Hee, Charlee and Brenda. Baaaack in the day - we're talking grade six here - that's how I was first taught to write fiction. Some twenty years later I finally learned I'm a pantser, and that's why I could never produce anything in grade six, and decided I hated writing.dios4vida wrote:My sentiments exactly, Charlee. I skimmed through four points and my muse started screaming and crying. I couldn't read any further for fear of losing her forever.CharleeVale wrote:Good lord, polymath.
Just looking at that makes my muse shrivel up. I am such a Pantser, lol. But I applaud you for being able to do that.
I'm about 90% pantser. I have a starting point, and I know what the climax is, and I sometimes have a couple of major plot points set down in the middle. And then I just write, trying to get myself from point A to B to C to D. Usually I do, but with some interesting developments along the way that make the climax not quite what I was expecting. As I write, though, I usually plot a scene or two ahead of where I am so the act of writing flows; I rarely just sit at the keyboard and write and see where it takes me.
The people that I am in total awe of are the pantsers who write their story like a granny-square quilt, jumping around from scene to scene and then stitching them together. Diana Gabaldon apparently writes like this. I totally could not do that. For one thing, so often something happens in an early scene that affects a later scene. Even if I'm only a scene or two away from something and think I know exactly how it will go I resist jumping forward to write it, because you neeever know what might happen in the one immediately before.