Writing

Planning for Pantsers

June 11, 2023June 9, 2023 Kara Jorgensen1 Comment

I fully admit that I am a pantser by nature. I love to dive headfirst into writing and figure it out as I go… until it stops working and I hit the wall bug on a windshield style.

Over the years, I’ve tried to devise a way to balance out my discovery writer side, which I need to be enthused about writing, with my need to know where I’m going to avoid creating a colossal, unsolvable mess. I like to call this planning for pantsers, which sounds like an oxymoron, but if you’re someone who wishes they outlined but hates it immensely, some of what I mention below may be helpful to you. As with all writing advice, none of this is prescriptive. Trial and error is necessary to find your process, and what works for one book may not work for the next.

A Retrospective Outline

I have a whole blog post about this, which goes into more detail, but the basic idea is that I make an outline of what I’ve already written. I started doing this because I have a brain like a sieve and forget what I’ve already written, what threads I’ve added, details sprinkled in, etc. This caused me to reread my work-in-progress REPEATEDLY to the point that I would waste so much time rereading instead of writing that I was aggravating myself. To avoid rereading the whole thing, I would make an outline broken down by chapters which contained a bulleted list of what happens, including any important details or setting chunks, etc. that I might need to remember later. I have this as a Google Doc that I can leave open while I work on Microsoft Word (where I write my books).

This outline can be as detailed or sparse as you need, but the point of it is that you can easily recall what you already did in the book. You can always go back and add color coding or comments or whatever you need to make it more useful to you. I tend to add dates or days of the week if the timeline is important. If you are someone who goes back and forth fiddling with things, make sure to update your outline regularly to reflect that. As someone who does fiddle with things from the last chapter or so, what I do is update the outline once I’m about two chapters past it (ex. I will add chapter 6 to the outline once I’m on chapter 8) to avoid having to revise the outline regularly.

Sarra Cannon’s 3 Act Structure Outline

I love Sarra Cannon’s videos on Youtube, and I’ve taken both of her classes. She’s a really fantastic author who is eager to teach and share the resources that have helped her along the way. Her channel, Heart Breathings, has a lot of useful information for new authors and those who are further along in their careers.

Something I realized I struggled with was balancing the plot and threads of my stories to keep the pace from being “too slow.” I still think I write more emotionally-based, slower books, which is fine, but it was something I decided to work on. I watched Sarra’s video series on plotting your novel, and in the videos, she has a workbook that you can download for free to help you parse out the major chunks of your story. This was really helpful for me because it kept me from clumping things together or spacing them too far apart. To be clear, this isn’t a formulaic structure either. This is meant to be the bones upon which your story is built, but things can be moved around, skipped, etc.

I liked this method because while I don’t 100% adhere to the guidelines, it helps me figure out on an act-by-act basis what needs to happen, where I’m going, etc. At this point, I plan an act, write the act, and once I hit about 3/4 of the way through it, I start planning the next act of the book. This has helped me to have structure and foresight without ruining the discovery aspect of my writing. Sometimes I also have chunks of story in my head, but I can’t quite figure out where they go. This outline has helped me to solidify that before I make a mess for myself. If you haven’t already guessed, I do not like making a mess for myself and will avoid it at all costs, even if it means having three different outlining methods all at once.

Using Note/Scene Cards

Remember when I mentioned having scenes in your head but not knowing where to put them? Making note cards might be a solution for you. I like using physical note cards (as opposed to using a digital whiteboard or the features on Scrivener) because I’m a visual learning and being able to physically move, crumple, or alter a card just works better for me than a digital one. That, and I can’t get as easily distracted with them as I can with anything on the internet or a digital program. I am already easily distracted, and the moment I change windows, I’m a goner.

At this point, I don’t write out a card for every scene. I only do it for the major ones, whether that’s major for a side plot, main plot, character development, etc., but I don’t do it for every single scene. The purpose of them for me is to avoid forgetting something important. Sometimes I have ideas I want to add that I don’t know where to put, so they can’t be added to the main outline, but if I have them as a scene card, they hang out in the pile. Then, when I flip through the stack every once in a while, I see it and go, “Oh! Yes, I need to figure out where this goes.” Repeat that about twenty times for everything in the latter half of the book, and sometimes I actually figure out where it needs to go or at least what it needs to come before or after. That’s really what the cards are for, the general order.

