Tag: Pantsers

A Pantser’s morning monologue upon sitting down to write.

Oh…gawd.

What the Aytch-Eee-Double Hockey Stick am I doing here? I mean here in the middle of this book? Did I not have a plan when I started this? What has been going on for the last ten chapters, and why-oh-why do I have all these characters off in different places doing different things? For the love of Virginia Woolf, every narrative is supposed to have a central trunk from which all the other stuff branches out – I swear somebody told me that in a class at some point – and all I have here is a thorn bush!

Hey, a squirrel out the window. Look at him go… Continue reading “A Pantser’s morning monologue upon sitting down to write.”

No Wrong Way to Do It by Arline Chase

Someone responded to my blog on outlines, by emailing me to ask how I could write a story without knowing what was going to happen first?

That’s a good question. Well, I never have a detailed outline, or even a Triple-O. But I do know what the main character wants and usually what the general outcome will be. If I know that, I can sit down and write and the sub-conscious will take over and create the obstacles and bleak moment that shape the story.

If toward the end of the story, I find I need a “telling detail” to foreshadow something that happens later, I just go back and put that in. Continue reading “No Wrong Way to Do It by Arline Chase”