Saturday 14 September 2024

The Yrden Chronicles Series

 Hello, Friends.

I have continued writing, hoping to finish the series, and I have -- in first draft at least. That means I have three novels to edit, proof, format, find covers for, and publish.

Right now I'm working on proofing #8 Back to Pelgraff. #9 Trading Allegiances and #10 A Dangerous Species, the final novel in the series, are waiting.

Editing, proofing, formatting, getting the covers for, and publishing often takes just as much time as writing the novel in the first place, but I'm hoping to have all of them out before spring 2025. With luck, I will publish Back To Pelgraff in October of this year.

It has been a long ride, I know, and I am thankful of those of you who have stayed with it. I will continue to keep you informed of my progress.

D.A.


Sunday 25 August 2024

Trading Allegiances -- First Draft Complete

 Hi All:

Just a note to let you know that instead of stopping writing to edit "Back to Pelgraff", I kept on with the next novel in the series, #9, "Trading Allegiances", and have now jumped to #10, "A Dangerous Species".

I know from bitter experience that I cannot edit one book while writing another. And, as I've gone months without writing after editing a book, I decided that I want to finish this series as quickly as possible and have thus continued to write.

Book #10, "A Dangerous Species" should be the last book in the "Yrden Chronicles" series. It was actually supposed to be a stand-alone novel when I started it. It became a testament in HOW NOT TO WRITE A SERIES

Book 10 was supposed to be a stand-alone novel, just like all the other ones I'd written to that point. I had this "wonderful" what-if that came to me. It had it's origin in our history, but to do the "what-if" without having to do a hell of a lot of research, I decided to take the major circumstances and shift them into Space and the distant future.

So, I started writing Book 10, which, as I said, was supposed to be a stand-alone novel. Early in chapter 1, it occurred to me that I needed a civil war -- like the Spanish Civil War -- to occur as a precursor. That "shiny object" took hold, and I wrote what was to become Book 5, "Pelgraff" -- then went back to work on Book 10. BUT, in Pelgraff, a certain throw-away line, just something to add a bit of depth to my universe attracted me, demanded to be written. So I wrote that book -- about the founding of a trading league (which figured in book 5) and a scientist that was instrumental in it -- which occurred 450 years before Book 5. That was "Courtesan"

Then, that finished, I went back to Book 10, but the story of the leader of the League in book 5 needed an origin, so I abandoned Book 10 and wrote Book 1 -- the origin story "Trading for the Stars". Then, again from Book 5, I knew I needed a story on how she acquired her bodyguard. So, Book 2 "Trading for a Dream". Then I had her inciting incident (mentioned in book 5), so I wrote Book 3 "One Trade to Many". Then I needed a leadup to Book 5, so I wrote Book 4 "Trading in War". Book 6, "Trading in Secrets" partially came from another "shiny object" that I wanted to put into a book, and decided to incorporate it into my series instead of a stand-alone. Book 7, "Partisan of Pelgraff" came from another "shiny object", but one which could be in the series. Then I buckled down to work my way to Book 10 -- which I had worked on from time to time, building it up to about 85,000 words.

In the middle of all that, fans of "Courtesan" began asking for a sequel, and the 4 novels of "Not with a Whimper" came about.

Now I'm finally working on finishing "A Dangerous Species". However, that may delay the publishing of books 8 and 9, but it's probably the fastest way to get the final 3 books out.

Anyway, that's my story ... and I'm sticking to it.

For those who have followed me this far, I thank you and I'll get these books out as soon as I can.

Sunday 14 July 2024

Back To Pelgraff -- first draft complete

 Been a while since I've made any posts here. I am going to try to be more conscientious about that, but if you're following this blog, I'm sure you won't believe me. Heck, I'm not sure that I believe myself.

In any event, latest news has me completing the first draft of Book 8 of the Yrden Chronicles, "Back to Pelgraff". Unfortunately, I think it needs more work than other first drafts I've written, so I can't give a real solid publication date, but I hope to have it out some time in the fall.

