric of storywriting-space and has more than earned his free pass on that one.) Outlines are your road map. Outlines - way more than Google could ever be - are your friend.

But can a Pantser outline? Doesn't that go Against Nature? I used to think so. The very idea of sitting down in front of a blank page and laying down a numbered list of plot points before I ever got to writing a word of the actual story was enough to make my brain blue-screen. But that was before I finally wrote a complete first draft of a novel (Redemption.) And as I ploughed through Draft Two the jury delivered its verdict: if I didn't want this thing to tangle itself into an unholy mess, I needed to outline it before I jumped any deeper in. And I'd better learn how to do that, whether I liked it or not.

It's been a bumpy road, but I've learned a lot of stuff in the process. And since I know I'm not the only Pantser out there, I thought I'd share what I've learned. So here we go...

1 - Even the purest-blooded Pantser can outline.

It's true! There a gazillion ways to outline, and they're all different. Some of them barely feel like outlining at all. The one that works best for me is the Index Card Method, since it feels exactly like pantsing, except... well it's pantsing in advance, if you like. You fill out one index card per story event as it comes to you and then stuff it in an envelope or something for safekeeping. You can do this over as long a period as you like; one or two massive brainstorming sessions for the whole story, or in spare moments of inspiration as they come to you over a period of days, weeks or even months. You can even do it for a future project while you're working on your current one, with minimal disruption to either.

The great thing about this method for a Pantser is that nothing feels 'locked down' - you can shuffle the order of the cards, add more in or take some out without the whole structure collapsing. So if you really do believe you're allergic to outlining, I suggest you give this one a go. It might just be the cure.

2 - You don't have to outline right from the very start.

Sometimes your brain is just so full of story you want to pour it all over the page like a Jackson Pollock painting, or your head will just, like, explode, man. You can see the whole thing, playing like a movie in your mind - the set, the costumes, the characters...

And when that happens, the very last thing you want is some mental schoolmarm-type yelling "STOP! NO! Thou must OUTLINE thy creative outpourings first!" You can practically feel the vacuum from the fun being sucked right out of the process. You don't have time for that shizzle - if you don't release your creative waterfall right now, it might drain away to nothing before you can capture it in all its story goodness. Well the good news is... you don't have to.

Ninety-nine-percent of the time, first drafts suck anyway. So really, it doesn't matter if it sucks because you went in there with no map, no compass and no Kendall Mint Cake or because the gear you did have (i.e. the Outline) didn't help you one bit. Unless you tell people, no-one's gonna know - and even less will care, probably. So if you prefer the barf-it-up-and-see method for first drafting, have at it and leave the outlining stage for... well, when you've got something to outline - i.e. a completed first, second or beyond draft.. 'Cos that's just how most Pantser's brains work anyway.

3 - Sometimes you think you've outlined when you actually haven't.

This is certainly what I thought when I started work on the second draft of Redemption. "Well duh, yeah! Here's my outline, look at it; I've got a perfect little summary of every single scene I've written, including where and when each scene happens and what characters are in them, and they're all in the right order... that's me good to go..."

Mmmmyeah, that's not an outline. Not really. It's no more an outline than trying to figure out how to make a cake by reading the list of ingredients, i.e. it might tell you what's in it, but it doesn't tell you what to do with the stuff - or even if you need all of it in there or maybe need to add in some stuff that isn't and should be... 

I'm not saying it's not useful. In fact, I'd say it's essential - for helping you to create the real, actual outline.  Because only by looking at the complete but summarised form of what you've already done, using the cold and distant overview of Story God (bwah ha haaa) can you make hard-nosed decisions about what needs to be cut, what's still missing and which order everything needs to go in to make sense. And you'd be amazed how much things can change in that process. For example, I've removed an entire secondary POV from Redemption Draft 3, because it was only when I read my Draft 2 'outline' as a complete document that I realised the character's take on events wasn't needed - in fact, far from being a form of foreshadowing, most of the time his input only sucked the drama out of them. (He's still in the story, but he doesn't get a turn on the mike any more - sorry Dr Harvey, but that's showbiz for ya...) 

And once you've made all those decisions... that's your outline. Don't worry if it looks different from the one you had before - in the early drafting stages, it should. Because even if it means you've got a metric ton of rewriting ahead of you, that's progress. You're another ledge closer to the top of the mountain, intrepid story-sherpa.

4 - There are many resources out there that can help with Story Structure. But not all of them are good for Pantsers.

