One of the Google+ folks I check in on from time to time, AmyBeth Inverness, has posted a question:
I'm almost always a pantser, but I do a little outlining for longer stories. I don't think I've ever done it for a poem.
If you have an opinion, let me (or AmyBeth) know!
© 2012-2014 K. R. Smith All rights reserved
Having just bought flowers for the yard, and seeing words like hybridize, my thinking took me to the world of gardening. Then I thought you might be discussing some junior high right of passage.
ReplyDeleteFinally (I really need to get out more), I was headed in the right direction.
Currently working on my second book, and being a Virgo, I've been outlining away. However, yes, I always wander off into unplanned events and characters.
Thanks for the input! I can see for a novel-length story how an outline could be very helpful. I hope your book sales (and flowers) bloom!
DeleteI pants after plotting. There must be plotting, no matter how informal. Knowing that should all else fail, there was once a plan, gives me the security to go off-roading
ReplyDeleteAh, now I'm picturing you in a Jeep, pen in hand, bouncing over hill and dale. The plotting will give you directions to retrace your trail should the action in the story lead down a dead end!
DeleteI agree with Tess, plot first then pants. I used to write, flying by the seat of my pants. I did ALOT of revising in the early days. ALOT of rewriting, etc. The more I write, the more I learn to use the plotting so that I can get done with a ms and be confident it's a story worth telling. :)
ReplyDeleteThat's not to say that pantsing is bad, though!
I can definitely see where plotting could be useful in the longer stories (like you write) with more characters. I'm still trying to find the time to write down some of my longer stories (that day job, again), and I might try to do a little more formal outlining when I do. Especially if there are more than a handful of characters that need to interact. I think that some folks do the plotting in their brain (nothing says it has to be written down) and it works out the same way as if they had written it out.
Delete