Plotting eliminates all these questions and more, because planning will let you see the book as a whole, recognize problems early, and make adjustements before you have fifty thousand words already down on paper. What if I realize I need a subplot but I'm too far in to develop one? What if I end the story before I hit my word count? There was always a nagging worry in the back of my mind: When I wrote without planning-pantsing every word-I actually found myself feeling more tied down. It gives us freedom to explore the story and character (and cast of characters!) without worrying where the next plot point is going to come from. Planning Brings FreedomĬontrary to my initial belief about outlining a book, I've now realized that planning is not restricting at all. I was proud of creative process, and felt the stories come to life instead of flattened. Not only that, I learned how to do it correctly-a method that motivated my creativity and ability to finish stories that had once been just an initial idea. It wasn't until a few years ago that I realized the value of a planning process and the efficiency it brought to my writing. Because of this, I went on pantsing for a long time. It felt terribly restricting to lay out an entire book and have to follow it step by step. By the time I reached the end of each book, I looked back at the bumpy, crooked path that got me there and felt rather unsatisfied. What followed was a desperate attempt to steer the plot back on course, rather like herding cats. They each started with a solid story idea, but usually after a few thousand words, I started to lose control of the story. I felt proud to have completed those books, but at the same time, I had mixed feelings every time I read them. Those NaNoWriMo sessions produced three 50K-word novellas and parts of two other books. I dove in, no planning stage, and just wrote from a basic idea. I finished NaNoWriMo a total of five times just pantsing. This article is about planning, but first, let me make it clear that I was once the ultimate pantser. Each post covers important writing strategies and techniques to help you do this, which you can read about in this introduction post. Edwin teaches writers how to write a fast first draft-in six weeks.
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