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".

 

 

Friday 16 September 2022

Plotter Wars III: The Return of the Plotter”

In the previous post, we looked at how slim the chances that anyone is a true pantser. Sitting down and starting to write without any thought in mind about even genre seems unlikely. Not impossible, but unlikely. However, even that slim chance recedes as the story takes shape. Let’s go back to my previous example – the Catamo story.

So, we started off as a pure pantsing story. We picked a name as if from out of a hat – John Doe – and had him awaken. We then looked at how he awoke – at a sound. Now, switch from a writer’s perspective to that of a reader. As soon as we read the word “sound”, our mind would automatically start cataloguing the possibilities: alarm clock, creak of a floorboard, door slamming, car in the distance, train whistle, gunshot. Now, not necessarily all of those, but at least a couple and likely some different ones. Then, as John went to the window, we’d start wondering what he’d see. And, again, we’d bring up a few possibilities: the street below, the building opposite, a cat, a bird, an open field, and so on. A thundering herd of mice probably never came up, so the writer surprised us with that. But if it had been a bird in a tree, we might congratulate ourselves with having solved that little piece of the puzzle.

When John reaches for the phone to dial 911, we’ve probably already thought about how he would sound to the operator before we read the confirmation from the author. Then, we’ll agree that John will have to go in personally. And before he grabs his keys, or heads outside, our minds will jump ahead to the likely reception that John will get from the mayor and city council when he puts forward the ridiculous notion that there’s a thundering herd of mice on its way, threatening the city. And, while still reading about his trip into town, while noting the population on the sign, we’re probably already wondering if John will be able to convince the town leaders that this danger even exists.

We’ve all read enough stories to know that it’s not going to be as simple as John going to town, passing along his information and then everyone jumps up to get weapons of various sorts to defend the city. Thirty thousand humans with guns, gasoline, mouse traps, and other weapons will surely stop a few thousand mice – especially since they’ll have several hours to prepare. No, that won’t cross our minds, because if the writer is any good at all, it won’t be that easy.

And some of us may even be wondering if John will say, “I told you so,” afterwards. Will he become a hero to the town? Will he revel in his vindication? Will he rub the noses of those who doubted him in the truth, or will he feel satisfied that everyone knows he’s not a kook? Okay, now we’re really jumping – all the way to the end of this 1000 page tome (or is it 2000 pages?).

So, why am I bringing this up? We’re not looking at readers, we’re looking at writers, right?

Well, writers do the exact same thing – whether pantsers or plotters. Most writers know where they want to go with a story before they sit down to either write it or outline it (which is pretty much the same thing, only one is in more detail than the other).

As the writer either writes or outlines, different possibilities occur to him or her. Let’s say our writer – you or me or some third party – wants to write a romance novel. Well, the Romance trope says that it will end with a HEA (Happily Ever After) or a HFN (Happily For Now). So, even before we start we know that the guy is going to get the gal, or the gal is going to get the gal, or the guy is going to get the guy – depending on just what sort of Romance we’re writing. So, there’s the end-point of the novel; it’s already slotted in.

Now, we need a place to start. And, as we can’t have the two together throughout the piece, we’ll generally start with them apart – not a couple – though we could start with a break-up and have them get back together to have that HEA. In any event, we now have two points on our plotline. The starting point and the ending point. And this before pen hits paper (or fingers hit keyboard – either writing or outlining). And we know that – typically – there will be some conflict between the two, some obstacle for them to overcome in order to get together. The appearance of that will likely come early on. But they’ll seem to overcome it and start trusting each other, working together on something – if not the major difference in their goals – until the betrayal. Or, more probably, the appearances of a betrayal which will make it look like they will never get together. But a final reaching out will overcome even that, and there we are: HEA/HFN.

This is all plotting or outlining, and both the outliner and the pantser are doing it before they’ve even started. The plotter/outliner, will then start filling in points on the outline, detailing the rising action, the obstacles, the overcoming of the obstacles, the dark hour just before the dawn, and all that good stuff – but not necessarily in order. 

Meanwhile the pantser will take the idea that started the novel, pick a beginning and start writing towards that HEA, usually writing along the timeline, not jumping about (except for the possible flashback). And, as we begin writing, our minds will jump ahead, see how what we’ve already got down will effect what comes later. We’ll continually see lines branching off from our current end-point, then pick one and discard the rest. Then do the same again, and again. 

However, with the ultimate moment of joyful acceptance of each character for the other in mind, we’ll narrow the possibilities down until there’s only one way left to go. We then write the climax and cheer as the two kiss and pledge their everlasting love for each other. A short denouement, and we write, THE END. Done. All through that entire thing, as pantsers, we’ve been plotting ahead, outlining in our mind. Not perhaps as far ahead as the plotter/outliner, and perhaps not in as much detail, but we’ve been doing it nonetheless.

