From Pantser to Plotter

For most of my writing life I’ve been a pantser, at least I’ve regarded myself as one. When I begin a mystery novel or short story, I have an idea about a character in mind, and from that I populate her or his world and the kinds of problems that person would face. This can be a slow process, at least it is for me, so I’ve learned to make note of possibly useful ideas as they appear whether I’m ready for them or not. This means I usually have a list of author lines, scene details, questions a character would raise, and the like. But in my latest work-in-progress I’ve been doing things differently.

 

Peter Dickinson once said that by the time he started writing, his outline was so detailed and fleshed-out that there were no surprises awaiting him as he wrote from chapter to chapter. I can’t say I’ve approached that this time, but I understand what he was talking about.

 

A couple of months ago I had an idea about a pre-teen girl being witness to a man dying from a hunting accident. Called as a witness in a criminal trial, she was aware of undercurrents in the questioning and managed to steer clear of them thanks to solid preparation by her father. I thought this sounded promising and made a note. Two days later the threads from this initial idea began to run outward, and I made more notes. By the end of a couple of weeks I had a tight synopsis that covered several stages in the development of the plot, half a dozen characters playing significant roles, and a climax that was a little hazy but, I was confident, would become sharper as I went along. I set the synopsis aside and let the idea germinate some more. 

 

The publicity around NaNoWriMo came at just the right time, when I was wondering if I should begin writing or set the idea aside as already stale. One of the pleasures of being a pantser has always been the moments of discovery, when a character surprises me or a turn in the plot gets more interesting than I expected. But with NaNoWriMo nipping at my heels, I decided to open a new file and follow my synopsis. I finished NaNoWriMo with 40,000 words (I took most weekends off—that’s the competitive writer in me, covering for failing to reach the 50K goal) and I now have 54,000. 

 

The twists and turns of the story, the discoveries of character and alliances forming and tearing, the questions of truth and justice were an added layer I hadn’t covered in my synopsis. Right now I’m on the home stretch—I can see the end becoming richer and more interesting, no longer hazy and predictable. But I can’t rush it without damaging the larger story.

 

Writing this new mystery is the closest I’ve come to being an plotter. So far I’m pleased with how the story idea developed and the writing stayed close to the original idea but I can’t say I’m confident that this will be my path forward from now on, in both short stories and mystery novels. Nevertheless, it’s a change, and I’m all for change if it means growth and discovery. 

Changing Horses in Midstream

Today I passed page 200 in editing my current work-in-progress, and as I did so another method of murder occurred to me, along with a different murderer. This may seem a little late to be coming up with two crucial factors in a murder mystery, but instead of blotting them out of my consciousness, I stopped what I was doing and thought about it.

Like many other writers, I consider myself a pantser with a few caveats. I begin with an image of a character doing something. This is not quite a scene but close to it. I know who he or she is, mostly what they’re doing but not the implications and consequences. Who the person is in relation to the victim (or even if he or she is the victim) and the murderer isn’t yet clear. As I think about the image and how it grows in my imagination, the general outline of a story becomes clear.

I like to have the murder weapon or process be true to the setting and the characters. I don’t want to see a quiet, steely librarian suddenly whip out a gun, though that might make for a fun story. Nor do I expect longshoremen to use poison, or anything that could be considered genteel. So I was thinking up a method of murder that fit the setting, a farm in a part of rural America. I was satisfied with what I developed (and won’t mention it here because I plan to use it in another story).

And here is where the moment of inspiration comes in. It occurred to me that I had a much more appropriate method of murder that I had overlooked—perhaps because it was so obvious to someone like me (and no, I can’t say what that means). And then I thought about the admonition not to change horses in midstream. The method I’d been using made sense, it worked, and I was already in editing. But the new one made a lot more sense, implicated a lot of other innocent people, and was still true to the characters and setting. Plus it required a minimum of rewriting. I had to remove one short chapter, fewer than a thousand words, and the replacement chapter all but wrote itself.

I can’t say with one hundred percent certainty that I’ve solved every problem in switching murder methods, but I like the feel of the story I’ve produced, and I like seeing some minor characters become more interesting to the reader.

This isn’t the first time I’ve done this—changing a character in some important way in the middle of the story, combined two characters, changed locations, changed characteristics of a character—but this is perhaps the most significant one. I’m all for rules that guide the writer, ensuring a tighter, deeper, more compelling story. But I’m also all for breaking those rules when something better comes along.