Being a Panster to the Nth Degree

[lovecraft68]

I have mentioned before that I am a panster. I've written full length novels without an outline and just rolled with everything. Most of the time it works, sometimes I've written myself into corners. However, despite writing like no one's reading, I do always have an idea where it should go, I just don't lock myself in and let myself freestyle within the "This is what I'd like it to be."

But my latest e-book-I mentioned the idea here, a taboo version of the Purge horror movie franchise-takes it to another level. This is a story I've kicked around for a couple of years but whenever I reached the point in my head of "Okay, what is the history of this "Urge" how, why, when, did this start and how does it work? It never came to me so I never started.

But for a certain reason I might bring up in another thread this had to be the time to get this thing done. But still no idea.

Okay, how do I write a story without knowing its story?

I began safe. A scene which introduces the brother, and does drop some foreshadowing that something is off about the small town their parents grew up in and he and his sister are visiting for the first time. I drop a twilight (or more like taboo) zone text from the mayor that goes to everyone in the town and describes the upcoming festival and the rules. Now I'm backing myself into the corner with no way out in my mind, but fuck it, as Alfred E Nueman would say "What, me worry?"

I bring in the sister and they discuss the weird text and you see the effect an odd flower which just bloomed is having on them which has them thinking of each other. Enter the parents, each of which drops some cryptic remarks, then the sister's POV and some of the strange things her friends are talking about..

Getting closer to the moment of truth where I need the history and don't have it. We reach the festival, I describe some weirdness going on there, I'm getting closer and closer and when I look at the muse, she looks back and says "Don't look at me, fool, this is your idea!"

I'm 30k in. The mayor is now stepping onto the stage to go into a sermon style telling of the founding of the town of Wanton and how the Urge was born. Moment of truth. I have...nada, nothing, zero, zilch, ungots, bupkiss. I get up wander off and make a cup of coffee and toast a bagel, the story isn't in my head, instead I spend my time browsing Craig's list for comic collections I could buy while I eat, then go back sit down, follow my superstition of placing my fingers to the keys, closing my eyes and saying out loud, "Tell me a story"

But I'm scuffling, start with a generic, "welcome everyone blah blah, and on this day x years ago blah blah. I sit back and for the first time have the moment of "Okay, you've run out of gas this time, there's nothing." Then I get the voice in my head that all so supportive "Are you kidding? Write you fucking loser! You've never met a story you couldn't bullshit your way through."

Okay, couple of paragraphs, quickly delete them, then....it kicks, and I mean it fucking kicks. The "Fuck yeah!" moment where the muse decides she's going to show up, the words are moving in my head faster than the fingers can move, and out of my ass comes this intricate and bizzarro world history of this town, its founders, the way they were going to be put to death for incest, the fact the sister was from a long line of Celtic witches, who summons her demonic guardians who happen to be the two demon incest siblings I've used before, and this thing goes from shit to sugar

Then more people come out, there's a ritual dance, there's six sibling couples fucking on stage for the annual 'breeding' event to keep the line pure and so on and so forth and...

Yup, I knew I had it all along.

Okay, not really, and I've noticed this happening a bit more often the last couple of years and I always do pull it out, but it seems to take more time and more "fuck this" moments of wanting to give it up. I keep hearing in my mind the old expression about going to the well too many times.

I've wondered, should I try outlining or waiting for everything to be in line at least in my mind before I start?

The answer is no, my mind is too chaotic in all things (I freestyle through everything at work let alone writing) and I'm to set in my unset ways.

There may come a day I can't pull this off anymore.

But as the line goes in Game of Thrones "What do we say to death? Not today."

 

[TheLobster]

Back in the day, revelations of this magnitude lead to the establishment of major religions.

Nowadays, we get a novel about, and I quote, "the sister was from a long line of Celtic witches, who summons her demonic guardians who happen to be the two demon incest siblings."

O tempora, o mores

 

[lovecraft68]

Back in the day, revelations of this magnitude lead to the establishment of major religions.

Nowadays, we get a novel about, and I quote, "the sister was from a long line of Celtic witches, who summons her demonic guardians who happen to be the two demon incest siblings."

O tempora, o mores

I prefer cult over religion, thank you.

I do have a large following here....just sayin'

 

[lovecraft68]

Back in the day, revelations of this magnitude lead to the establishment of major religions.

Nowadays, we get a novel about, and I quote, "the sister was from a long line of Celtic witches, who summons her demonic guardians who happen to be the two demon incest siblings."

O tempora, o mores

From the story

“I swear this thing reads like its some kind of town wide sex cult.”

Later on:

“We can outrun them.” Dawn suggested.

“Then get caught and become a sexual sibling sacrifice to the sex cult gods?” Dylan sighed.

 

[Plathfan]

Chaos is a ladder...