We are all plotters.

The difference is the degree to which we plot, the intricacy of the outline that we create, and whether it is written down or exists only in our minds. Because “plotters” outline the entire story before starting to type it out, they limit their freedom of movement. 

At this point, our plotter friends jump up and say that this isn’t true. They can always change their outlines if something comes up which they believe will make the story better. 

I both agree and disagree. Although on the face of it, this is true, and many plotters do find themselves doing this, I believe that having the outline already written narrows their vision – at least somewhat. Because they KNOW what is coming next, a burst of creative thinking outside those lines will more likely be dismissed by them than by a pantser, who will delight in the possibilities and feel more free to explore them.

Our plotter friends – going back to The Catamo – would likely never have Fluffy and her band of heroes holding that line, putting themselves between the city and the rampaging mice. In fact, it wouldn’t be mice, it would be something totally different. The story would be about a man who struggles to make others aware of a danger that only he can see, to fight through the disbelief, to finally save those whom another might leave to their fate. We’ve all seen it before in disaster flicks and The Catamo is a disaster story. 

They, too, follow their tropes. The possibility of a danger exists. The lone man/woman/group warn that the town/city/country/world should prepare for it. They are ignored. The possibility turns into a probability and then into an inevitability. The town/city/country/world turns to our protagonist and his or her allies. They go out and save the day after encountering obstacles. The plotter knows all this and begins filling in his outline, probably picking the danger first. "What if X happens?" The plotter has already decided that s/he's going to write a disaster-thriller book. Now, fill in the blanks. In the plotter's story, John may not even reside with a cat and cats may play no part in the book at all.

The squeak of the chair as our plotters sat down to the outline might bring up the idea of a mouse, but then it would get discarded because they've already picked John as their protagonist and X as their disaster. We pantsers, however, will feel no pressure to keep John as the protagonist. We’ll delight in making Fluffy our hero and relegating John to sidekick status. He may still get his vindication at the end of the book, be accounted the hero by the citizens of the city, and get the gal. However, we – and our readers – will know that this is rightfully Fluffy’s spot. But she’ll simply enjoy the can of tuna that John thankfully sets out for her, and accept the petting that John’s new mate gives her. The city may never know of the heroics of that outnumbered but brave band of alley cats who held the line until human backup became available and turned the tide.

The plotter, hemmed in by his outline, won't take off on a tangent unless it speaks very, very loudly to him/her, at which point it's back to outlining before proceeding. Usually the best that can be hoped for is a note for another book along the same lines. This book's story has already been completed and taking that mild tangent will force all sorts of complications with the already completed outline. It just isn't worth it.

But as for plotters vs pantser, we are all plotters – because that's the way the human mind works.

Stay tuned for "Plotters Wars IV: A Pantser in the Wild" where we will look at a real-life pantser and realize that the stereotype that the plotters would have all prospective writers believe, and the deadly fault of pantsing (going off on wild tangents) is nothing more than a caricature.

Stay well, keep writing, and keep on pantsing!

D.A. Boulter.

 

Thursday 8 September 2022

Plotter Wars II: The Pantsers Strike Back

 

Plotters seem to think that pantsers operate in a literal “by the seat of their pants” way. No plan, no idea, ready to follow anything that comes up. Let’s look at the process.

 Pantser sits down at his (or her – but I’ll use his, because I am a “he” and I’ll be using myself as the example) writing desk or keyboard, or wherever he (I) happens to do his (my) composing. He opens the word processing program (or his notebook) and looks at the empty page.

 “I want to write a book,” I say (either to myself silently or out loud), and put my fingers on the keyboard. First thing I need is a main character. Hmm, male or female? Okay, let’s make him male. Then I begin to write. John Doe and then stop. Where do I start? Well, I just got up, so let’s have John Doe starting off in bed. Great! John Doe woke up… Why did he wake up? …to a strange sound … Where is it coming from? Downstairs, upstairs, outside, the radio? …coming from outside. Okay, I’ve got him awake, now what? I suppose he should investigate. He rose from the bed and opened the window. He looked out and saw … Dang, what did he see? Something that made a noise, but what? A car? A train? A person? I rock back in my chair, and a squeak emanates from it. A mouse! Yes, a mouse! Ha! But, wait. Would a single mouse from outside cause enough noise to wake John? …and saw a thundering herd of mice … hmm, I haven’t placed them yet. Herd of mice? Probably not an urban setting, so I’ll make it rural. …galloping across the freshly plowed field, heading for … heading for where? The barn? The house? A nearby village, town, or city? … the city of Boultersville. I’ll just use that as a placemark name until I can think of a good one.