While I'm doing the old editing thing, I'm also working on Book 9, which will be titled something like "Trading Allegiances". I'm already about 15,000 words into it (about 50 pages) and it seems to be going a bit faster than "Back to Pelgraff", so there's a possibility that it will get published late this year as well -- but don't rely on that.

There may possibly be two more books in the series, but I'm hoping that Book 10 will finish it. Originally, when I thought this would be a simple, single, standalone novel and not a 10-book series, Book 10 was supposed to be that book. It will be a long one, and I've already written well over 200 pages in it. Once I finish "Trading Allegiances", I'll try to power through that one and have it out by the late summer of next year. After that ... who knows?

For those of you who have stayed with me thus far, thank you. I'll try to keep you better informed in the future.

D.A. Boulter.

 

Monday 15 January 2024

Retribution's Last Stand (New)

 Hello, all.

It has been quite a while, but my newest book hit amazon a little earlier this month. It is called, "Retribution's Last Stand".

Wednesday 5 October 2022

Ghost in the Game ... Live

 Well, it took several years from the first time I thought of this book back in 2017 until I finished it. But, it's complete and for sale on Amazon -- and in Kindle Unlimited until the end of the year (2022 if you're counting).

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BH5B4VQM

It takes place in the not too distant (but dystopian) future, where "The Game" is a virtual reality role-playing game that places the players into what seem like very real worlds where they can do anything they can in real life and more. Those who play it say,

"Everything is better in The Game."

PI Gault McGirr doesn't believe that, but has no intention of finding out for himself ... until his ex-girlfriend, Connie, shows up and hires him to find a missing person: John, the man who took her away from Gault in the first place.

In order to redeem the ill-conceived promise he made her, Gault needs to enter the MMORPG virtual reality game that brags that it is "Better than Real Life" in every way. He hopes to find the man quickly either in game or out, preferably both, and then get Connie and John -- or just John -- out of his life for good.

However, the deeper he digs, the more it looks like John has become involved in something far greater than what Gault first suspected, something that has others looking for him as well, and without good intentions. Gault needs to find John fast, and may the Gaming Gods help any orc or goblin that gets in his way. But finding John will require a team, something Gault feels ambivalent about.

Unravel the mystery with Gault and his new associates as his investigations lead him into Fantasy World, where a fantasy knife in the back can bring the same excuciating pain that an actual one can in real life, but where the pain doesn't end with death, and where betrayal is rife.


This is the longest book I've ever written and I'm happy to have finished it. Amazon says it has a "print length" of 883 pages -- but no print book is available. Get it while it's hot!


As is typical for me, I'm suffering a kind of "postpartum depression" that many writers suffer from when they finish a book. While labouring away on the book, I had something to look forward to -- the ending -- but now that I've written "The End", a sense of purposelessness has come over me. Yes, I have other books to write, one of which is at the 3/4 mark, but there is a definite crash at the end of each book.

Cheer me up. Read a few pages of "Ghost in the Game". I've spent at least 500 hrs on it, so it would be nice if someone other than myself and two beta readers read it.

Anyway, it's October now, so with winter coming on, I should return to one of the other books and hopefully finish another one before year's end.

Thank you for your time, and drop a note if you wish.


D.A. Boulter

Thursday 29 September 2022

Plotter Wars V: End game

 


 

Everybody writes differently. Everyone who sticks at it finds a process with which they are comfortable or become comfortable. And once they have that process, they generally keep to it. Why? Because it works for them. If something works for you, you tend to believe it is the best way to go. And, most humans tend generalize from the specific: "If it's the best way for me, it must be the best way for everyone." Thus, anyone who takes a different tack is marginalized and ridiculed. Why ridiculed? Because if they use a different method and come up with something as good as or better than what "we" do, then that invalidates our belief in our superiority or the superiority of our process. Facing the prospect that one has taken an inferior course for what might have been years or an entire lifetime is something that most of us find hard to countenance. And we won't admit to it.