I know this because I've read a metric lorryload of them over the past few years. There are good ones, great ones and bloody terrific ones, and there also 'meh' ones, bad ones and truly terrible ones. But... there are also 'right' ones and 'wrong' ones. Books that aren't bad in any way - but will nonetheless not help certain types of writers in the least - and may, in fact, actually hinder them.

A great book for Pantsers is the wonderfully-titled 'Take Off Your Pants!' by Libbie Hawker. It teaches a lot about story structure without locking you down into a blow-by-blow blueprint that Thou Must Stuff Thy Story Into, like trying to squish an entire pig through a sausage machine. Pretty much any of Chuck Wendig's writing how-to books are also a great investment, and while it goes quite deep into the psychology of the human mind and storytelling, The Story Book by David Baboulene contains a load of useful stuff about the essence of creating good, well-paced plots. I generally read bite-size chunks of books like these in the morning, over breakfast, just before I start my daily writing session, and not only did I feel like I learned a lot from these books, I would actually get up from them inspired to go write, right now..!

However, on the flip side... other things inspired the opposite mindset in my Pantser brain - as in, left me feeling like a total doofus who was just kidding herself she had the intelligence to write anything anyone would ever want to read, ever. I mention them here not to be snarky, but so that if any of you have, are, or will be trying any of the following you won't feel bad if they don't help you either - it's no reflection on you or your intelligence, they're just not geared to the Pantser, that's all:

The Snowflake Method - I'm sure it works wonderfully for plotters... but to me it just felt like that thing where you're trying to untangle a ball of wool and somehow every loop you try and untangle just puts two more new knots in it that weren't there before. When I was a software technician I used a similar process to the Snowflake Method - they called it 'Top-Level Design' but it was the same principle - and I found it helped me a lot with computer programming. I don't write stories like I write computer programs though (and that's probably a good thing, because most of the computer code I wrote was pretty darn boring.)

Mind Mapping - this one surprised me. I mean, all those free-wheelin' bubbles with lines coming off them, and bubbles connecting to other bubbles sounds like the way a Pantser's mind works, right? Turns out, no. From my experience, I think it's actually just a Plotter's way of trying to be freeform. I made some mind maps - and hell, they looked pretty darned good too. But they didn't tell me a single thing I didn't know on a gut instinct already - about my characters, the plot, themes, anything. I don't need to see what's already stored in my head drawn out in bubbles and lines in front of me, any more than I need a set of instructions to make myself a cup of tea.

Anything with a rigid 'story structure template' to follow - and there are some titanium-knickered examples out there, believe me. The worst example I saw not only had a detailed, non-negotiable schedule of events that absolutely must happen for your story to be considered worthy of reading, it even dictated the time in percentage of the book's whole for each of those events to happen - and gave you a handy formula for calculating those percentages in your own book, including necessary adjustments if you had a Prologue...

Yeah, that one felt like it actually ripped my IQ out of my brain and beat me around the head with it crying "Fool! Call yourself a writer? YOU ARE NOT WORTHY!"

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Even if you're the Pantsiest Pantser in Pantsville, outlining is a useful skill to have in your toolbox. It's kind of like learning CPR; even if you never use it on an actual person in the real world, you carry this nice little feeling of security around with you forever afterwards, knowing that you could do it if you ever had to step up to that plate.

What's your take on outlining? Love it or hate it? Any tips and experiences to share? Feel free to drop a line in the Comments below.

Starting a Novel is The Easy Part

Okay - for a bit of fun, let's imagine for a moment we somehow have the attention of everyone in the world all at once, for just the next five minutes. I'd like to see a show of hands, please. How many of you good people believe, as the popular saying goes, that you have 'a novel in you?'

Ooooh, lordy - that's a lot of people! Okay then, keep your hands up if you've 'always wanted to write a novel someday...'

Well, that's put a few hands down - but not many. There are still loads of you in the game! Right - keep your hands up if you've ever started writing a novel...

Oh yes, the numbers are dropping a little bit more now. But there are still a lot of you with your hands up - goodness me, who knew there were so many aspiring novelists in the world? Okay, final question: keep your hands up if you've ever written a complete novel - as in, finished it, right to the end...

Woah! What just happened? That's a whole lotta hands just dribbled back down... the group left standing suddenly looks very small...