 So, I’ve got John seeing the mice heading for the city. What should he do? Telephone in to let the mayor know? Sounds good.

 John quickly dressed and went to the phone, then stopped short. Who would believe him? If he called 911, they’d probably send a paddy wagon. No, he would have to warn the mayor and city council himself, in person. Yeah, we’re rocking now! Damn, the cat wants his breakfast. Hey, maybe John should have a cat, too. A farm cat. Yeah, good idea.

 John opened the door to his truck, and Fluffy, his cat, jumped in. Wow! Wasn’t expecting that. Is he going to take Fluffy with him or not? Let’s flip a coin. Heads. By the time he locked Fluffy in the house for safety, too much time would have passed. Those mice were really hoofin’ it! He needed to warn the city. So he climbed in the truck, started it, and headed off towards Boultersville, cat sitting by his side. Soon he came upon the sign, Boultersville, population 32,416. Well, that would be 32,415 now, as Lily Carmichael had died just last Sunday after church service had … had what? … sent her into rapture. Ooh, that’s good. Rapture. Get it?

 And we go on with a description of him going into council chambers and trying to convince them that there is, indeed, a thundering herd of mice headed this way. They haven’t much time to prepare for the assault. But, the council doesn’t believe him. Naturally. Things getting worse.

 John returned to his truck. He’d have to approach this another way. What allies could he get? Wait! Where was Fluffy? He’d left her in the truck – but with the windows open so she wouldn’t get overheated. She knew better than to jump out, so where was she?

 Fluffy made the rounds. Okay, maybe Fluffy will become the protagonist, I’ll work it out later. Word – in the form of meows – had spread. They couldn’t count on humans to save the city, humans took too much time to decide to do anything. By the time they’d made a decision, it would be too late. It was up to her and her friends. Go, Fluffy, go! What will they do? The cats lined up just outside of town, a thin … what’s a good descriptor? …tabby line against the oncoming hordes. Fluffy looked to her left and then right. Would one hundred and eighty-five cats be able to stop those mice? As Farmer John had driven along the highway, she had seen what must have been at least 5,000 mice, eyes red, looking unstoppable, heading for the city. She licked at her shoulder to calm her nerves. This was it: the Catamo! Hey, that’s a good title. The Catamo – I wonder how it is going to end? Will the mice show no quarter and kill all 185 cats, or will the cats be able to save the city? Boy, I can’t wait to find out!

 Nobody I know writes like this, making each decision at the time, without knowing where they are going. Nobody I know sits down to write a book without knowing the genre, what it’s going to be about – at least in general terms – and why they want to write that particular book. Often, they’ll know how the book will end. Plotter or Pantser, it makes no difference. But Plotters seem to think that “writing by the seat of the pants” entails just such a method. I don’t know why.

 Before a plotter begins his outline he knows some or all of the above. And before the plotter begins his outline, he’s in the exact same place as the pantser.

 So, let’s take a look at why writers want to write books. Some people want to write a book because they think it would be cool to have written a book. These people will likely never finish. Others want to write because they feel they have something to say and this novel (or short story or novella) seems the best way to get the message across. Some love stories and have found that the only way to get a story to turn out as they would like it to turn out is to write it themselves. And some have something to say, want to say it through a story that turns out the way that they want the story to turn out, and think it would be cool to have written that book.

 Whatever it is, we all start out in the same place – with an idea. We generally think about it for a while, toss it around in our minds, fill it out a little. By the time the pantser gets ready to write or the plotter to outline, they’ve filled in various blanks. Generally, they’ll know the genre. Is it Fantasy, Science Fiction, Romance, Mystery, Action/Adventure, Western? They’ll probably have an idea of the protagonist and what he or she wants to accomplish, and why. Depending on how long the inspiring idea has percolated, they may know a lot of other things, including how they see it ending (though the precise manner of ending may change during the writing or plotting).

 Let’s go back to my snowy field analogy. Our plotter has built rails to ensure that he (or she) travels straight to the goal, knowing each twist and turn in the path. The pantser doesn’t look at his feet and takes each step hoping that he (or she) is on course. If they know how the story will end, then they simply look up at that goal – perhaps a tree on the other side of the field – and start walking towards it, keeping it in sight. They’ll travel a straight line to it – as long as the terrain is flat. If it is other than flat and they have to detour around a ditch or something, they still keep the tree in sight and know that as soon as they get around the ditch, they’ll head straight for the tree again.

