[caption id="attachment_808" align="alignleft" width="152"] photo c. Grizelda Holderness.[/caption]

by Grizelda Holderness

 

It would be tempting to say that there are two kinds of authors, those who plot, and those who fly by the seat of their pants. It’s not really true though, which is a bit of an obstacle. In reality it is more of a spectrum. At one end are the people with every scene planned out on a card and stored in order relating to a big diagram about how the book is structured. At the other end, are authors who sit down at the keyboard with no ideas at all and quite literally make it up word by word as they go along with no idea what the story is. Pansters often deal with this by having a serious second draft process where matters of continuity, story shape, coherence and necessary research can be dealt with.

It would be fair to say that any approach can give you a really awful book, or a really good one, depending on how well you use your chosen method.

I’m a panster. I’ve tried plotting, and if I get it all figured out in detail often I can’t be bothered to actually write the story. For daydreaming purposes this is fine, but imagining a book you might have written is not enough for being a published author. To move beyond detailed daydreaming, I have to set myself up such that writing is the only way I get to find out exactly what happens. While there is much diversity in authors, we are all a bit odd on the inside of the head, one way or another.

Before I start writing, I invest most of my thinking in getting the setup straight. I need to understand the location, time frame, and how the reality works. I get to know some, but not always all of the main characters and for weeks will play with them in my head as first person voices. I get to know them from the inside as much as possible. Usually I write in third person, but it’s easier to do that once I have those voices clear.

I know what the opening setup is before I start. I may have one or two other key scenes, which might or might not include the ending. Usually if I know what the end scene is, I start with no idea of how to get to it.

In the past I have tried being workish about my writing. I’ve tried to be clever and professional, and to do my market research and write what the reader wants and all that. The truth is, I’m useless at it and I still don’t end up with an obviously commercial blockbuster at the end. I’ll start out all boy meets girl romance and then it will turn out the girl has a severed head in a bag or something, and off we go.  I get bored, otherwise. I write my best stories when I am playing – not purely for my own amusement, but with a specific reader in mind. Generic readers born of statistics don’t really float my boat. An actual person with tastes, preferences and interests for whom I can write something? That’s a lot more interesting.

And so I fly by the seat of my pants, imagining things into being ad hoping that somehow, magically it will all work out in the end.

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