G is for Guest Post — Plotting vs. Pantsing with Michelle Proulx

For today’s A-Z Challenge entry, Pete asked me to share with you all my thoughts on Plotting vs. Pantsing. And thus, I shall.

In the eternal battle between Plotting and Pantsing, I come down firmly … somewhere in the middle. I keep trying to ally with one side or the other, but they inevitably reject me due to my mutinous tendencies. I shall now elaborate on this concept. Prepare yourself.

Planning has never really been my thing. In fact, probably my least favourite sentence to hear from another person is, “So, what’s your plan for today?” Argh! I always have a vague idea of what I want to do, of course, but if I formalize my plans verbally or on paper, I feel trapped, like I’ve suddenly lost the freedom to be spontaneous. And the instant I feel that way, I immediately begin to come up with ways to avoid following the plan I just committed to. I’m self-destructive like that.

This, obviously, makes writing a novel a little tricky. But I’ve found ways to cope, with varying degrees of success. Ready to take a peek inside my brain? It’s not a trip for the weak-minded. Still reading? All right. Let’s do this!

So my basic strategy with writing consists of the following steps:

1. Have an idea
2. Write down the idea
3. Start writing the story
4. Realize I don’t like where the story is going
5. Stop writing
6. Take a long walk, refine my idea
7. Continue writing the story
8. Realize I don’t like where the story is going
9. Stop writing
10. Take a long walk, refine my idea

Et cetera. As you’ll see, there’s a lot of walking around and thinking involved in my process—it’s a wonder I get anything written at all. So I suppose you could say I’m somewhat of a Plotter, in that I do have a loose grasp on what’s going to happen next, due to the entire scenes I act out in my head during these walks. But I can’t actually write these ideas down in any sort of formalized outline, because if I do, I will be consumed with an overwhelming need to rebel and take the story in a completely different direction.

Once the first draft is finally finished (note: this takes forever), I set it aside for a few months, and then come back to it and read it over. I then make a few tweaks and give it to my mother, who proceeds to tear apart the draft and informs me that it has a lot of potential, but that it needs work. Meaning: it needs to be re-written. Not all of it, obviously, but enough to make me want to bang my head against a table for a good hour or so.

Unfortunately for me, this is the most important stage in my writing—the re-write—because it forces me to take a hard look at my baby and realize that it’s not perfect, and that it can be improved. So I take a few long walks, watch movies, read books—generally get inspiration from wherever I can find it—and then come up with a plan. Ack. There’s that word again. Plan.

So, plan in head, I roll up my sleeves, tear my story apart, remove huge chunks, add huge chunks, and shove it back together in a vague semblance of what it once was. But as much as I hate this step, I have to do it, because the story ends up tighter, and cleaner, and better than before—and isn’t that the end goal of editing?

The amount of re-writing I have to do seems to be inversely proportional to the amount of walking and thinking I do prior to writing the story. With my first novel, Imminent Danger And How to Fly Straight into It, I had a very good idea of what I wanted to happen, so the re-write mainly consisted of adding a few scenes and tightening up the wording. And the resulting story, in my humble opinion, is quite excellent. Whereas with the sequel to Imminent Danger (whimsically titled Chasing Nonconformity), I didn’t really know what I wanted my characters to get up to when I wrote the first draft, so they basically wandered around a bunch and had assorted shenanigans. However, I have decided there needs to be an actual plot, so now I’m re-writing the entire last third of the book so that stuff actually, you know, happens.

And that, my friends, pretty much sums up my writing process. You can decide for yourself whether I’m a Plotter or a Pantser. I like to think of myself as the Switzerland of writing, but everyone knows that, in a protracted battle, no side can remain neutral forever. One day soon, I’ll have to declare myself to one side or the other. And when that ultimatum comes, I shall proudly declare myself to be a P—

>>Error.

>>Signal lost.

>>Message terminated.

>>Ha. Ha. Ha.

Michelle is the author of Imminent Danger And How to Fly Straight into It, a fun, flirty, fast-paced YA Sci-Fi book about alien abduction, space pirates, true love, betrayal, and epic battles that determine the fate of Earth itself, although not necessarily in that order.

Follow her hilariously inept attempts at self-publishing via her WordPress blog, or on Facebook. For more information about Imminent Danger, including links on where to buy it, hit up her website.

My thanks to Michelle for agreeing to Guest Post. Another vote for … wait. Damn lost connections. 🙂

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This is the G post for the A to Z Blogging Challenge. A list of all the posts can be found here.

I thought I would still add a picture for today even though it was a Guest Post. Today’s shot is the Golden Gate Bridge from back in 1990.