I envy pantsers. They’re incredibly productive, firing words from their keyboards like a Vulcan cannon. Some even turn a profit.

I envy them because they have fun, riding a creative flow without restrictions-- no need for planning or structure. More is more; excess is best. Unlike us, the unfortunate goldsmiths, who labor endlessly, polishing tiny diamonds with painstaking care.

But I also pity them. Much of what they produce is junk. Their writing swings wildly in quality, sometimes even within the same scene. Their outlines are shaky. Characters can feel flat, their actions inconsistent or senseless. Entire sections could vanish without anyone noticing. Worse, their pages are cluttered with irrelevant events and personal ramblings that add nothing to the story.

I envy modern artists. Some get rich by splattering paint on a canvas, while others manage to analyze those splashes with a straight face. I wish I could see more than just scribbles.

Chaos is a ladder; diamonds are eternal.

 

[lovecraft68]

Chaos is a ladder...

I envy pantsers. They’re incredibly productive, firing words from their keyboards like a Vulcan cannon. Some even turn a profit.

I envy them because they have fun, riding a creative flow without restrictions-- no need for planning or structure. More is more; excess is best. Unlike us, the unfortunate goldsmiths, who labor endlessly, polishing tiny diamonds with painstaking care.

But I also pity them. Much of what they produce is junk. Their writing swings wildly in quality, sometimes even within the same scene. Their outlines are shaky. Characters can feel flat, their actions inconsistent or senseless. Entire sections could vanish without anyone noticing. Worse, their pages are cluttered with irrelevant events and personal ramblings that add nothing to the story.

I envy modern artists. Some get rich by splattering paint on a canvas, while others manage to analyze those splashes with a straight face. I wish I could see more than just scribbles.

Chaos is a ladder; diamonds are eternal.

I do have fun, even when there's some frustration its part of the game. Because that's what it is to me.

You can pretend you're some polished wordsmith, but I suggest the next time you do you post in the role play forum where others post their fantasies.

 

[Plathfan]

I do have fun, even when there's some frustration its part of the game. Because that's what it is to me.

You can pretend you're some polished wordsmith, but I suggest the next time you do you post in the role play forum where others post their fantasies.

Even my posts are tiny diamonds... Littlefinger.

 

[StillStunned]

You can pretend you're some polished wordsmith, but I suggest the next time you do you post in the role play forum where others post their fantasies.

This seems slightly unwarranted.

 

[lovecraft68]

Even my posts are tiny diamonds... Littlefinger.

Projecting something there? I think I speak for most here when I tell you that you can choke on not just my finger.

 

[intim8]

I envy pantsers. They’re incredibly productive,

Yes, but...

But I also pity them. Much of what they produce is junk.

Don't pity us, because, at minimum, it's fun as hell. Even the junk. But more to the point, that slush-pile of "junk" is a pile full of unpolished gold.

I've estimated that I start 4-6 stories for every one I finish. But even the ones I don't finish sometimes end up getting finished. And it's because of, not despite, pantsing.

@lovecraft68 pretty much described my writing life. But the muse doesn't always come right away. Sometimes it comes years later.

My latest submission, Pictures of Her, ("latest" being relative, between covid and getting a full-time job, my time has been very limited), sat on that slush-pile for a year and a half. I was poking through that pile and re-read it, and it came to me what the story needed to be. I probably didn't get it then because I had an idea where it should go, and that idea was wrong. On the reread, having forgotten everything that was in my head when I started it, the characters and the story told me what the story actually was.

I think it is one of the best things I've written, and it has received incredibly good comments, favorites, and votes.

I have another story in the final polishing stage that came out of that slush pile as well.

Productive yes, and a lot of junk, yes, but I wouldn't have it any other way. I've had 3000 word stories go from idea to published in a day, on another site. I have about 120K words of what I think will be a really good mainstream novel, all pantsed, but I don't have an ending yet, and the flaws you mention are there in spades. It's been languishing for a couple of years. But it'll come together. It is beyond the pantsing stage, except for the ending, and in the stage where I make a presentable first draft. (I call the pantsed work the "0th draft").

From a marketing perspective, perhaps one of the biggest downsides of pantsing is that the results, at least in my case, are very often difficult to pin down to a genre, or here, to a category. The novel's genesis was a particular time-travel scenario that fascinated me, but as I typed, it became a business espionage story with a theme of people sorting out their identity. How do you market that in a genre-driven business?

That all came out because one main character is out of his time and needs to find his place in his new time - as I wrote, he kept getting more and more frustrated about that - and the other has been hiding most of his life and has so many fake identities that he has lost track of who he really is. It was the business espionage plot that brought that out, he has to "come out" as his real self to fix it. That would never have been something I would think of up front and then glom a plot onto. It would be impossible, for me at least.

 

[lovecraft68]

Yes, but...

