I’m not much for plotting. More of a fly by the seat of your pants kind of girl.
Actually, if you see me plotting–and especially if you see me jotting down my characters’ brand of toenail polish– just go ahead and hire an exorcist. As far as I’m concerned, that’s a supernatural ability, and I’ve never really wrapped my head around it.
I start plotting, and everything just stops. There’s a plot. Maybe I get as far as a to-do list. But checking off scenes doesn’t really work for me. I don’t wind up with finished novels like that. Just a lot of first chapters.
When I don’t plot, things work better. I get to the end, eventually. And then, I revise.
Revision takes me a long, long time. After all, the manuscripts aren’t always in chronological order, and pieces can be missing. And that subplot that seemed so brilliant? Well… let’s just say that could be a novel of its own.
So, right now, I’m staring at more manuscript than I will ever need, and wondering if there isn’t a better way to do this pants thing.
Something that would make revision a little smoother, at least.
I’m not suggesting that I’m going to give plotting another try. That was a disaster. But some kind of plan to produce a smoother rough draft and make the revision go more smoothly? I could be into that.
The places I can see changing right now are:
- Better use of My software. Things get labeled appropriately as soon as I’m finished writing them. They have real chapter names. They have descriptions. They are arranged in something resembling chronological order.
- More focus on writing scenes in the order they happen, rather than the order they show up in. I have no idea how to do that. But, it would be really nice to have a neat orderly manuscript going into revision.
- Filling out plot cards as I go, rather than waiting until the end, and keeping them in order, at least.
- Plot grid! Well, it’s worked for me before… when I happen to do it.
And the thing that needs to go back to the way it was is the daily word count. I thought about dropping it, based on the fact that I can’t revise as fast as I write, but the last year hasn’t produced the results I want. I’m going to say that I undervalued raw words, and possibly over-valued the revised product.
If anything, maybe I should have increased my goal word count. Especially if the goal is to write cleaner.
If anybody has any ideas on this, I’d love to hear them! Don’t be shy. Shout your thoughts out in the comments.
Canis Lupus
JAPartridge
Tirzah
Pam McGaffin
Karen