Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Writing by the seat of your pants

There are generally two styles of writing. One is by plotting (outline, complete plot decided ahead of time) and the other is calling pantsing. Just sit down and write and hope it comes to you as you're going along. In general, I'm a pantster. Oh, I may have a general idea of where the story might end up, but mostly, I don't have a clue.



There are big advantages to both methods. I suspect that the best is a combination of the two but I haven't figured out how to do that. So I say a prayer and hope for the best.



I'm near the end of my current work in progress and have some burning questions to deal with. The bad guys (BG) have a huge military base. The good guys (GG) need to destroy the base. The GG are currently hanging out in an underwater habitat (UH). Haven't figured out how to get them from the UH to the big base. That's one problem.



Problem number two. How are they going to destroy the base?



Problem number three. Should they destroy the base? Or should they take control of the base?



Problem number four. What should I do with the aliens captured by the BG and held prisoner at the base?



Problem number five. What the heck does the BG military base have to do with my GG anyway?



For a book that started out as a sexy book about a trio, somewhere along the way, it blew a tire and ran off the road--as usual--and now I'm wandering around in the rain forest or under water or in the underground tunnels, fighting off giant carnivorous spiders called shadowdancers and undersea creepie crawlies that are a combination of shark and crab--sharcrabs.



Hmmm. See that's the problem with writing by the seat of your pants. Sometimes your rear end gets scorched. I think a need a new pair of pants. My simple story has taken on a life of it's own and turned into one of those never ending choose your adventure computer games.



Note to Editor: So far I only have four "made up" words and a small cast of characters instead of my usual cast of thousands. I need a pat on the back for that accomplishment.



On the other hand, I never ever in my life was able to write from an outline. It usually survived oh... about three paragraphs before it went the way of the dinosaurs and I was diving down dark alleys after characters that were no where in the original plan.



Well, I have to wind this up and get back to the BG at the base. And the GG. And the allies of the GG. Or we could go with that old soap opera standby--it was all a bad dream. Now that has possibilities. Perhaps the Girl in my GG is on some freaky hormone that gives her nightmares.



That's it. It was a baaaaaad dream.



Tune in tomorrow for As the Planet does a Somersault.



Anny



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Participating authors are: Kelly Kirch, Sandra Cox, KZ Snow, Barbara Huffert, Anny Cook, Heather Hiestand, JacquƩline Roth, Cindy Spencer Pape, Bronwyn Green, Brynn Paulin, Lacey Thorn and the Jones girl - Amarinda.



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For more fun drop by Amarinda's place to see what she's done to the Saga at http://www.amarindajones.blogspot.com/ and then roll on over to Kelly's Place to see what she had for us today at http://www.kkirch.blogspot.com/ Blessings on your day!

21 comments:

  1. Maybe have the Aliens fight the BGs and during the fight they trigger some sort of self destructive button thing in the UH and the GGs have moments to escape. The BGs and the aliens die and then the GGs are saved and they go off and have wild sex and an HEA - ok?

    ReplyDelete
  2. For one of my books, I had planned out a typical jock who falls for Miss Unpopular, since none of my girls are really divas (okay, except Elicia!) I interviewed my high school buddy extensively, but somewhere, the characters took control and not one word of my new-found info made it into the book!

    I've also made vague outlines and had the ms wander, come back, wander away and completely leave the organized trail I had plotted. So now I just take a deep breath and let them lead...

    ReplyDelete
  3. Pantser here. Now this is a perfect example of why you are far more kookie than I, despite what AJ says. While I follow the characters as they take off, they never turn blue, live in mythical lands where sex is the primary object, dragons don't wear glasses, there's no mind reading or aliens or underwater habitats with sharcrabs. No.... mine are normal. I travel time and get sucked into my own plot. That's it. You don't just blow a tire, you blow two of them, lose your breaks, attach a jet engine, and disconnect the steering. LOL. And yet the ride is always worth it.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I'm a pantser for the most part, but I have to admit I've never ended up in the fun places you dream up - good thing you're writing this stuff down!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Sometimes your rearend gets scorched. LOL. Loved it.

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