 Beginning writers don't have such a process and they look to more experienced writers or teachers to give them something that will help them on their way, help them to get to the finish line (The End) without making a complete muddle of their work while they get there.

 "Plotting" or "outlining" represents a formula that anyone can use in order to avoid some of the mistakes that beginning writers make. They hear: "These are the rules. Follow the rules and you will get where you are going." So, believing that the teachers know what they are talking about, they learn the rules and follow them as best they can, eventually coming to a successful "The End" (if they remain diligent).

 Plotters talk of pantsers going off on tangents. That is not a pantser failing. It is a beginning writer's failing. A beginning plotter is just as likely to go off on a tangent as a beginning pantser. The plotter will have to do just as much "pruning" as the pantser in terms of plot. The pantser, however, will have written more words and the loss of time and effort will be greater.

 Once these beginning writers get a good feeling for STORY, neither of them (pantser or plotter) will make that mistake again. However (there's always a however, isn't there), we learn from our mistakes -- often more than we learn from our successes. Having to prune a tangent we've gone off on isn't necessarily a bad thing.

 If I want to go from Point A to Point B, you might give me a map and outline the route that I can take to get there. Why did you give me that particular route? There could be various reasons: it could be the only possible route that will have me arrive at my destination; it could be the fastest way for me to arrive at my destination; it could be the most scenic way for me to arrive at my destination; it could be your favourite way because it has a bakery that you like to stop at.

 In any event, you've given me the directions, and I follow them arriving safely where I wanted to arrive at. The next time I wish to make the same trip, how likely do you think it is that I'll experiment with a different route? I know how to get from A to B -- 'cause you showed me and I did it -- so why should I go off that course? No, I'll take the same route again and again, and I'll probably believe that you mapped out that course because you found it to be the best course. And, for you, it probably is -- or it might be the simplest course for a newcomer to your area to take, with the fewest turns.

 However (there's that word again), you may have a different purpose in going from Point A to Point B than I do. Time may hold great importance to you, and getting there as fast as possible might be your highest priority. The course you take -- and the one you've given me -- reflects that priority. Getting there in the least amount of time may hold no priority at all for me. I enjoy the journey and I want to partake of the scenery. My best course would be one that might end up taking longer distance-wise and time-wise but will put me in locations where I can observe the beauty of nature, while yours would have me on the freeway observing concrete and not being able to relax, to pull over and stop, just to enjoy what the route has to offer.

 If I'm an explorer at heart, I may later try other paths to get me from A to B, but if I'm not, I'll keep using the pathway that you taught me, because I trust you, and your directions work. But following those directions may cause me to miss out on what I value more.

 Plotters/outliners figure they have the best course, and following their directions will take the novice writer easily (relatively) and quickly (relatively) to his or her destination. I say that this stifles creativity; plotters say that they leave room for creativity. Although that latter contains a certain germ of truth, so does the former.

 If I, as a pantser, take off on a tangent and write five or ten thousand words that I will eventually need to cut out entirely, I will have learned something both about storytelling and what I find interesting. It will take me to many different places -- none of which might work with this particular story -- and I'll remember it in the future, not just as something to avoid, but perhaps something to pursue in my next story. It could open up possibilities that I would never have come across if I had stuck to a rigid outline and/or it might serve as a vivid reminder to NOT do this again, showing me the WHY of directions I ignored with respect to this particular story, though not necessarily of all stories.

 However (another however) I, as a pantser, will find myself freer to follow that tangent to an entirely different ending, one which may be far better than that which I had seen in the beginning. Remember, when we are writing, we always look ahead, same as when we read, figuring out possibilities. If I stay between the rails of my outline, I'll likely never come close to that, because those new ideas come as I write. They come as an outliner outlines, too, but to a much lesser extent, because s/he doesn't go into the same depth.

