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.