Because that's the bit no-one tells you about. When they interview the likes of Stephen King and George R.R. Martin and J.K. Rowling on the telly or in a magazine, they never ask "How in the heck did you manage to finish writing even one of your books, never mind all of them?" And even if they did, I can imagine those authors staring aghast in response, as if the very idea of not finishing their work was akin to never getting out of bed again for the rest of their lives. Because famous writers finish all the novels they start. Proper writers finish their novels. Which makes The Rest Of Us squirm in our seats and shoot uncomfortable sidelong glances at our writing workstations, where all our half-finished ideas and aborted works-once-in-progress now lie in permanent stasis.

You know who you are. If it's any comfort, up until recently I knew who I was too. We've had tonnes of ideas for great novels over the years. Stories we got really excited about, writing or typing at breakneck speed as the inspiration poured out of us and onto the page. We could see it all clearly in our heads; the characters were fresh and three-dimensional, the setting was original and vivid and the plot... oh, the plot even kept us - the lucky pup writing it! - hanging in sweet, sweet suspense. Until - ooh, rough guess here, but - usually about a third-to-halfway through our wonderful, sparkly new novel.

And then, somehow, it all goes a bit pear-shaped. The enthusiasm begins to feel a bit more forced every time we sit down to work on it. The doubts start to creep in; does that plot twist really make sense, or is it just ridiculous? Is this character really likeable, or is she a pain in the arse? (And since she's a bit based on me, would that mean I'm a pain in the arse as well?) With every day that passes, we start to feel less like we're crafting a story and more like we're trying to shore up a building that's destined to collapse from just one wrong smack of our hammer. In the stress of trying to decide if carrying on with it will only increase our chances of breaking it, new ideas start to sprout in our minds - little seeds of characters, settings and plot points for a brand new story... The excitement builds again, the cogs begin whirring - and, like children, we shove the old and worn-out toy to the back of the drawer, so that we can explore the intriguing possibilities of the new one.

 It doesn't matter, we tell ourselves; we haven't given up on the old story completely - we've just put it aside for a bit while we work on this new one, which has much more promise. We'll come back to it again someday. Except 'someday' never comes. And the 'new' story that siren-sang us away from the first one goes the same way as its predecessor a few months later - out-charmed by an even newer, even better story. And so it goes on - until that little Work-in-Progress file starts to look more like the Story Graveyard, where novel ideas go to die...

Ring any bells? Of course it does - because this is the thing that happens to so many writers so much of the time, but nobody ever talks about it. Well, certainly not the writers that are finishing books and getting them published, anyway. But here's the secret; that's not because they've never done it. No writer on the planet has ever finished every single novel they've ever started - no, not even writing superhuman Stephen King (and if he claims otherwise I'm afraid I shall not only refuse to believe him but demand some form of proof.) Every writer ever has abandoned at least one novel at some point in their writing lives. Even the most famous and and successful ones. Some of them still do it, even today.

That's all very reassuring of course, but how does knowing this help those who've yet to complete even their first novel? Well, if my own experience is anything to go by, the stage of Never Finishing Any Novel You Start Writing is exactly that; a stage in your writing journey. A metaphorical puberty, if you like. I'm still going through it myself; last year, for the first time in my life, I completed a first draft of my current novel. I'm currently knee-deep in draft two, so I haven't made the full transition from girl-to-woman yet; if we're gonna use the puberty metaphor I may have finally got the bra, but it's still only a training one.

But the process feels different this time around. This time there's a dogged, bloody-minded determination that wasn't there through all my previous years of aborted, half-written attempts. I'm gonna get this novel done, to publish-ready standard, no matter what - even if it ultimately gets rejected by every single agent and publisher in the known universe. That doesn't even matter anymore - because by then I'll be writing my next one anyway, which I'll know I can complete because I'll have already done it before.

I've heard some authors say it takes the 'right' idea for a story, the story you were always destined to tell, for the breakthrough with completing a novel to be made. I'm not sure if that's true. Looking back over many of my aborted novel attempts, it's certainly true to say there are little pieces of what's now become The Renegades scattered through them, so maybe I did have to collect all the elements of the story I was 'destined to tell' from the discarded fragments of what went before. Maybe you could try taking a look through your own files of half-stories and see if there are any common themes, ideas or scenarios that keep cropping up in all of them. That might turn out to be the story you're 'destined to tell.'

 I've also only recently learned the mechanics of outlining and plotting novels, after years of being a Pantser, so maybe that's played a part too. It might even have been hitting my forties and having my kid reach school age that suddenly gave me the kick-in-the-pants thought of "jeez woman, half your life's gone by and you still haven't finished a single novel you've ever started!" And last - but by no means least - it sure as heck helped to read Chuck Wendig's blog, where mantras like "finish your shit" turned on all kinds of lightbulbs in my head. (Seriously, if what you need to fire up your writing mojo is tough love, that's a site you wanna bookmark.)