For me, these tend to be scant, like “[REDACTED] turns up dead” or “Oliver runs into his ex.” You can obviously be as detailed as you need or use the front/back of the cards for different things. What I like to do is color code the cards by act. Act 1 is yellow, Act 2 Part 1 is green, Act 2 Part 2 is blue, Act 3 is purple, and the colors are represented as a stripe on the edge of the card or as a strip of washi tape. As I write the book, I put a little check in the bottom corner of the cards to mark that I wrote the scene. The cards help keep me organized while allowing me to move things around and plan as needed.

Other Things I Do That Help Me

Edit as I go- I will give the caveat that I’m not editing for perfection. I’m just tidying up and beefing up the scenes I worked on the day before. Sometimes I go back and plant things that are needed to be cohesive (foreshadowing and such), so I don’t forget when I do edits weeks later.
Edit on an act-by-act basis-once again, tidying and reacquainting myself with what I’ve already written to maintain cohesion and make sure I haven’t forgotten any threads.
Have a running notepad document with random stuff I need to add or what should happen in the next scene/chapter I will be working on. If you have a brain like a sieve, leave yourself notes.
Work on the assumption you will not remember an idea- my brain is like a browser with a hundred tabs open, so I leave myself notes, reminders, etc. for everything. Never assume you’ll remember because you won’t.

How to Outline as a Pantser

January 24, 2022January 18, 2022 Kara Jorgensen5 Comments

I know the title looks like an oxymoron, but just bear with me for a moment.

Before I get into detail about what I do as a pantser, I want to talk about what I mean by a pantser, gardener, and plotter, which are terms I’m going to use throughout this post.

A pantser is someone who “flies by the seat of their pants” while they write. Meaning that they do no pre-writing or minimal pre-writing. Pantsers typically don’t use outlines, though they may have some idea of the direction of their stories when they start.

A plotter is someone who uses outlines, pre-writing, and various organizational methods to sort out the plot of their book before they start writing.

Gardeners, or plantsers as they are often known, fall somewhere between plotting and pansting, meaning that they may use some organizational techniques ahead of time but they may be scant or only used sometimes.

The problem a lot of pantsers and gardeners often run into is that they don’t like to outline because it sort of sucks the magic out of the creative process. Half the fun of writing is discovery, so when you get told everything in the outline, there’s no drive to discover. Then the next problem that arises is, if I have a beginning and end, how do I bridge those two pieces if I don’t have an outline?

What I would catch myself doing is constantly rereading what I had written in hopes that I would figure out how to get to the ending I imagined. As you can probably guess, I wasted A LOT of time rereading the same passages, and as the book got longer, I found myself skipping writing days to reread 100 pages, which then put me behind. A few times I tried to outline like a plotter when I got stuck and found myself staring into the void because I still didn’t know how to get to point B from where I was. I wasn’t a plotter and would probably never be, so this type of outlining didn’t work for me. Luckily I did find something that helped a lot: reverse outlining.

I highly doubt I am the first person to come up with reverse outlining, but I figured out this sort of retroactive outlining technique on my own after having reread the same draft every day for 3 days. What a reverse outline is, is writing out what happens in each chapter as you write them. So I make a bulleted list with Chapter # as a header, then put a bunch of bullets under it of the major things that happened. Sometimes I also include character descriptions, important objects or settings, etc. You can do this digitally on a Google/Word Doc or on Scrivener or you can make one by hand in a notebook or on index cards. Something I started to do as my story got longer is to color code the events. General main plot got one color, the romance arcs got a different color, subplots another. You could also do this if you shift point of view as well. That way, you see main points and how they work together at a glance. Here’s an example from my current project, THE REANIMATOR’S HEART:

