My name is Sonia and I’m a recovering pantser.
For some folk, writing by the seat of their pants is the only way to fly (The Great and Powerful Stephen King, for example). On the other hand, when I try to fly without a plan, I end up crashing into the side of a mountain. Now, if I’m taking a short trip (flash fiction or short story) I can cruise along just fine. Sure, I might revise a dozen times or so but I can get to the destination without the screaming and flaming debris. For a novel length trip, however, a plan is a must.
Of course, because I have a very thick skull, that’s taken a long time to sink in. Even now, though I lean more towards the plotting end of the spectrum, I’m more a hybrid of plotter and pantser than pure plotter. A plantser, if you will. Or maybe a plotser.
Along the way, I’ve studied story structure and availed myself of Larry Brooks’s (Master Story Structure Guy) story coaching. I’ve had both praise and unsugared criticism from him but I’ve learned a great deal each time. I’ll be signing on for coaching again when I’ve worked out the kinks I can see in my WIP (which will probably be around the same time I write “The End” on my first draft…so much for being an efficient story planner…I really did plan…I just reworked a lot of that plan on the page…at least I’m comfortable with the idea of a radical rewrite).
If you’re working on a novel or just thinking about it, I encourage you to reach out to Larry. You might not love what you hear but, if you let it sink in, you’ll learn something to make your story better.
And, while you’re at it, check out this guest post by Stephanie Raffelock on Larry’s site StoryFix. Her experience was very familiar to me:
After I dried my eyes and dusted myself off from the humiliating encounter with Brooks, I got the gift he intended: the novel is a muti-layered, heavily nuanced form, best not left to writing by making shit up as you go. Respect it. Respect the forms and functions and targets and criteria that apply to any novel in any genre, and have hundreds of years of proof behind them, because every book that’s ever been commercially successful has aligned with those principles.
Sonia G Medeiros 