A Pantser’s Approach to Plotting on the Fly: Conflict, Conflict, Conflict
By Allison Winn Scotch | February 12, 2009 |
Given that this month on WU is Plot Month, I thought I’d take some time today to talk about how I develop my plots. (Brilliant, right?) Actually, what’s brilliant is Juliet Marillier’s post from last week. She really nailed so many of the complicated aspects of plotting and the traps that writers can fall into along the way.
To pick up on one of her points, one place that I think a lot of writers fall short in their plotting is to confuse words on a page with actual action on a page. Put another way, a high word count does not necessarily translate to a good plot. Too often, aspiring writers (and I definitely fell victim to this with my first, unsold manuscript) get bogged down in exposition, and exposition, my friends, is not plot. No, plot is all about action, and to that end, I usually build my plot around complications in my character’s lives.
For example, the premise of Time of My Life was “suburban mom wakes up one day to find herself seven years in the past.” Now there’s a problem. And that one problem alone provided plenty of opportunities to create action within the story.
But that one action/problem wasn’t enough.
The only way for me to move my plot forward was to keep throwing roadblocks into my characters’ paths. So my protagonist has long-standing issues with her mother, she has lingering feelings for the husband she left behind, she has a friend who has complications with her pregnancies, she has a job that’s overwhelming other aspects of her life…you get the point. The more conflict I threw at her, the faster the plot accelerated, moving my character from page one to page 300, with all of these various roadblocks along the way.
Even now, as I work on my third book, I try to keep this idea – of creating as much action as possible – in mind. There are days when I feel like I absolutely can’t write a word…so rather than blowing off an entire day, I mull over ways that my characters’ lives can become more complicated. And once I do that, the writing is easier again. Just yesterday I reintroduced a character who creates loads of problems but whom I thought wouldn’t really figure much into the plot (turns out I was wrong).
This is why I don’t stick to an overall outline of the story. Things twist and turn as I go, and in order to move the action (and plot) along, I need to have the freedom to jump off one route and test out another. Through it all, I just keep reminding myself to create conflict, conflict, conflict, because through conflict comes action, and that action will propel both you and the reader through the plot and onto its satisfying resolution.
Hey all you pantsers out there, how do you plot?
Photo courtesy Flickr’s Chris Campbell
Allison Winn Scotch is the bestselling author of six novels, including IN TWENTY YEARS, THE THEORY OF OPPOSITES, and TIME OF MY LIFE. Her seventh novel, BETWEEN ME AND YOU, will be released on January 9th, 2018. In addition to fiction, she pens celebrity profiles for a variety of magazines, which justifies her pop culture obsession and occasionally lends to awesome Facebook status updates. She lives in Los Angeles with her family. For more about her and her books, go to allisonwinn.com or follow her on Twitter at @aswinn.
It is so refreshing to hear the tale of another pantser (and one who has been published to boot). I used to try to plot out the whole story before hand, but found I could never get through a whole book without getting bored with the writing. Then I read a biography of Tolkien and discovered his pantser style of writing, and fell in love. You are right on the money about it being all about action and conflict. For me I write during the day, then plot at night while laying in bed. What can I dish out to my characters tomorrow? I also love those moments when I’m writing and some new character walks on the page, that I had no idea was coming. It makes the book seem more real. Random things happen in life all the time. But they all move toward some greater story. That’s the trick in writing too.
“For me I write during the day, then plot at night while laying in bed.”
Robert, I do this too. :) Actually, I tend to mull over the plot whenever I have a second of downtime (ie, going running, falling asleep, etc), and then it just spurts out of me when I sit down in front of the computer.
I like to think of my plotting like doing sudoku. I start with some bare-bones points that are already set, and I know what the ending needs to look like.
Then I just have to write my way along, trying one square at a time. Sometimes I need to go back and revise the way it was going. But bit by bit, I discover one thing, and that leads to another, and sometimes it opens up a whole floodgate of answers.
But mostly it’s a lot of daily thinking about one particular part. And enough of those parts makes a coherent whole.
-Nate
Thanks for the ideas. And the validation.
Fantastic post, Allison. I’m a pantser who tries to be a plotter and plotting in advance never works for me. As soon as I outline, I get into the scene and some form of conflict I never saw coming pops up. I’m trying to be better about going with the flow, seeing where these obsticles lead, and trusting the story.
I’m so glad to learn I’m not the only one doing it this way. :-)
What Kathleen said. Exactly my process.
Thanks for a great post, Allison!
So nice to hear from a pantser. I admire the organized plotter type but shy away from that kind of outline. I do think I would get bored or dispirited when I failed to follow it. However, you can’t just keep writing without some kind of plan. So thanks for posting this.
Another pantser here. Must be the name. :) I usually have a broad idea where I’m going in the end, but along the way when I get stuck, I’ll do mini brainstorms, adding a sentence or two for each scenario I come up with to the bottom of my manuscript. Then, I pick one and jump. I often end up using many or all of them eventually. I’m having to quit the nighttime brainstorming in bed because I never get any sleep that way, or just a surfacy kind of dream state that is not at all refreshing!
I suppose I fall in the category of plotting/pantser. I definitely need to work from an outline just so I don’t lose my focus and especially when I’m working with an ensemble cast of characters on different threads of the same story. It helps to keep me from getting confused and to keep them on the same time line when the threads converge. At the same time, I need the freedom to create the characters and actions that will carry the story to the end.
There are definitely benefits to both, but I guess the most important thing is that we adopt a style that keep us moving forward and keeps our fingers on the keyboard. Good luck on your next novel, Allison and thanks for this article! Always good to get advice from a bestselling author!
I am just learning to write in the same way as you, Lorna. By nature a pantser (or flimmerer or organic writer, depending on your terminology!) I started to write an epic fantasy trilogy by that mthod. Well, I wound up with over a hundred characters, seventeen of whom insisted on having a POV and a mess of a plot that in the end even I found confusing! So with the help of writerly friends, I outlined a new first book, starting from scratch. The outline did change as I wrote, but I think I now have a tighter, more readable work. After all, if you have a map you can change your route, but without a map you have to stop and ask directions at every turn – and asking directions from characters is asking for trouble. They don’t always know where they are going, either:-)
Satima, love your comparison of outlining a story to following a map! So true!