 The beginning outliner may make the exact same "wrong turn", but s/he will be looking at the map and suddenly discover that "you can't get there from here". So he'll backtrack to the main path once more and head onwards towards the destination. The beginning pantser will take the wrong turn and pick up a hitchhiker who will tell of the wonders of whatever/wherever and a whole new world will open up, perhaps a better and brighter world than the one of the original destination. The outliner will never get to the point of picking up the hitchhiker.

 My pathway to writing came, perhaps, a little later than most. By the time I started writing novels, I had read literally thousands of books, starting with series like the Thornton W Burgess children's books, going on to The Wizard of Oz books,  The Hardy Boys, Nancy Drew, Tom Corbett (Space Cadet), and Chip Hilton, and all these before I was a teenager. Then authors like Alistair McLean, Hammond Innis, Louis L'Amour (and writers of hundreds of other westerns), Frank Herbert, Robert A Heinlein, history books in their dozens if not hundreds, before I reached the age of 20. When I was 15, in Grade 10, I was reading 6 books a week, including massive tomes like Winston Churchill's series on World War II.

 Then I took jobs in isolated workplaces and read more. Fantasy, Science Fiction, Romance, Mystery, and others, again often at a book every day or two. Nothing much else to do with time off, and I read very fast back then, so got forced out of my usual genres as I ran out of unread books in them at my place of work. Horror, though, I tended to stay away from, though I read one or two by Stephen King.

 So, by the time I started writing prose in my mid 30s -- I had begun writing poetry in Grade 9 -- I had absorbed a great deal about storytelling by osmosis, if you wish. Having done so, in writing prose, I've never gone off on tangents that I later had to cut and I've never made outlines that I've followed for any distance at all (and few of them in total -- and never for an entire book). I know how to tell the sort of story that I like to read. In fact, I re-read my own novels from time to time, just to relive the stories, to enjoy them again as a reader, not a writer.

 Pantsing (to me) is a hell of a lot more fun, more rewarding, and a more creative process. I find plotting tedious, unrewarding, and (when I've done it) resulting in my either not writing the story at all or departing from the outline completely within a couple of chapters and never looking back.

 So, when I got that email (see Part I) telling me that pantsers should try outlining/plotting because it would make their work better, I just naturally got a tad riled up. Not because I feel that plotting is a waste of time (though it is for me, mostly), but because of the unwarranted prejudice shown against those who write like I do.

 Nonetheless, if plotting is what gets it done for you, then go ahead and plot your heart out. If you want to outline your book in detail and that gets it done for you, go ahead and write 20,000 words of outline. As I said, everyone writes differently and no one process is inherently superior to any other one; it depends on the person using that process.

 My one piece of advice: try the other process. If you are a plotter, try pantsing and see where it takes you. You'll likely learn a lot that you can use to good effect elsewhere -- if you take it seriously and don't look for excuses to maintain your prejudice. Likewise, if you like pantsing, look at plotting for what it may have to offer you. You may find something of worth within that process, too.

 But don't tell me that because I'm a discovery writer, that my process is inferior to yours.

 And, to beginning writers: remember that "the rules" are just one set of directions which will get you to "The End". But, just because you reach "The End" using that set of rules, doesn't mean you can't get there using another path. That other path may be more exciting, more scenic ... or it may just result in you getting yourself lost in a tangent. But you will learn things of value. Be willing to experiment. Writing isn't just a formula, a science; it is also an art.

 Write well, my friends, and enjoy.

D.A. Boulter

News: Proofing on "Ghost in the Game", is going slightly more slowly than I had hoped. But it should be done in early October and I now hope to publish it by the 15th of October.

Thursday 22 September 2022

Plotter Wars IV: A pantser in the wild -- in real life action

 

How does a pantser/non-outliner work in real life? Well, I know one well enough to give some insight into how his mind works (or doesn’t work as the case may be). That would be me. I can’t speak for other pantsers, can’t tell you how they think. However, I can tell you that it is not the stereotypical figure put forth by many plotters/outliners.

