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Welcome

I started this blog in 2013 to share my reflections on reading, writing and psychology, along with my journey to become a published novelist.​  I soon graduated to about twenty book reviews a month and a weekly 99-word story. Ten years later, I've transferred my writing / publication updates to my new website but will continue here with occasional reviews and flash fiction pieces, and maybe the odd personal post.

ANNE GOODWIN'S WRITING NEWS

Planning for pantsers?

25/10/2016

10 Comments

 
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Although, like many writers, I find autumn to be the best time to tackle major writing projects, I’ve never yet been tempted to register for National Novel Writing Month. For me, the pace is too fast and the outcome too limited, but there’s nothing to stop me joining in informally, which is what I decided to try two years ago. Starting with three character sketches and a rough idea of the main plot points, I averaged a thousand words a day from the beginning of November onwards and surprised myself with a rough first draft of just under 80,000 words by the middle of January.


As I wrote at the time, the real test is not the ability to churn out the words but whether they can be revised into a readable novel. I’m sorry to say that, while I still believe in the story, twenty months on, I’m still only part way through the second draft, and being busy with other projects can’t fully account for the lack of progress.

Some of the difficulty stems from allowing my characters to get themselves into situations that don’t fit with the overall plot. Ah, the plot! Clearly, the whole business would have been more contained if I’d worked to an outline. But how does one develop an outline? My only experience is of launching myself into the story and producing an outline alongside rather than in advance of the first draft. While this worked reasonably well for my forthcoming second novel, Underneath, it took me years to find the structure for my debut, Sugar and Snails.

So why not write the outline first? Because the to and fro of a hundred scenes is too complex to work out in my head. Yet as soon as I let it out of my head to work it out on screen, paper or post-its it dies. It’s not until I’m writing it as a story that I believe it can be one. Or care.

I think my fiction takes shape through a repeated interaction between the characters, their situation and the language I discover to describe it. It’s like spinning an ever wider web – although sadly in my case not as beautiful as a spider’s – but I don’t know my characters until I see them in action and I don’t know their story until I find the words. Although I can’t produce the eloquence I crave in a first draft – or even in the final published version – there’s no doubt that when I find the right word, phrase or image it helps progress the story.

But I might have stumbled upon a strategy for creating an outline that works for me. Early last month, I had an idea for a short story that I was bursting to write. Before I’d finished the first draft, I began to suspect and it might turn it into a novel. I have to say I surprised myself as, although at over 3000 words it was longer than many of my stories, when my ideas emerge, I usually have a clear idea of whether they’re suitable for the shorter or longer form. I’d never previously dreamt up something that might work as both.

I completed the story, edited it and liked it enough to send it out into the world to test whether an editor might like it too. Using the events of the story, I outlined thirty possible (short) chapters and prefaced these with another ten. (The short story starts with a shocking event but, in the more relaxed pace of the novel, I thought this would work better a quarter of the way in, with a different kind of shocking event to get the ball rolling.) I think I’m on target to reach the midpoint of about 40,000 words by the end of this month. There’s a good chance I’ll complete the other half during National Novel Writing Month.


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So far, I’m finding I have plenty of scope for new discoveries as I go along – which I deal with by the amending the outline – but with the security of somewhere to go on those days I don’t feel so inspired. I’ve also noticed that some ideas that work really well as a single sentence in a short story, don’t transfer to credible scenes in the longer form. As a novel is not an extended short story, and neither is a short story condensed novel (although I do read Alice Munro’s stories in this way), I’m encouraged by the fact that it DOES evolve – and I wonder if I’ll still like the short story when I reached the end of the first draft of this novel.

Alongside this writing project, I need to make time to learn some of the choruses from Handel’s Messiah for a concert in the middle of the month. But given that he’s said to have written the complete oratorio in three and a half weeks, he’ll be another source of inspiration for fast writing.

