Pencils, pens, and paper were my favorite toys. I could (and did) take them everywhere I went. Not appropriate to roll Hot Wheels cars across the restaurant table? No Shogun Warrior robots allowed in class? No room for a Millennium Falcon on the tiny desk in my old man’s office behind the bar?
No problem, I’ll draw them.
But that’s not where I started. Like every other kid who puts pencil to paper to draw their favorite TV/movie/book character, I started with stick figures. My stick-cowboys had hats. The stick-horses had tails. The stick-spacemen had fishbowl helmets.
I forsworn drawing stick-spacewomen after getting into trouble for my first attempt. Different story, different time.
Stick-figure drawings were not simply rudimentary attempts at art, they were fast and allowed me to act out the story—to get to it.
Pantser
(noun)
A scribbler with NO idea what they are doing.
(see also: lost explorer)
I’m pretty sure that most writers start as pantsers—flying by the seat of their pants—knocking the story out fast and free for the same reason; to get to it.
The writer seated at the keyboard/typewriter/notepad stringing together prose is a compelling image. No notes, no outline, no doubts. Pansters love the freedom of writing in the direction inspiration carries them, listening to their characters and taking direction from, rather than direct them to, a plotted course, toward a plotline goal.
No plan. No outline. Just writer and medium and voilà! Completed book.
Except a lot of writers, (self-included) don’t knock the story out. Rather, most flame out at 20K or 30K words, unsure where to go next. My first efforts didn’t make 15K words.
Upside, just as stick-figures are starting points for 98% of cartoonists and comic-book artists, the failed draft is where writers begin. Just as the artist is the one who disciplines themself to study and practice and develop, the writer is the one who tries again after the failed draft.
Plotter
(noun)
A scribbler with everything they need, neatly organized, to avoid actually writing the story.
(see also: yeah, yeah, the iceberg just let me rearrange these deck chairs… )
What I learned from those failed books, (aside from which genre I should be writing) was that I needed a plan. It also helped that among the flashes of ideas I had for my codeine-addicted car thief was the opening and the ending.
My plan—calling it an outline would be delusional—was more a list of scenes I devised to get from A to B. A stick figure outline. Yet, as ~ahem~ slim as my plan was, it proved useful in ways I could never imagine.
As the meme above conveys, a lot (most?) new writers fall into the backstory trap. The plan allowed me to weigh scenes/turns as a sentence on a list. In more than one instance, I discarded a sentence on its face before committing hours to fleshing out a scene only to realize it didn’t work.
Most importantly, the plan kept me on point when work or school, (don’t ask) or cancer took me away from writing for <<weeks>> months. It gave me somewhere to begin and direction forward. I didn’t have to completely reconceptualize my story. All I had to do was expand the next sentence into a scene.
And then the one after that and then the one after…
PLEASE NOTE: I’ve never had writer’s block. Work-for-pay drudgery, the lack of a just/humane world—the fothermucking evening news—all gives me MUCH to write about. However, I have been completely overwhelmed with doubt and indecision. Again, an outline can help with, “okay, this is the item on the list to write, so I’m writing this item on the list,” clarity.
All that said/typed, it is important to point out what an outline won’t do.
As much as NO amount of inspiration and good ideas will write your book, NO outline will write your book for you or even eliminate wrong turns or faulty logic, flat dialogue or flat characters.
Which brings us to the trap of outlines. First, the outline can become an end to itself. What does that look like?
Oh, I can’t start my book, my outline isn’t finished
Until my outline is perfect, neither is my book
My draft is a mess, I need to throw it out and start over…with a new outline
The book is the objective. Outlines, spreadsheets, visionboards, spears/magic helmets, are all tools or gimmicks. It either serves the objective or it might as well be cat videos because if it doesn’t serve the objective, it’s a distraction.
Plantser
(noun)
A scribbler who doesn’t know whether they’re coming or going—but knows she’s gonna get there.
(see also: “winging it” is part of the plan… )
Obviously, there’s no sure-fire method that works for every writer. I mean there is that whole writing thingy to contend with.
Find what works for you. Maybe you don’t have a day gig, kids, household responsibilities—or you have all of that but you also have supreme focus, discipline, and the fortitude to ignore stacks of dishes as well as the partner’s disdainful expression that comes with. And if the latter is the case, yay-you! Go balls-to-the-wall pantser. Knock out that book in 6 weeks. Revisions in another 2-3 weeks. Stephen King ain’t got sh—tuff on you.
If, like the rest of us—work, school (don’t ask) and family are necessary parts of your life—you need a plan.
The plan need not be iron-clad. It cannot be perfect. That’s the job of your novel. But it must exist or your book isn’t likely to. Ever.
Mostly, find your way. However you do it, just finish the damned book. We’re waiting over here to read it.
I own the image at the top. Who else would claim it? I own none of the other images. All are used for educational/illustrational purposes as covered by the Fair Use Act.
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