Planning for Pantsers - Intro

Welcome to the Intro of my Planning for Pantsers blog series!

Cartoon from Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson

I’ve decided to jump onto the bandwagon of creating serials for blogs, mostly because I love the ones people like Skye, Taylor and Cristina over at Think Ink and The Sprint Shack have created. They’re inspiring, and we all know how much I love inspiration.

First off, a definition:

Pantser: Someone who writes without planning, from the “seat of their pants.” Every word written is normally a surprise, with no real idea of how to get from A to B, if you even know what B is. Or A for that matter.

I can hear you laughing all the way over here now. Shush. Allow me to explain why I think planning for pantsers is a good idea. You comfortable? Good.

Simply put, I’m a pantser. I generally start stories with no clue where they’re going, how to get there or even what I’m trying to convey. It works, for a while. Then my stories usually fizzle out.

In November, I took part in NaNoWriMo. I started without a complete idea and in about two weeks of real time, I managed to finish. Part of it was sheer luck and desperation. The other part was taking some time to plan just enough so that I would reach the 50,000 word goal.

In doing so, the inspiration (oh look, there’s that word again), to create this series struck.

So what exactly is this series going to do? Well, hopefully one of two things:

1. Inspire you to plan just a little so that you can finish that amazing story you have to tell, or

2. Teach you something about writing that maybe you didn’t know, and introduce you to a few techniques that will keep you from the dreaded writer’s block.

How is it going to do that? 

We’ll be exploring different elements of writing a story over a 6 week period, each week featuring a new aspect, how I applied it to my own novel and how you can apply it to yours. I’ll also feature some helpful links to writing websites or blogs, along with some guest posts from other pantsers  and how they get around to planning, and finishing, their novels.

I do hope you’ll join me? 

Look out for the first week's post: Make a Scene on the 29th of December.