One of the best things about pantsing is just going with your gut and writing whatever feels right.
Sometimes it goes a bit wrong and you'll write something that doesn't feel right. Now and then you just have to push on because your confidence is a bit wobbly. Other times, you better stop what you're doing it and listen to those bad feelings.
My new MS just hit the second major plot development and I think I got so caught up in it today, I rushed too much and it all felt completely wrong. The story was going in the wrong direction. It's hard to explain how you know things are wrong when you're a pantser, but I felt like I'd somehow skipped from chapter five to chapter thirty-five. Plus I hated what was happening.
The problem had to be solved! So I went and reread the most recent passage. When I saw where the story had veered off course (as much as a 100% pantsed story has a course), I fixed the problem. And just like that, everything returned to the wonderful flow I've had since I started this story. PHEW! What a relief!
The other gut feeling I've had concerns my characters' survival. I nearly killed one off but it felt wrong, so he received a stay of execution. Will it last? Who knows! That's the joy of pantsing!
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| What's that saying? Aim for the sky, land in the stars? |
Sometimes it goes a bit wrong and you'll write something that doesn't feel right. Now and then you just have to push on because your confidence is a bit wobbly. Other times, you better stop what you're doing it and listen to those bad feelings.
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| Yeah... no, that's not right. Hmmm. How can I fix this (and still look AWESOME)? |
My new MS just hit the second major plot development and I think I got so caught up in it today, I rushed too much and it all felt completely wrong. The story was going in the wrong direction. It's hard to explain how you know things are wrong when you're a pantser, but I felt like I'd somehow skipped from chapter five to chapter thirty-five. Plus I hated what was happening.
The problem had to be solved! So I went and reread the most recent passage. When I saw where the story had veered off course (as much as a 100% pantsed story has a course), I fixed the problem. And just like that, everything returned to the wonderful flow I've had since I started this story. PHEW! What a relief!
The other gut feeling I've had concerns my characters' survival. I nearly killed one off but it felt wrong, so he received a stay of execution. Will it last? Who knows! That's the joy of pantsing!
I am so not a pantser--it's interesting to get a look into your brains. ;)
ReplyDeleteYou're welcome ;) My brains are particularly squidgy.
DeleteSquidgy. Lol.
DeleteYep, I'm a pantser most of the time. I do a lot of backtracking to find out where I got lost. :P
ReplyDeleteAnd I laughed out loud at that cat gif. Ha! Such a great metaphor for most of my writing days. :)
It's an awesome gif and, as you say, sums up writing quite well ;)
DeleteOutliner all the way, though I used to be a pantser. Outlining saves me massive amounts of time during editing. Sometimes I miss the pantser days though. And I've got to tell you, that first video made me laugh so I hard I cried~and then I felt horrible for the poor thing! LOL!
ReplyDeleteI recently outlined a story and three pages into the book itself stopped because I couldn't get into it. Pantser foreveeeeer!
DeleteI know, I laughed way too much at the kitten too :P
I'm becoming more of a panster each time I start a new WiP. I'm finding it a lot easier to write now as a panster because you're not sticking to a set timeline. You have an idea of what's going to happen but there's more freedom for characters to develop in a way you never even thought about or for a plot or scene to go in a certain direction.
ReplyDeletePansting all the way!
Hooraaaaaay! Panster high five! :D
DeleteI love the freedom it brings and, like you say, your characters take on a life of their own because they haven't got to stick to a rigid plan. Fun!
Oh man, I cannot even contemplate the idea of just writing based on my feelings. Feelings are unreliable. :P Yeah, I'm definitely a plotter or at least a planner. I've been planning a story arc covering hundreds of years lately. I have to have the big picture all worked out before I can begin, though I'm more flexible about the smaller picture.
ReplyDeleteAnd I cannot handle extensive planning because I get soooooooo bored.
DeleteI love how we're all so different in our approaches ^_^
I think I'm a weird hybrid of planner and pantser. I make a really detailed outline of what I want to happen in my story, but then I get writing and it starts to take me in sometimes random directions. So I sort of know what this feels like and it's definitely frustrating. Glad to hear that you were able to sort it all out again! :)
ReplyDeleteSometimes I can be a hybrid, but usually only in the editing phase. Before that, it's all pantsing, all the time.
DeleteThanks!
I love that too! Now that I'm a hybrid pantsing-outliner (loose outline with only the major plot points), I'm discovering that joy, but also the frustration. With my thesis, I started taking it one way but when I got it back from my professor he'd struck a line through almost all ten pages I'd turned in. In red ink, no less. After I got over the initial despair, I saw he was right and ended up taking the story in a completely different and WAY more awesome direction. Yay!
ReplyDeleteI had a similar experience when my old writing group suggested a huge twist and all of a sudden the whole book made it to the end of a draft. Hooray! :D
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