What I like to do is create a scene of emotional import to me. And by scene, I don’t mean the mini-stories that make up a book. In a romance film, it might be the man kissing the woman. If approached correctly, it could be quite emotional, what with the proper music, the looks on their faces, the sun setting over the palm trees, and all that good stuff, coupled with his declaration of undying love.

Okay, Romance, that’s not my “bag”, as we used to say way back when. Science Fiction is. So how do I go about writing a Science Fiction novel? Well, I get little thoughts floating around in my brain, and they finally coalesce into something bigger. Let’s take a look at a book I wrote, “Ghost Fleet”, and how it came about.

 Well, for this, we have to go all the way back to when I was about 10 years old. I saw a movie called “Sink the Bismarck” on TV. (For those who don’t know, KMS Bismarck was a German battleship in World War 2 that sank the pride of the British fleet (HMS Hood) and then was sunk herself, three days later.)

 A while later, I found the C.F. Forester book of the same title in my school library. I took it out, read it, and became interested in naval warfare. I built plastic models of ships and read accounts of various naval battles and campaigns. As I grew older and became interested in Science Fiction, naval battles on oceans occasionally turned into naval battles in space. Let’s just say I was interested in ships.

 In 1980, I saw a movie, “Final Countdown”, where a modern US supercarrier goes through some sort of vortex which takes it back in time to December 1941, shortly before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Time travel and naval ships got linked together in my mind.

 One day, many years later, while walking along, doing not much else, I thought about some of those ill-fated ships like Bismarck, Hood, Arizona, Yamato, Graf Spee, Exeter, Houston and others. I wondered how they might fare if they came through time and engaged in a modern war -- just the opposite of what happened in "Final Countdown". And that idea floated around for some years. It might make an interesting story, but to just have these ships appear and engage in battle wouldn’t be enough to really make a good story. What would?

 Well, if those ships appeared as “saviours” to a group/nation/alliance that had defeat staring it in the face, and then changed the tide, that might be emotional.

 Emotional is the key word. I want what I write to have meaning – even if only to me. In a book or a movie, I want to see some wrenching scene that will make me want to cheer or bring tears to my eyes, something that will grip me deep within the very heart of me. If you put something like that in your book or movie, you’ll have me, and I’ll watch/read it time after time.

 The typical approach for the "savior" scene, which became a trope, found its place in the old Westerns. The wagon train became surrounded by attackers. It formed itself into a defensive circle, with the defenders outnumbered, out-gunned, and in danger of losing everything to the attackers. Then, when all looked lost, they would cut to a scene of a troop of the US Cavalry moving up. The bugler would sound the charge as they came galloping to the rescue, driving off the attackers. Makers of the movies counted on the emotional change from despair, to hope, to relief to give their audiences the emotional connection that would guarantee success for the venture.

 Grabbing victory from the jaws of defeat can give one that emotional thrill. Now, I can’t really have ships like Bismarck and Hood come back from the past to save the world. But I can set this in space, in the far future or in an alternate universe.

 Imagine, if you will, you’re on a planet expecting an enemy attack, getting ready for a battle – one which you know you can’t win. Then, reinforcements arrive. These reinforcements won’t necessarily “save the day”, but for the defenders it is a boost in morale. It is not “snatching victory from the jaws of defeat” that I’m looking for, but the deep resignation of being abandoned, knowing that you are going to die for your cause – alone -- and then gaining allies. Going from despair to hope. Powerful stuff.

 Being alone is a fear that many of us have, dying alone just makes it worse. But it all changes when someone else joins you, has your back. You may still go down fighting, but when you have that someone watching your back, fighting with you, taking a part in your struggle, you have a whole different feeling about the matter. That's what makes "buddy movies" so popular.

 That became my emotional scene – the arrival of reinforcements. To make it emotional, those who are manning the defences have to have lost hope. They’ve been abandoned. They intend to put up a fight anyway – for a just cause – but know that they don’t stand a chance.

