Help! I'm becoming a PLOTTER!
Thinking about Thursday
In my Confessions of Plot-First Writer post, I confessed that I am a "die-hard pantser". If you aren't into writing, that means I like to write without planning it out first. I just sit down with a blank page and start pouring out a story.
That is how I have always worked. I love the excitement of feeling the story unfold as it is playing in my mind. I don't really know any other way.
But, lately, I've been having these...urges. Feelings that I don't understand.
I want to lay out Storyboards and make sure I have a proper character arc.
Who AM I?
I can tell you it all started with my shiny, new WIP (work in progress). Actually, it isn't that new. It is my NaNoWriMo for this year and it is already over 53,000 words. But, it is still shiny and I still like it. But, there are so many characters! And, they all keep tapping me on the shoulder and saying,
"Hey, I want to do ____ . Can you make that happen for me?"
The weird thing is in "real life" I am very much a planner. I have a color-coded Google calendar that rules my world. When I used to plan workshops, I would walk through every step in my head from the minute the participants arrived until they walked out.
One of my favorite self-talk phrases when I am stressed is, "Okay, Dawn, take a breath and put it order. What needs to happen first? Then, what? And, after that...."
Does that mean I have been denying my true nature by writing without a plan or have I have been using my writing as freedom from my normal (over)scheduled life?
As long as I'm confessing, I might as well admit that I wrote a synopsis before I started my last three manuscripts... Please don't think less of me.
So, it is possible to be a pantsing-plotter? If I dabble in a few story arcs or w-plots, is that a gateway to stick notes and whiteboards? Will that eventually take me to *shudder*outlining? If I go to the dark side, will I ever return to the exhilaration of my pantsing ways?
In my Confessions of Plot-First Writer post, I confessed that I am a "die-hard pantser". If you aren't into writing, that means I like to write without planning it out first. I just sit down with a blank page and start pouring out a story.
That is how I have always worked. I love the excitement of feeling the story unfold as it is playing in my mind. I don't really know any other way.
But, lately, I've been having these...urges. Feelings that I don't understand.
I want to lay out Storyboards and make sure I have a proper character arc.
Who AM I?
I can tell you it all started with my shiny, new WIP (work in progress). Actually, it isn't that new. It is my NaNoWriMo for this year and it is already over 53,000 words. But, it is still shiny and I still like it. But, there are so many characters! And, they all keep tapping me on the shoulder and saying,
"Hey, I want to do ____ . Can you make that happen for me?"
The weird thing is in "real life" I am very much a planner. I have a color-coded Google calendar that rules my world. When I used to plan workshops, I would walk through every step in my head from the minute the participants arrived until they walked out.
One of my favorite self-talk phrases when I am stressed is, "Okay, Dawn, take a breath and put it order. What needs to happen first? Then, what? And, after that...."
Does that mean I have been denying my true nature by writing without a plan or have I have been using my writing as freedom from my normal (over)scheduled life?
As long as I'm confessing, I might as well admit that I wrote a synopsis before I started my last three manuscripts... Please don't think less of me.
So, it is possible to be a pantsing-plotter? If I dabble in a few story arcs or w-plots, is that a gateway to stick notes and whiteboards? Will that eventually take me to *shudder*outlining? If I go to the dark side, will I ever return to the exhilaration of my pantsing ways?