Why Plot When You Can Pants?

Flying by the seat of one's pants can be scary.

PANTSED!    sorry, could not resist this one!

You would never consider going into a big meeting unprepared.  If you were asked to speak at a convention you wouldn't just wing it.  Calendar planning for many of us is crucial--if I just said "well, whatever happens today happens" and scheduling be damned nothing would ever get done.  People who run successful businesses, no matter how hip the environment, would not succeed without advance planning for all aspects of whatever it is they make/sell/service.

But when it comes to writing fiction, most of us just let it happen, without a ton of forethought, outlining, or other pre-meditation.

I used to brag that I was the Panster Queen.  I came up with the entire concept of The Tap Room, my Choose your Romance novel due out September 30 on a plane to Denver, opened up my laptop and just let it pour forth.  Granted, it was a serialized story on this very blog for a while until my publisher said, "Um, yeah, I want that, take it down."  I still like to think that the very best stories come to you fully formed, ready to simply be dictated from brain to paper (or in my case:  computer screen).

Lately, though as my back list grows and demands on my time increase from my (successfully and very meticulously planned) microbrewery I've become a bit of a hybrid when it comes to new stories.

I have a short story as part of the Decadent Publishing OneNightStand series:  Caught Offside.  The entire plot was hatched in my head while I watched the last Harry Potter movie.  Seriously.  I wrote it in two days with very little alterations from what I dreamed up watching Voldemort go down.

I'm working on a new one for this same series, Spice Bazaar, that appeared to me while dog walking (my muses...Layla and Roxie) BUT I am finding myself having to go about it differently.  I don't know if it's because I have so many projects going on at once between major edits for a major submission next week plus all the blog posting I've agreed to to promote The Tap Room plus gearing up for The Big Season around here:  football and beer and my Tap Room's first fall open for business, BUT....I caught myself OUTLINING the steps to the One Night Stand!  Ack!  And I wrote out character sketches BEFORE I actually started the story.

Dear Lord, I've lost my pantser mojo.....sigh....

For today, I leave you with some cover yummies for my new novel with Rebel Ink Press, coming out Oct. 3!

Oh, and be sure and check my shiny new website!
www.lizcrowe.com

cheers and happy plotting!
Liz

Plotter or Pantser?

This post originally appeared on my blog in June 2009. I've been sick with a stomach bug and couldn't find the time to write a blog post for today. Hope you enjoy...

I had a totally different post written for today, but something happened that made me want to write about it. On one of the loops I’m on a discussion turned to plotting and flying by the seat of your pants – aka pantser. One person really irked me. She gave great detail why she’s a plotter (all valid I must say), but then she closed with. “I’ve come to realize that plotters are professionals and pantser's are only writing for hobby.”
Hold on. Hit the rewind button on that. Hobby? I don’t park my butt down every day (before going to my full time job) to pump out 1k words for a HOBBY! I took offense to that. I’m a pantser by every sense of the word. I get an idea from a line in a song, a character on television, or someone I see out on the street, and then I run with it.
Take my book Research Required for instance. The heroine is waiting for a pizza to be delivered when someone knocks at her door. She’s expecting the delivery boy, not some gorgeous guy. The hero has gone to the wrong apartment. That’s all I had to start with. Nothing special.
As I sat and wrote the story I couldn’t believe the twist and turns that have sprung to life. This story turned out to be a romantic suspense. Oh, BTW, it started out as a straight contemporary romance. So, you see for me flying by the seat of my pants works.
Here’s another point. Recently I had to write a synopsis for a short story. I didn’t want to write the full story if the editor didn’t feel it would fit her current anthology. She loved the idea and asked me to write it. I knew the beginning, middle and end. Great, right?
Wrong!
I struggled with getting the words down on paper. In fact, I secretly thought the story sucked big time. I’ll know better when I go back to edit. The point is I plotted this one. Maybe it’s in my head, maybe not. All I know is for right now pantsing seems to work for me. When I try to deviate from this I get stuck. Maybe some time in the future that will change and I’ll become a plotter, but for now I’m sticking with what works.
What’s your thought being a plotter or pantser?