 Word comes in that the enemy is on the way and everyone prepares for that doom. There’s nothing quite so bad as being abandoned by those you thought were there to protect you, so the people of my planet and their few defenders in the ships circling it are rightly of a sombre mood. Despair has crept in.

 Then, when the supposed “enemy fleet” drops out of hyperspace, and the defenders are braced for a final battle against impossible odds, they realize that this fleet has come to help and those who make up the crews of these ships are willing to die alongside the defenders. The defenders are no longer alone. And if this force came to aid them, maybe others will as well. Hope has arrived.

 To me, this is very powerful. To you it may not be, but as we’re talking about my writing method, it will do as an example. Because it means something to me, I’ve been thinking about it for many years. Never really considering what to do with it, but bringing it up from time to time from the back-burners of my mind. It’s simple: When all looks lost, a fleet from “the past” shows up not necessarily to turn the tide, but to help.

 Meanwhile, I’ve been hard at work (so to speak) on my first novel and the occasional short story. Been working on that novel for years, slowly getting further and further into it. Maybe, some year, I’ll finish it; maybe some year I’ll take another look at that emotional scene. Time passes and I'm actually getting close to finishing Novel #1. Maybe this year, I thought.

 My girlfriend comes to town and I sing her a few lines to a song – and she doesn’t believe it’s a real song. ("Wasn’t that a Party" by The Irish Rovers). I stop into a 2nd hand music store and go searching through the cassette tapes (remember those) and find an Irish Rovers album which has that song on it. I chortle, filled with glee. I’ll show her! I buy the cassette tape, plug it into the player in my vehicle and am able to say, “I told you so!” to my girlfriend who has to suffer through the song. But … and it’s a big “but” … the tape also has a song called, “The Day the Tall Ships Came” on it.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmPTJMHV_Cc

 I’ve never heard the song before, but when it plays, I’m reminded of my “scene”. Suddenly it comes together. I’m going to write that scene! I drop work on my other novel and start writing because now I have the inspiration. 58 days later I complete the first draft. No outline, no wasted scenes, no irrelevant tangents.

 How did I go from, “When all looks lost, a fleet from “the past” shows up not necessarily to turn the tide, but to help,” from despair to hope, to conclusion in 80,000 words in less than two months?

 Simple, I knew where I was going and I wrote to get there. All I needed was a starting point. Once I had my starting point, every scene I wrote took me further along the path to getting to that scene. It’s like walking across a snowy field, keeping to a straight line because you’re looking up at your goal and walking towards it.

 Just looking at the scene I wanted to write, many questions came up that gave me my starting point. We’re in a war and this fleet from the past comes to help. So, who are we at war with? Why are things so dire? Why does this fleet show up to help? What makes it a fleet from “the past”? and other questions like that.

 Well, fleets just don’t simply show up in the nick of time to help out – or, going back to the Westerns, the US Cavalry doesn’t just happen upon the besieged wagon train. No, someone goes for help and brings them back. Who? Now I have my protagonist – the man (or woman) who goes for help. Why this particular guy? Well, he must have some connection to that fleet. Okay. Where has that fleet been these past 300 years? They left the group of human planets because of [reason] and were thought to be destroyed. That’s why no one has been looking for them. But protagonist gets some information – inciting incident – which gives him a hint that they might still exist and his commanders send him off looking as a PR stunt, because, hey, possibility of a 2-front war and gotta keep up the morale of the troops.

 That’s all I need. Off I go. My Lieutenant Britlot gets news that his parents were killed in the war and he receives what remains of their possessions including an old diary from his ancestor which causes him to believe that not all of that departing fleet were destroyed three centuries earlier. He becomes obsessed by the idea that he might have relatives “out there somewhere”.

 Just like the reader previously mentioned whose mind jumps ahead, I don’t sit there and write one scene, then try to think of the next scene that will lead me eventually to my “emotional scene”. No, my mind jumps ahead to all sorts of possibilities. I take the most interesting ones, ones that will lead me on to that scene that I want to write. The story gets more complicated. Ideas fly in about what might happen five, ten, fifteen chapters beyond the spot where I’m now writing.