It could have been any one or a combination of all of those things. But I think, more than anything, it's a just switch that suddenly flips in your head. Something just clicks into place and your mindset changes from that moment on. I wish I knew where that switch was and how to flip it at will - not only would I have flipped it years ago, I'd have done whatever I could to help others do it too. I've heard so many other writers beating themselves up over this very issue, and I know only too well how hard it is to get past it. All I can say is, if this is you, don't get down on yourself about it. I don't have a solution I'm afraid - and I'm not even sure if there is one - but don't ever stop believing you'll get there eventually. Keep on starting those new novels, keep on having better ideas that make you give up on finishing the novels you've started... keep on writing, no matter what. And one day it will all fall into place. You might not know when, or where, or even how - but it will.

Keep on writing. As long as you're doing that, you're still winning.

Saying Nah-Nah-No-No to NaNoWriMo.

So... NaNoWriMo is upon us again!

And yes, you are correct in concluding - simply from the fact this post dates from 4 days into the event itself - that I am not partaking. But I'm cheering all you guys on who are, rest assured. Go team! and all that.

It's a fabulous idea, of course. The bestest kick up the backside an aspiring writer could have, with the added benefit of instant membership to a club of like-minded masochists comrades-in-arms for support. For many it provides the motivation for writing that novel that would otherwise never be written - and I'll admit it, I have an admiration bordering on awe for those people that actually complete the challenge. Fifty thousand words in one month? You guys rock. Seriously.

But NaNoWriMo is not for everyone. I know this because, for this year at least, I myself am very much not one of those everyone, even if I wanted to be (and oh! I so want to be..!) I could offer up the usual excuse - I'm a mum who has to juggle looking after a lively kid and running a house with my writing, blah blah, etc. etc, and yeah, I get it so put away that teeny-tiny violin RIGHT NOW...

But that, of course, is complete baloney and an insult to those who hold down full-time jobs AND have kids AND still manage to churn out best-selling novels by the bucketload.

No, the real reason I would fail at NaNoWriMo this year is because I am in the wrong place, at the wrong stage, to have any hope of achieving the goal. As anyone who has read this blog more than once will know, I am currently in the Draft Two stage of writing my novel The Renegades. I love this book like a sibling, i.e. it frequently drives me nuts and makes me want to pull its hair when it annoys me, but I am fiercely loyal to it because I believe I need to write it even if it ends up never being published. So I am not about to abandon it for another story, even for a month.

I did the maths (well, okay - I got a calculator to do it for me) and it soon became clear that, in order to complete the challenge of fifty thousand words in thirty days, I would need to write at least 1,667 words a day (I rounded that up because I'm not sure how you'd write .6-recurring of a word, but anyway...) And that's if I wrote every single day; if I decided to do the standard 'working week' thing of five days a week and two days off, that word count goes up to 2,381 words a day. On a Draft Two manuscript.

That's never gonna happen for me. At the moment, 600 words a day is me on fire. It's not because I'm lazy, or a crappy writer (well I certainly hope it's not the last one...) it's simply because I'm spending more time unpicking and rebuilding what I've already written to make it better - and that's harder and more time-consuming. No free-wheeling, brain-candy-dumping in that process...

And that's the key to succeeding at NaNoWriMo; having the freedom to write whatever crazy-ass stuff comes pouring out of your noggin. When you don't have to care about what you're slamming down on the page because, hey, you can fix it all later, you can party on through the alcoholically-liberated moonings and dodgy one-night-stands that constitute the average Pantser Draft One novel. After all, you get the prize just for writing those fifty thousand words; no-one has to actually read them as well.

(But even if you do end up writing fifty thousand words of utter pants at the end of the thirty days, you still rock. I wouldn't dream of taking that away from you, never fear.)

Some people like the ceremony of NaNoWriMo. Perhaps there's a part of them, deep down inside, that feels like they need... I don't know, permission to knuckle down and all-out focus on Getting A Novel Written. Maybe they don't have partners, friends and family who are supportive of their writing ambitions, and so they feel guilty about indulging in it - as if it's little more than a slightly nerdy hobby to be confined to snatched moments of free time. To do it with any degree of conviction at any other time feels self-indulgent, maybe even (shudder) selfish - but hey, it's November, so for this month being crazy-OCD-dedicated to that hobby that everyone sniggers at is officially allowed... the calendar says so. Well then - hell yeah, let's do this!