Don't pity us, because, at minimum, it's fun as hell. Even the junk. But more to the point, that slush-pile of "junk" is a pile full of unpolished gold.

I've estimated that I start 4-6 stories for every one I finish. But even the ones I don't finish sometimes end up getting finished. And it's because of, not despite, pantsing.

@lovecraft68 pretty much described my writing life. But the muse doesn't always come right away. Sometimes it comes years later.

My latest submission, Pictures of Her, ("latest" being relative, between covid and getting a full-time job, my time has been very limited), sat on that slush-pile for a year and a half. I was poking through that pile and re-read it, and it came to me what the story needed to be. I probably didn't get it then because I had an idea where it should go, and that idea was wrong. On the reread, having forgotten everything that was in my head when I started it, the characters and the story told me what the story actually was.

I think it is one of the best things I've written, and it has received incredibly good comments, favorites, and votes.

I have another story in the final polishing stage that came out of that slush pile as well.

Productive yes, and a lot of junk, yes, but I wouldn't have it any other way. I've had 3000 word stories go from idea to published in a day, on another site. I have about 120K words of what I think will be a really good mainstream novel, all pantsed, but I don't have an ending yet, and the flaws you mention are there in spades. But it'll come together. It is beyond the pantsing stage, except for the ending, and in the stage where I make a presentable first draft. (I call the pantsed work the "0th draft").

From a marketing perspective, perhaps one of the biggest downsides of pantsing is that the results, at least in my case, are very often difficult to pin down to a genre, or here, to a category. The novel's genesis was a particular time-travel scenario that fascinated me, but as I typed, it became a business espionage story with a theme of people sorting out their identity. How do you market that in a genre-driven business?

That all came out because one main character is out of his time and needs to find his place in his new time, and the other has been hiding most of his life and has so many fake identities that he has lost track of who he really is. That would never have been something I would think of up front and then glom a plot onto. It would be impossible, for me at least.

I give you credit, I don't think I could pick something up years later. I'd lose the feel. Longest I've gone when leaving off and coming back is a few months and it took work to get the first and later parts of the story to mesh.

 

[SimonDoom]

One of the dumbest things one can do is get in a pissing contest over writing styles. I don't think that's what Lovecraft meant to do. One can celebrate one style without disparaging others. I'm not a pantser but I can appreciate, and even envy a little, what they do. I just don't know how to do it that way.

 

[StillStunned]

I'm not a pantser but I can appreciate, and even envy a little, what they do. I just don't know how to do it that way.

I keep telling myself I'm going to try and plot a story, but it never seems to work. The closest I've got is a general outline and a few ideas for scenes for my sci-fi series "The Dome".

Mostly, as soon as I begin to plot, I lose any interest in writing the actual story. As if writing it down in even the barest form kills the muse. Or at least the need to get the story out of my head.

 

[intim8]

I don't think I could pick something up years later. I'd lose the feel.

But that was the point. The "feel" I had initially was wrong. I couldn't have proceeded with it until I lost that. The characters and basic scenario were the same, and reading what I had pantsed revealed the story that was there all along that I hadn't seen.

I had tabled the story indefinitely and forgotten about it. But I make a habit of running through the slush pile every so often to see what hits me. This one hit me. Dozens of others didn't. Yet.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

Hah! I knew good old Bruckner was going to comment on this

I'm even going to partly agree with him. I do believe that pantsers have more fun while actually writing. We, planners, get our fun in bed when our minds somehow work in overdrive just before sleep, or while taking a walk, and then some idea strikes and we start working it out in our heads, figuring out where the story should lead, how should the characters develop, the world unfold... That's where we have the most fun. I'd say that personally, I'm about 75% planner - 25% pantser so I have the most fun working things out in my head before I start writing the words.

The final product? That always depends on talent and skill, and of course, inspiration. Some writers can't stand to plan, and some can't even begin writing without a serious outline. I wouldn't say that either approach leads to a better story, but I do think that it's easier to get it done if you plan at least to a degree.

 

[intim8]

I keep telling myself I'm going to try and plot a story, but it never seems to work.

I tried it all my life, because I was taught, and just assumed that it was the way. and it never once worked. It was NaNoWriMo that made me see another way.

I kind of resent all that earlier "education" that led me to waste decades of wanting to write and never getting anywhere. I try not to take it out on the plotters I interact with .

 

[intim8]

I knew good old Bruckner was going to comment on this.

Bruckner? Does somebody have me blocked? Is it a term that kids these days use to make fun of us old-timers?

We, planners, get our fun in bed when our minds somehow work in overdrive just before sleep, or while taking a walk, and then some idea strikes and we start working it out in our heads, figuring out where the story should lead, how should the characters develop, the world unfold.