 Now, that scene that I want to write, it isn’t the climax of the book. In fact, it occurs about half to three-quarters of the way through it. I have no idea how the book will end at this point in time. However, the closer I get to that scene, the further ahead my mind jumps, so by the time I actually do write my scene, I’ve already decided – more or less – how the book is going to end. I just don’t know exactly how I’m going to get there.

 However, I now have my next “big scene” to write towards: that end scene. And all my previous scenes limit any fanciful tangent that may come up.

 If I want to drive from the West Coast to the East Coast and I get to the Great Lakes, no matter how lovely the Arctic Ocean or the Baja Peninsula might seem, I’m not about to take that sort of a detour. Any visions of the Great White North or the Sunny Southwest aren’t going to make it into a revised itinerary. The further I go towards my goal, the less possible it is to go off to one side or another – the infamous tangents that plotters accuse us pantsers of taking.

 My ending might change as a new and wonderful idea comes up, but that only means that I’ll hit the East Coast at Halifax or Washington DC instead of New York City. Texas or the Northwest Territories, though possible when I set out from Vancouver or LA, won’t come into the picture now. They can't; I'm too far along.

 The process of pantsing a book works much like a funnel. You may start from anywhere in the plane of the wide opening of that funnel, from the rim to the centre. But as you travel further down towards your goal of the narrow end, your possibilities become fewer. You can still go from side to side, but as you move forward (down), those sides are closing in. And when you get to the spout, your options have decreased to very few indeed. Everything behind you sends you to that one place where you generally or specifically aimed at from the beginning.

 Now, in “Ghost Fleet” I didn’t know how the book would end when I started. My emotional scene came 2/3rds (I just looked) of the way through the book. At that point I still didn’t know how it would end, though my mind was closing in on it, and though the ending surprised me in a delightful way, by the time I'd reached the 3/4 way point, I'd pretty much nailed it down. Then I just wrote towards it.

 Most other “emotional scenes” that I write towards occur much later. “In the Company of Cowards” had the scene occur at the 85% mark, but I knew how it would end before I finished the third chapter. The contents still surprised me all along the way, but not when they happened, for my mind had already considered those possibilities a few chapters previous and they all made sense for what I wanted the story to be about. No tangents.

 So, is that plotting (in the pantsers’ definition of plotting)? No. Is it pantsing (in the plotters’ definition of pantsing) No.

 But it is "discovery writing", and as an experienced writer, I know enough to "go with the flow". I don't go off on tangents that need pruning and a desperate turn to get me back on track like plotters seem to feel that I would. It just doesn't happen. It hasn't ever happened, and I've written over 20 novels. I just finished a massive one which I'll publish shortly. I did more initial work on it than I usually do, but that was with characters, not plot, and within a short time of beginning writing, even that got thrown out as the characters didn't behave like I had figured they might. So, 248,000 words later, I finished. No tangents that needed to be pruned. But a lot of stuff really surprised and delighted me, stuff that I had no intention of putting into the book when I began.

In one spot I feared that the "tangent effect" might actually come true. I had no idea why my characters were doing what they were doing and what they would find when they got to the place I had them going to. But I trusted myself and wrote on. By the time they got there, the perfect answer had arrived. Though it slightly changed the course of the book, It still had me going in the right direction, and made it (the story) all the better.

Now, "Ghost Fleet" didn't end up being 80,000 words. And, no, I didn't cut out tangents. Instead I added about 24,000 words to it, bringing in side plots that would make the emotional scene more emotional, and filling in spaces where holes may have existed. Again. No tangents.

 So, why do plotters believe this tangent stuff about pantsing? I guess it's just easier to believe a stereotype that "proves" the point that they have the "better method". But we'll go into that further next week.

Stay tuned for "Plotter Wars V: End Game".