 An experienced pantser doesn’t have to end up with a manuscript that needs to be pruned with a machete. She, knowing where she’s going, won’t be taking side-trips to nowhere important that need to get lopped off the finished piece.

 The inexperienced pantser may run off on tangents, but then so too might the inexperienced plotter. It’s a learning process that both go through. And an inexperienced pantser going off on one of those trips to nowhere important may learn more from the mistake than the inexperienced plotter may learn from following his outline, without deviation, from beginning to end.

 I’m an experienced pantser with more than 20 novels under my belt. My latest, “Wreck” came from an idea about an asteroid miner who has a certain problem. He finds the wreck of an alien ship at a place he’s come to do some mining and investigates it, finding an Artificial Intelligence in control of it. They both need to accomplish a goal; their goals are mutually exclusive, setting up conflict between the two. I’d given it some thought over the previous several years, but all I knew coming into a November’s “National Novel Writing Month” (NaNoWriMo) (2021), was how the story would start and how it would end. I knew the miner’s goal and the AI’s goal, plus one or two scenes that would happen somewhere in the middle. I didn’t know how I would get to those scenes, and I knew that I might find that I couldn’t, that they just wouldn’t happen. But I knew where I was going and where I was starting from and what I wanted to accomplish with the story.

 I made the sudden decision to concentrate on that story – bring it off the “back burner” – on the 30th of October, taking a break from another work. I started actually writing the book on November 1st – just to see what I could accomplish during NaNoWriMo. I didn’t complete it in the month, but did finish the “first draft” on December 4th. That was 90,010 words in 34 days. I didn’t go off on tangents; I didn’t have to cut scenes. I merely kept my eye on that “tree” on the other side of the field, and everything I wrote drew me inexorably towards it. I ended up adding another 3273 words during edits – mostly just elaborating on certain bits here and there as I tend to write somewhat sparsely with respect to descriptions in my first draft.

 What am I saying? Stereotypes are not reality. Experienced writers know what they are doing, be they plotters or pantsers. Having outsiders tell us that we fit those stereotypes is insulting. In my personal experience, I’ve found that pantsers tend to understand plotters, but plotters don’t understand us nearly as well.

And that's a shame. They could learn a lot from us.

 Stay tuned for “Plotter Wars III: The Return of the Plotter”


D.A. Boulter


To bring you all up to date, I finished my last proofing go-through of "Ghost in the Game" and have sent it off to my proofer who [hopefully] will return it to me before the end of the month so I can put it up before October. It ended up a little over 248k -- about a 700 page paperback give or take 100 pages depending on size of page and size of font. That's close to twice as long as my previous longest book (Not With A Whimper: Survivors) at 157k (I think). All I can say is that I'm so happy I'm finished it (except for correcting any errors my proofer finds that I've missed).

Thursday 1 September 2022

Plotter Wars I: A Conflicted Beginning

 

 

This is war: Pantsers VS Plotters. A fight to the death!

 Let us make no mistake here: I belong to the former, and I’ve about had it with the ‘other side’, which, of course, is totally wrong-headed!

 It all came to the breaking point recently when I received an email inviting me to a course where we would learn all about creating a wonderful outline from which to write a powerful story. I ignored it, as I’ve found that if I outline a book, that book will never get written – at least not by me. Once I’ve told the story – which is what one does in an intensive outline – I have little interest in going back and retelling the story, this time with more details. So, I dump that idea in favour of another, one that I haven't told yet.

 But I received follow-up emails inviting me to register before the deadline. I ignored those, too, until … a final email came with the subject line addressing my side of this vicious battle for supremacy: pantsers.

 Now, I’ve attended several virtual summits where various aspects of writing are discussed. Some of them concentrated entirely upon plotting, some only touched on it in a few seminars. None of them discussed the art of pantsing, probably because it is an art rather than a science, and is thus more difficult to deal with or teach. So, whenever I see the word “pantser” I get excited. Perhaps this time someone has put forth something that I will find very valuable. Oh happy day!

 Unfortunately, this wasn’t going to be that “this time”. Instead, the evil purveyor (has to be evil ’cause he’s the antagonist in this little affair) of the evil course (has to be evil as it’s about plotting, and we all know that plotters are engaged in a plot – what else? – to take over the writing world) is trying to encourage the pantsers on his email list who have said they wouldn’t take the course – because, hey, that’s not what they/we do – to think again.

 Normally, this wouldn’t bother me. But the wording of the missive brought out the fire within and I girded my loins to do battle. [Gird? Went to an online dictionary and it said “to jeer or jeer at”. (I solemnly affirm that was the first definition that popped up; I am not making this up.) What? That doesn’t sound right. I jeered at my loins to do battle? “Hey you dumb loins: Betcha ya can’t even fight if you tried. Go ahead, prove me wrong if you dare! Go on and fight, loins, do battle!” Hmm, better try a different dictionary.]

