stonedinstilletos
Experienced
- Joined
- Dec 29, 2018
- Posts
- 71
For me, I like to know the beginning middle and end. Not in the sense that I have it outlined to death. I just need to know where my characters are starting from and where they are going. The mid point for me is not always the climax or turn of the story, but it can be.So this kind of came up in my thread about serendipity which just got, if not necroed, than at least jolted back into life, but I think it's an interesting enough topic by itself to warent its own thread.
For those who don't know, 'planners vs pantsers' is a common phrase for distinguishing writers who make substantial plans for their work before starting to write against those who 'fly by the seat of their pants' and start to write with little idea of where the story is evenutally going to end up. From previous threads, I'm probably nearly as far along the planner end of the spectrum as it's possible to be and thus am frequently bewildered by writer who claim they know literally nothing about their stories before they start to write (and seemingly I bewilder them just as much).
So my question is thus very simple. As a pantser writer, you have a whole afternoon free to write, you've got nothing in progress (at least nothing you want to work on), and you open up a new document file (in the format of your choosing). As you strike the first key, what do you actually know (or suspect) about your story? Characters? Settings? Events? Length? Genre? Sexual activities?
It usually starts before I hit the place where I’m going to write, usually when I’m talking to myself in my car (yeah… I do that when I’m alone). I have a couple of these conversations that I remember and hope to use for later. Sometimes I forget them, but the ones I end up writing I remember. If I was better about writing things in a journal of ideas etc, it might be better, but I’m not that organized I guess.
Once I get to the writing, it will spin from that snippet that I’ve acted out in my head. I stopped thinking about length along time ago because I am congenitaly incapable of writing anything short. I can, usually, cut down an idea once its either done or I realize I’m on track to challenge War and Peace for page count. I will usually have a series of events I want to make sure get in there, sexual activities sometimes but not usually. Those acts usually depend on how the characters develop towards each other. I do try to pick a genre only because, from previous experience, it keeps me from flipping the tone of the piece randomly (at least I hope it does).
The thing I have the most trouble with when writing is the names of the characters. I‘m terrible at names to the point where sometimes I just use a random name generator.
My last story started with an image I saw online and then thought about it for a moment and then saw part of a movie that had the other character in it.