Plotting Instead of Pantsing

Trying a new way of writing

In my attempt to possibly complete NaNoWriMo this year, I’ve decided to take full advantage of the tools I’ve been offered. Novel Factory offered me free access to their suite of tools through the end of November, including a way to plot out my entire novel. So, I decided to try a more deliberate way of writing fiction.

Pantsing hasn’t worked out too well for me — I get through a section and then kind of drift aimlessly as I try to figure out what’s next.

It should be obvious to me that this will work for me. I am a plotter in ALL of my other writing, particularly my professional work where I make most of my money. Very rarely will I ever sit down at work to write something without having at least an outline — and sometimes I even have it right down to paragraph headers.

It has long been a point of pride for me that I can sit down and write just about anything off the top of my head. That’s just the way my mind works.

You can keep your math.

I can remember the basics of biology.

Forget chemistry and physics.

But ask me to write you 10,000 words on a topic at the drop of a hat?

Yup, I can do that!

I can’t explain how it happens, but I have one of those brains that can assemble a coherent stream of words for just about any subject. Give me some basic information and I can write (or speak) comfortably about the topic in ways that are accessible and understandable (or so I’ve been told).

Give me time to do research and a deep dive and I’ll give them back to you in whatever format you need, delivered for whatever audience you specify. It’s just how my brain works.

Just please, PLEASE don’t ask me to solve for x.

But without the basic background work, I’m finding that I struggle to write the words I need. I have a vision in my head, but I don’t have the framework to put them onto like I would for most of my non-fiction and work-related writing.

I’ve had some success in writing a short story (that may end up being absorbed into a sequel to the one I’m writing for NaNoWriMo), but that was largely because it was a single contained event. It takes place in a single breath, and follows a fairly standard narrative arc — so it was easy to write.

This larger work though, it has haunted me for years. Every time I think I can sit down and write it, I end up stalling because there’s no framework for me to dress.

So it is time for me to try something different.

That doesn’t mean that I’m not going to improvise and write by the seat of my pants when it’s the right moment, just that I’ve got a framework to rely on when my inspiration fails.