I’m a pantser. I admit it. What’s hard to take is when you have friends who mention they can tell a story has been “pants” like it’s some kind of evil. So you can imagine how that makes ME feel. I’ve tried to plot and outline. Every attempt has left me frustrated and made me feel I was losing that creative flow that comes from sitting down and writing before the ideas stop coming. A pantser HAS to write when the idea comes.
If there was one thing I took away from the RNConvention, it was that there’s a better way than plotting OR pantsing. I took a class called “Plotting for Pantsers” given by Lynn Lorenz. She gave us reasons why plotters are too rigid, often taking years to write a book. She said many times they get so caught up in plotting that they never write the story. She also said pantsers often get lost, forget what they named characters, and lose the plot because they forgot to include this or that. So she showed us a way to blend the two together. I won’t go into the whole process, but she basically uses a spreadsheet to start with. She has lines for chapters, different cells for scenes, etc. The way she does this seems really doable for pantsers. And maybe plotters, too. The point is, I think I’ve finally found something that could work for me. Some books, especially novellas, are easy to pants. But when the plot becomes more complicated, you need more structure. She talked about turning points in your story, etc. The way she does this, you can pretty much tell where that turning point is going to be without having a rigid outline. This lady just had it all together, in my opinion.
Btw, the majority of authors in the room were pantsers.
lauralynnelliott.com 
Sweetiepie, that’s plotting. Not all plotters have a rigid outline. Some plotters have nothing more than their major plot points and a general idea of what hangs together between them. Plotting and pantsing is a continuum and there are an infinite number of variations of ways to do both. It’s not an either/or proposition. In the end it doesn’t matter how the story was written so long as the end product is cohesive and has a good flow and arc. Neither is the be all end all, better or worse. Neither is evil. The name of the game is finishing the book. Period.
Now if I can just finish the stinkin’ book! LOL.
I guess that’s why she called it Plotting for Pantsers. It’s plotting, but kind of in a different way. I LOVE spreadsheets, and never thought of using them as a plotting tool. She made it seem not so intimidating. I know this sounds weird, but I find spreadsheets less intimidating than other ways of doing things. I guess it’s because I use them a lot at work.
She also showed us how we could take what we’ve already written and backtrack with the spreadsheet, then work on the rest of it. I’ve tried so many methods of plotting and scared myself to death. 🙂
My method actually comes from screenwriting techinques–a plot point incline on a whiteboard so I know what my milestones are, then beat sheets for each section, which actually ENCOURAGES the creative flow instead of strangling it. It’s still plotting/outlining, but not the the extent of writing the story before it’s, yanno, written. I’ve found it keeps the “voice” fresh.
That’s the fear of most pantsers, I think…strangling the story, losing the voice. This is kind of neat with the spreadsheets.
It *does* help to be able to see where you’re going…while still leaving plenty of room to stretch or explore new ideas not previously planned for.
Yep, yep, that’s how I like to write, loose plotline of the major points leaving the freedom to meander to said points. Hope it works for you.
We shall see, Chris. I hope it helps tighten up my current story.
I hope the method works for you. 😀 I know you’ve been struggling with tying everything together in your current work in progress. I think some plotting is especially good when you have a complex story where you have several subplots weaving through it.
I messaged the author on Facebook to get a copy of her spreadsheet template, but I haven’t heard from her yet. Hopefully, if I don’t hear from her, I’ll remember enough about it to make one of my own. I get the concept, so I should be able to do it.