I do the same, but instead of planning the overall structure and ending, it results in scenes, events, characters, etc., that can then go through the usual pantsing process.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

Bruckner? Does somebody have me blocked? Is it a term that kids these days use to make fun of us old-timers?

I meant Plathfan.

 

[lovecraft68]

Hah! I knew good old Bruckner was going to comment on this

I'm even going to partly agree with him. I do believe that pantsers have more fun while actually writing. We, planners, get our fun in bed when our minds somehow work in overdrive just before sleep, or while taking a walk, and then some idea strikes and we start working it out in our heads, figuring out where the story should lead, how should the characters develop, the world unfold... That's where we have the most fun. I'd say that personally, I'm about 75% planner - 25% pantser so I have the most fun working things out in my head before I start writing the words.

The final product? That always depends on talent and skill, and of course, inspiration. Some writers can't stand to plan, and some can't even begin writing without a serious outline. I wouldn't say that either approach leads to a better story, but I do think that it's easier to get it done if you plan at least to a degree.

I'll be the first one to say that when the smoke clears on a story and I go back sometime later and gloss through I can see the hits, but can see where I swung and missed. Unlike some of the egomaniacs here, I never claim to be a great writer, but more a storyteller and I've often felt-and this post is an example-I tell it to myself as much as a reader because often a reader will say "I want to know what happens next" and my first thought is "Yeah, me too." and I mean it.

It's mostly fun, occasionally aggravating when you freestyle everything, but try not to take it too seriously because that's when it becomes a job and you lose the enjoyment. As for Bruckner or T 5.0 or whatever the count is up to. Unlike them my work is here for people to like or take shots at. When he's ready to back the smack, its a different story.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

Bruckner? Does somebody have me blocked? Is it a term that kids these days use to make fun of us old-timers?

I do the same, but instead of planning the overall structure and ending, it results in scenes, events, characters, etc., that can then go through the usual pantsing process.

I tend to plan major events - the world-building, the setting, the ending, the twists. Sex scenes, romantic scenes- they are most often pantsed, but the structure of the story, I always plan it.

 

[AwkwardlySet]

Unlike some of the egomaniacs here, I never claim to be a great writer, but more a storyteller

I have to say that I am not sure everyone understands the difference and the importance of both. I believe I've seen some of the story reviewers here focus overly on the writing part and too little on the storytelling part. Could be just an impression.

 

[intim8]

Sex scenes, romantic scenes, they are most often pantsed, but the structure of the story that I always plan.

Just a quibble, but I think "pantsing" refers to discovering things about the story and characters overall. "Discovery writer" is the more academic term in use for it. I assume that even the most ardent planner still frestyles scenes and description and stuff. Nobody is a machine.

Funny thing about sex scenes, I've had things emerge from even those that significantly affected the entire plot. (The most egregious example was the opening scene in Aces 5).

EDIT: hah, I just realized another term for it that would be accurate: "Emergence writer".

 

[lovecraft68]

One of the dumbest things one can do is get in a pissing contest over writing styles. I don't think that's what Lovecraft meant to do. One can celebrate one style without disparaging others. I'm not a pantser but I can appreciate, and even envy a little, what they do. I just don't know how to do it that way.

In the same way I envy people like my wife who is the definition of order to my chaos in every way and writers who can spend time on an outline and stick to it. I can't do that just as others can't simply wing it.

But in a case of 'look at the source' everything from that corner of the room is arrogant snark, so they can have it back.

 

[lovecraft68]

I have to say that I am not sure everyone understands the difference and the importance of both. I believe I've seen some of the story reviewers here focus overly on the writing part and too little on the storytelling part. Could be just an impression.

Back in high school I took a couple of creative writing courses. The teacher for one of them gave two grades. One for the technical aspects, one for the story itself. My dual grades were constantly an A/B over a C/D....nothing has changed. I have an editor for my EH novels, but my smut is just me and at times it shows.

 

[Erozetta]

I've tried plotting. Once everything is in place as an idea, I lose interest.

I sit down with nothing in mind and start writing. What happens depends entirely on the path my mind decides to take in the moment. I let the words flow and the characters develop as I go, the scene unfolds, the idea forms a path forward, sometimes it's a rocky uphill path, sometimes crystal clear waters with favorable winds for smooth sailing.

Most of the time what I start with changes a fair bit in the final edit as I see better connections once I know the end. But, at that point I haven't lost interest in the story and it actually gets finished. I just tidy it up.

The stuff I've posted lately is unpolished and chaotic. None of it has been edited, and that shows. I don't hate it, but I'm capable of much better writing and have much better written stories, but I like the stories in these as well.

What's funny is the three stories I have up right now would be on par score wise with my highest rated highly edited and much better written stories. Style didn't really change, just the amount of polish on the final product, lol. So, there are wrong words and typos and mistakes and it really fucking bugs me when I see them, but I still like the stories being told.