Writing the Map; or, How I Pants my Novels

Mar 13, 2018 13:05


Originally published at CAT HELLISEN. You can comment here or there.


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donutgirl March 13 2018, 14:40:50 UTC
It's funny, every time I read one of these discussions, I come away wondering if outliners and pantsers are really so different... I suppose that on the extreme ends, the rigid outliner is probably very different from the purely intuitive writer. But I imagine that most of us are somewhere in that muddy middle.

My first draft is a kind of outline.

I think of myself as more of an outliner, but I'd say the exact same thing. My first drafts/outlines tend to be more like 30-50k instead of 100k, because I don't make pretty words when I'm still trying to figure out the story. (though tbf, my words are never as pretty as yours! I'm not a pretty writer, lol.)

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cathellisen March 13 2018, 16:17:07 UTC
Hush you :D

I can get a ...little *cough* too much. People are not fond of purple, yanno.

But yes, like much of writing, things are not that simplistic and binary, but so much writing advice makes it feel that way. Tbf, I have totally added to that with this post, but I hop I made it feel less constrictive.

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donutgirl March 13 2018, 16:33:50 UTC
oh yeah, I think it's a useful paradigm for a lot of people, especially people who are trying to find a process that works for them. (and aren't we all, really? it's a problem that's never completely solved.)

even if most of us ultimately wind up with some combination of outlining and intuition, it's useful to think about it in abstract terms and maybe focus more one way or the other, depending on what seems to be working for a given story.

my personal experience is that, whichever approach I start with, eventually I get stuck, and then it's often helpful to switch gears. If I'm just making shit up as I go along and I get stuck, it helps to take a break and plot out where the next few scenes might go, or think about some turning point I'm trying to reach. And otoh, if I'm working on a lot of concrete plot/structure stuff and it starts to feel overly rigid or uninspired, it's useful to take a break and just free-write for a while until some truly interesting, original ideas shake loose.

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cathellisen March 13 2018, 16:37:47 UTC
So true, sticking too rigidly to one or the other because you've got it in your head that you're 'an outliner' or whatever doesn't help.

I think I do similar to you, from the sounds of things.

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