For those people, NaNoWriMo is a wonderful thing, and I'm glad it exists if only for them - although I can't help wishing I could just wave a magic wand instead, and give them the power to claim their writing time for themselves, all year round, without feeling guilt or shame. (If this person is you, hear this: you deserve that time, it's yours and you've earned it. CLAIM IT!) Or maybe getting a proper, formal kick up the writing jacksie that comes bang on schedule every year is a much better motivator for others than trying to maintain it all year round at a lower intensity. I'm glad NaNoWriMo exists for those people too. 

I wish you all the very best of luck if you are partaking - go nuts, enjoy the ride. But I will be cheerleading from the sidelines, if that's alright with you. I can't bring myself to cheat on The Renegades with some flighty new November fling - or, alternatively, to give her a month's worth of lousy lovin' just to rack up the number of times we've Done It. (That may well be the weirdest analogy I've ever used to make a point... but hey...)

Whether you write slow or fast, a trickle all year or a massive burst every November... enjoy it and claim it. It's yours. Do it.

Write! Go!

Pantsers: Dancers Not Sprinters

Oh lordy lordy lordy. Completing Draft 2 of  'The Renegades' is going to take a LOT longer than my laughably optimistic Schedule is still telling me it will.

It's said there are two types of writers; the Plotters and the Pantsers. If writing this novel has taught me anything, it's that I am pure, crack-cocaine-strength Pantser.

Outline? Pffffttt! What's one of them? I've got a Beginning, a Middle and an End, what more do I need? My brain's filled up to the top with fuel, so I'll just pootle me little old way to each destination in me own sweet time. I might take a few wrong turnings - okay, a lot of wrong turnings - and it might take me a little longer to get to each checkpoint - okay, a flippin' eternity to get to each checkpoint - but hey! I'll be learning all the way! And I won't ever get downhearted, or doubt myself, or even get bored and frustrated that the whole thing's gonna take twice as long as I thought it would. Hell no - ha ha, how could anyone even think such a thing?

What a Grade One prat.

I'm on Chapter Four of Draft 2 now. Yep, Chapter Four. After nearly four months.  That means I've done precisely one chapter a month of what I'd always imagined would be mere editing of existing writing.

Except of course I imagined wrong. This is because, even though I'm still telling the same story, the way I'm telling it has changed dramatically. The bare bones, skeleton-frame of the novel has barely changed at all; the themes, story arcs, character goals and motivations are still as they were in Draft 1. But the perspective has altered radically. Reading Draft 1 back, it seemed as if I were hovering above the action like some sort of all-seeing, all-hearing fly on the wall. For Draft 2, I've realised I have to get down to ground level - get right inside the heads of my two POV characters and experience everything through them. Which means there's lots of new stuff that isn't in there yet and badly needs to be - and lots of stuff that can't stay because it no longer belongs in my new, on-the-frontline view of events. This is beyond even rewriting - this is coming up with brand new events and discarding existing ones... in order to tell the story I've been intending to tell all along. Now I've reached the outlining stage; when I've finally realised what the flippin' heck I'm actually doing with this story. That's the way your cookie crumbles when you're a Pantser, I suppose.

How many of you Plotters are reading this now with that strange, warm glow of smugness-disguised-as-sympathy, nodding and saying "Ah yes, well - that's why it's always best to outline first, you see... I know it might seem tedious, but it saves sooo much time in the long run..."? Well, enjoy that warm, fuzzy feeling, guys. No seriously - pat yourselves on the back, have another cake, whatever. I could wish that I was as organised, as methodical and as forward-thinking as you are, and endeavour to adopt your mindset and outline to within an inch of my life before even typing the words 'Chapter One' - from now on and forever into the future...

Except that my little old brain simply doesn't work like that. Can't work like that. No, I'm not being stubborn, it's Mother Nature, goddammit. And so, rather than beat myself up for not having the kind of Writer's Brain that can predict imaginary futures with the precision of an Excel spreadsheet, I am instead going to accept my Pantser Brain for the undisciplined problem child that it is and try to love it like a proper parent.

I may probably never become one of those authors who can churn out two or three books a year, happily working on my outline for the next book whilst doing a final edit of the current one. Does that make my methods wrong? I don't know. All I do know is that they are the ones that work for me. I may take longer to reach the finish line - but hopefully the end product will be worth the wait.

And now - time to hoik up those pants and carry on with the writing...