Meanwhile some good news about my short fiction: I’ve won this year’s
Ilkley Festival short story competition. I was really looking forward to sharing the story with you but, as they don’t have a policy of posting the complete stories on their website, I’m able to put it through another edit resubmit it elsewhere.

If you work to an outline, how do you develop it? Do you have any tips about keeping the right balance between discipline and novelty as your novel develops?

Thanks for reading. I'd love to know what you think. If you've enjoyed this post, you might like to sign up via the sidebar for regular email updates and/or my quarterly Newsletter.
10 Comments
Gill James link
26/10/2016 09:02:57 am

I make sure that two lien description of my story is absolutely clear: what is this story about? I use this for short stories and novels. Then I do a bullet point list. I then do a chapter list. For each chapter I make another bullet point list as I go along. Surprises then happen as I write. After the first draft I generally find I have to insert a few more chapters.

Reply
Annecdotist
26/10/2016 12:33:58 pm

Thanks, Gill, I’m sure people will find your comment helpful. I really like the idea of step-by-step stretching the story, although I don’t think your starting point of the two line description work for me as it takes a lot of writing to find out what it’s actually ABOUT.

Reply
Norah Colvin link
26/10/2016 12:42:55 pm

It was really interesting to get this insight into your writing process, Anne. I never took you to be a pantser. That was a surprise, even after all I've read about your writing.
Congratulations on your win. I do hope you get to share the full story with us soon.

Reply
Annecdotist
26/10/2016 03:38:39 pm

Oh, interesting, Norah. I wonder why that is?
I do think perhaps the differences between planners and pantsers might be smaller than we imagine.

Reply
geoff le pard link
26/10/2016 12:55:35 pm

As usual you describe the process you go through with a forensic detail I admire and envy (a bit like Sacha but without the anglo-saxon). It has a lot of echoes with how I go about it. Mind you I've yet to churn out a bulk of words and not think there's goign to be some merit in it somewhere even if it takes a lot of chiselling to find it. That's probably my inflated (male) ego! I'm not I have a one cap approach in fact. Some stories just roll along as, like you say, the characters appear and the language follows; others meander looking for their way. What I've not been able to do is how Gill describes her process above and have a coherent plan. At least not until I'm 2/3rds the way in. Then I can plot to an ending. I suspect it is only at that point that I know my characters well enough to think through their journeys.
I'm very pleased to hear you have another idea; I have only once taken a short story and lengthened it - into my one piece of YA, or perhaps MG fiction. I now think of the short as bland and without merit sadly as, initially I thought it fairly good. The book, too, needs a fair bit of work and is really, I have realised, the first of three so I need to review it in that light. Sometime, perhaps.

Reply
Annecdotist
26/10/2016 03:44:07 pm

Thanks for your detailed feedback, Geoff. I’m a bit of a hoarder in general, so share your resistance to throwing words away. But I do sometimes find that some of my words are just so bad they’re not worth the chiselling! I think you’re also right that different stories might require different processes. I think I get my endings about a third into the writing but it’s the second half, which I perceive as the journey back home again, I find most challenging. So many ideas, so much editing to do!

Reply
Sarah link
26/10/2016 07:41:57 pm

Congratulations! And you get to resubmit it. That's fantastic. I'm with you on the pantsing so this is a fantastic post for me. I absolutely love this part: "I think my fiction takes shape through a repeated interaction between the characters, their situation and the language I discover to describe it." Yes. That. :-)

Reply
Annecdotist
28/10/2016 04:57:42 pm

Glad it chimed with your experience, Sarah. I think there’s a huge cultural difference in the ways we approach these things that makes it hard to communicate beyond our preferred route. And in my, albeit limited, experience, the people who give out advice don’t often have a look of patience with pantsers.

Reply
Paula link
26/10/2016 08:39:37 pm

Yes, congratulations!!!!

Reply
Annecdotist
28/10/2016 04:57:17 pm

Thanks, Paula.

Reply

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