Setting aside Tenderiser's irrational prejudices against the terminology, I think a lot of romance authors are "pantsers". We already know what the ending is, so we're okay with a bit of freedom as we work toward it. But I keep thinking I can do better if I outline. I don't know WHY I think this, whether it's deepseated insecurity and neurosis or equally deepseated instinct about my strengths and weaknesses... but I keep trying to outline. Do you guys do any sort of outlining, even mentally? Does it work for you?
Like I am on forums, I'm shit at outlining anywhere other than in my head. I just need to know the conflict, ending, and characters. I figure the rest out from there.
I don't outline, per se, but I have to sketch out and document certain things for some of my stories. In UTK, I had all the challenges laid out in advance, including a couple I wound up not using. In Kneadful Things, I had each customer of my Genie planned and what their wish was. And in Gravity, I had to chart Jaeden's physical transformation from couch potato to ripped rock star out so that the timeline was realistic. Basically, if there's a lot of research and detail needed I outline, but the dudes falling in love and banging stuff is totally off the cuff.
See, this is why I call it a false dichotomy (and my hatred of the stupid non-word 'pantser' is totally rational). Bay doesn't outline according to her standards. To mine, she does, and I've seen several of her what-I-would-call outlines. People seem to draw an arbitrary line between how much detail is 'pantsing' (vomit) and how much is planning.
...I forgot to answer the question. I do outline, to my standards. A sentence or two for each chapter, structured around the MCs' character arcs. But the final version always deviates from my plan as I find better ways to do stuff or come up with bright ideas.
I think maybe that's part of my issue - how much I deviate from the outlines when I DO try to make them! It might come down to being character-driven or plot-driven... if we accept that outlines are generally plot-related (do we accept this? I think mine are...) and the character is developed during the writing, then I guess it makes sense to abandon the plot outline in order to be true to the character development, if we're writing a character-driven story. And I think most romance is character-driven? But then maybe I should be doing those exhaustive character-development sheets and interviewing my characters and all that crap before I start writing, and god knows I don't want to do that! I guess because I have no idea how they'd answer, not until I've written them...? I guess when I say outlining, in terms of me not doing it, I'm thinking more of things like formal story structure, or even "Beat Sheets" like the one at http://jamigold.com/2012/11/write-romance-get-your-beat-sheet-here/. I just can't imagine making them work. And yet, here I am, 21K words into my WIP, not sure what the hell comes next or whether I'm going to be able to find a way to drag this bad boy up to 80K. Or at least 70K...
Oh, I definitely don't use formal story structure of beat sheets or any of that bollocks. I just know how my characters change and the things that happen to them along the way to bring about that change.
