Off the Cuff / My Other Journal

To Be or Not to Be � Pantser vs. Plotting

“You write something and there’s no reality to it. You can’t inject it with any kind of reality. You have to be patient and keep going, and then, one day, you can feel something signaling to you from the innermost recesses. Like a little person trapped under the rubble of an earthquake. And very, very, very slowly you find your way toward the little bit of living impulse.”
Deborah Eisenberg


I can relate to this quote. I tried to write the prescribed way to create fiction, not that there is anything wrong with that approach, but I could never get going in a happy mood.

Prescribed way is to find an idea, create characters to fit that idea, come up with a plot through several steps of outlining and some serious thinking and then, start writing. Of course, some things may change with this method during the course of writing, but the method is tried and true and it works for some/most people.

I can’t, however, use this method in the prescribed way. Yet, doing the pantser thing alone doesn’t work either, because the story goes every which way and it ends up needing some serious editing job, which doesn’t agree with my -let’s say- liver.

During the last couple of years with the NaNo prep, I did something else. About couple of weeks before the prep, I free-wrote everyday on a general idea. By the time, the prep started I had the basic story in my mind. With that at hand, the prep worked perfectly, and I had little trouble writing during November. What I ended up with has been far from perfect, but both novels with the prep and previous pre-free-writing are better than the earlier ‘pantser’ ones.

Is this the perfect way to create fiction? I still don’t think so, because it took some of the fun out of flailing along. Yet, it has its merits. That means I’m still searching through trial and error what would work for me. I haven’t found my personal method yet, and my time is ticking.

On the other hand, this may be a good thing in itself. Not my time ticking , but finding a suitable method for me. Then, what if this would make me a writer who writes in monotone according to a certain template? That in itself could be extremely boring, and I fear of coming up with factory-produced work.

Catch 22, isn’t it! As another quote goes, maybe applying by behind to the chair in front of the computer and trying over and over again is the way to go. I guess, searching for something is more fun than finding it.

In the meantime, I’ll just keep on trying.