 When we find something that works for us, we tend to assume that it is the best thing since sliced macaroni. And that’s how those dratted plotters feel about plotting. It works for them, and anyone doing anything different just needs to be shown the error of their ways. And how better to show us the error of our ways than to use stereotypes?

 “Pantsers go off on tangents” and end up with manuscripts that need pruning with a machete, then rewriting, then more pruning and more rewriting, etc. until they finally end up with what plotters get first time around because … hey outlines, which keep them on track. If they are nice, they will say, “MOST pantsers…”, leaving room for the odd exception to the rule.

 Our comeback, which is absolutely 135.5% true, states that outlines stifle creativity, box the plotters in, blinkering them like mules pulling a wagon. Plotters wouldn’t know a creative moment if came up and bit them on the backside. [Hey, this is war, and wars tend to become violent and bloody.]

 Of course, those poor, benighted beings claim that outlines leave room for creativity. If something brilliant comes up, then an adjustment here, a tuck there, a little sliding of the plot will accommodate this creative moment. Yes, they think this, though it isn’t true. How do I know it isn’t true? Because I said so. Okay, I admit there are minor exceptions … a few … once in a while … if the plotter is lucky.

 However, for the most part, an outline puts the writer into a mental straightjacket. A creative thought which differs from the outline may come up, but will most often be swept aside because, whether the plotters realize it or not, their outlines fight against change. Only a brilliant flash of creative ingenuity can overcome the tendency to want to stick to the outline once it is in place.

 Manuscripts that follow fully plotted outlines plod along like the aforementioned mules, leaving little room for improvisation. And that’s how they end up: staid, dull, without a chance to sparkle. Alas.

 I can already see the plotters rising up from their drafting tables, anger at my disparaging – to them – comments, ready to do battle. Well, I said this was a war, a war to the finish, with no quarter asked or given. Give me freedom (for my creativity) or give me death (but please, please, I beg of you, not an outline).

 Okay, how much of the above is true of plotting and plotters? How much of that do I actually believe? Not much. There are a few minor truths sprinkled within, but I’ve blown them up all out of proportion, and they can be overcome by an intelligent writer. But, if you are a plotter, how did you feel about my disparagement of your style of crafting a story? I ask, because that’s how we pantsers feel about the way you misunderstand and misstate what we do. After a while, it gets tedious.

 So, I mentioned stereotypes. What exactly are they? Let us go with an old analogy – walking a straight line across a snowy field.

 You have a snowy field in front of you and you are told to walk across it in a straight line. So, you carefully place one foot in front of the other, taking care to place each foot just right. When you get to the other side you look back and find that your path, rather than a straight line, wavers to the left and right and you end up a distance from your goal. Your problem? You were looking at your feet, trying to figure out where to step next instead of looking up at your goal. Each step appears to you to be directly ahead of the last one, but if you turn your foot in the slightest, the next step after that will drift off course, perhaps even taking you in a complete circle by the end.

 This is the conception that the plotter has of the pantser. Without guideposts to keep them going in the correct direction, pansters meander, get caught up in tangents which really go nowhere, after which they have to fight their way back to the path. The whole meandering side-journey will then need to be cut from the manuscript. Why does this happen? Because we don’t know where we’re going, they say. We’re writing by the seat of our pants, going off in all directions (looking at our feet) and only hopefully ending up where we need to go.

 The solution to this – according to those evil (not really) plotters – is to construct rails that keep us on track. Once the rails are in place, we walk between them and end up where we are going without taking any of those extraneous side-trips to nowhere important for which we are so famous.

 That’s not how it works, my dear plotter friends. (Oops, I put an extraneous “r” in the final word of that last sentence. Sorry.) Do you want to know how it works, how it really works? Well,

 Stay tuned for “Plotter Wars II: The Pantsers Strike Back” coming soon to a blog near you. (Okay, this blog, next week.)

D. A. Boulter.


In further news, I've about finished my final proofing/editing of "Ghost in the Game" and am about to send it off to my Proofer in a day or three. Word count at present: 247000. Hopefully the book will be up for sale before the end of September. It has thrills, it has chills, it has spills. It details a "real world" and a "virtual world". Sword fights and magefire abound as my protagonist, Gault McGirr finds himself in a mystery that takes him from his normal life into something he never expected, a life that will likely see him dead ... at least once if not multiple times. Get ready for "Ghost in the Game"!