Chapter One: Foolish Choices

Oliver Barlow introduction- he is the coroner at the Paranormal Society and is also a necromancer
He autopsies Mr. Hezekiah Henderson who was apparently killed by his own pet tigers (could talk to animals). He gets this info by reviving him briefly
His BFF Gwen comes in, she’s in the midst of an asthma attack. Oliver helps her, and she tells him that Felipe Galvan is looking for him. Oliver is flustered because he likes Felipe but begrudgingly agrees to go

This reverse outline can be as detailed or scant as you wish, but it should help to cut down on having to reread and reorient yourself constantly. For some chapters, these entries can be quite long, but it’s worth it. I tend to write these out after I’ve finished a chapter rather than after each writing session. This reverse outline should also help during the editing process as you can target where certain plot points/threads that need to be adjusted at a glance.

Something else you might consider after reverse outlining that helped me was micro-outlining. Half of the reason I use the reverse outline is because I’m not good at thinking too far in the future, but I often have scene ideas along the way with no means of connecting them. I tend to have a detailed reverse outline on a doc and another one of just major events written on index cards. Once I have the preexisting bits done, I make cards for future events I have in my head. As I work forward, the stepping stones to get to those events become clearer, so I start making notes (or note cards) for myself of what I need to do to get there. I think of this as micro outlining because it doesn’t take away from that discoverability aspect that I enjoy with being a pantser, but it keeps me moving forward more smoothly (as someone who forgets things, writing ideas down is key to actually using them later). It also helps me to figure out where to put things I want to include. If you’re someone who is very visual, I highly recommend using an index card based system for reverse outlining. It just makes it a lot easier to visualize what comes next. Plus, moving things around can sometimes jog ideas loose. If you are afraid of losing your index cards, Scrivener also has a digital index card feature.

If you’re a pantser or gardener who is constantly rereading your work or forgetting what you’ve done, I hope you’ll try using a reverse outline to mark out where you’ve been and figure out where you’re going.

Writing

Plotter, Pantser, Gardener

June 26, 2015June 26, 2015 Kara Jorgensen7 Comments

If you have ever seen an author interview, very often you will see a question about whether the author is a plotter or a pantser.

A plotter is fairly self-explanatory. It means that the author plots out the points of the story before writing (some plot every point, some do only major points).

Pros:

Author always know where they’re going
Organized- less time spent figuring it out as they go
Easier editing (probably)

Cons:

Lacks spontaneity
Author may not feel the need to write as they already know the ending
Author spends a lot of time prepping and not writing

A pantser is named such because the author flies by the seat of their pants while they write, typically not making use of an outline or using a very vague one.

Pros:

Plenty of room for change
More writing, less planning
More “fun” for the author who enjoys surprise

Cons:

More editing (probably)
The author may get stuck more often
Messy, which doesn’t work well if the author is more of a structured person

Most authors fall along this spectrum of rigidity, but what about if you fall somewhere in the middle?

This is where the gardener comes in.

I describe a gardener as someone who begins with a basic plan but allows for a lot of wiggle room. It takes the best of both worlds when it comes to plotting and pantsing. Why call it a gardener? Well, a gardener has an idea of what they want the garden to look like when they start. They know where the plants will go and maybe what types they want. They plant the seeds (plot strings) and tend them until they grow to full-bloom. Along the they way prune or add fertilizer as needed. They may notice that a plant needs to be moved or gotten rid of, and they take that into consideration as they tend the garden. As a gardener, I have a hard time thinking of cons because the style of gardener varies greatly with the writer. It can be a bit messy and will lead to at least some editing later, but it lacks the rigidity of plotting and the “winging it” aspect of pantsing. Here is an outline I wrote while working on The Earl of Brass:

Please ignore the crazy diamonds, I was marking off what I covered at the time. As you can see, the major points are plotted out with arrows from event to event. What you can’t see from the final product is that I actually filled in several major events that I knew I needed, and then I added the smaller events in between. This is the basic idea of a gardener. They know the major points and fill in the smaller ones along the way but not to the point of completely locking the plot. For me, I need flexibility while I write to let my characters breathe and do their thing. They often surprise me, and I haven’t been disappointed yet.

So are you a plotter, pantser, or gardener?

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