1. Thomas Larmore

    Thomas Larmore Senior Member

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    "Pantser" Problems

    Discussion in 'Plot Development' started by Thomas Larmore, May 6, 2022.

    I'm a "pantser" which means I don't "plot" I write by the "seat of my pants."

    I have so many stories I "pants" through a beginning, but got stuck when I got to the middle section and didn't continue writing.

    I find the middle the hardest part of a story to write.

    Any other pantsers who have this problem?
     
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  2. Hammer

    Hammer Moderator Staff Supporter Contributor

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    Yes.
     
  3. Madman

    Madman Life is Sacred Contributor

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    Maybe try to do an outline for the whole story? And as you progress, if you find yourself moving away from the outline, change it as necessary.
     
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  4. Alcove Audio

    Alcove Audio Contributor Contributor

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    I'm a pantser as well, but I do have a definite conclusion - at least so far.
     
  5. Not the Territory

    Not the Territory Contributor Contributor Contest Winner 2023

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    I don't really pants, but also find the middle hard to write. I'm hoping it gets easier with practise.
     
  6. Thomas Larmore

    Thomas Larmore Senior Member

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    I find the middle part of a novel the hardest to read as well. Most modern novels are way too long.
     
  7. J.T. Woody

    J.T. Woody Book Witch Contributor

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    I have trouble with the beginning.

    Most times, i have HOW i want the story to go and HOW i want it to end... Just not how i want it to start.

    So i yadda yadda over the beginning just to get to the middle and carry on until the end.
    Then go back to be beginning later
     
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  8. Thomas Larmore

    Thomas Larmore Senior Member

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    I love beginnings because you're opening lots of doors and introducing new mysteries.

    But later in the story you have to tie up loose ends and provide solutions. That's harder for me.
     
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  9. peachalulu

    peachalulu Member Reviewer Contributor

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    I can only pants short stories. I have to plot out books. And if a better idea comes while writing the first draft I'll usually follow it and adapt the storyline. Which I've been doing on my WIP.
    I don't find the middle the hardest - for me the first five pages and the last five pages are the hardest. I always put a twist in the middle which is usually the most exciting.
     
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  10. hirundine

    hirundine Contributor Contributor

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    I used to have this problem. Never finished anything that wasn't ripped off from someone else's work (yes, I had that phase as a teenager haha) and even the stuff I did finish had more holes than plot.

    I solved the problem by reading books about writing and teaching myself how to plan. You still get all the spontaneity of pantsing; it's just a little more controlled and at a different stage of the process.

    Or multiple stages, if you read something back and realise it's not working out.
     
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  11. Hammer

    Hammer Moderator Staff Supporter Contributor

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    I don't believe that any of us are 100% pantser, or 100% plotter, we are probably all somewhere in between. I couldn't start a project with an outline - I start with an idea. Sitting down to create an outline would feel like a waste of good time to me, but similarly I couldn't start without some vague notion of what is going to happen, and I tend to create complex spider diagrams of how things develop as they develop, which helps me to visualise where things are going.

    I suspect the inability to "crunch through the middle" is more to do with personality than approach to writing. I was the same at work - I developed business process management software for twenty years; identifying the actors, studying interlinked processes, coming up with a technological solution, getting a proof of concept and a working prototype - brilliant, I loved all that. Dotting the t's and crossing the i's... meh, not so much. I've got it working, get someone who gives a shit to do all that, I want a new project... So as a basic personality type, I am very much an initiator/starter. When I studied education, we were taught that people fall very broadly into two camps - holistic and serialistic thinkers. Holistic thinkers see a big picture and fill in the details - ask them directions and they will give you a big picture ("go down the road until you see a tree shaped like a giraffe, go left and find a house that looks as if Charles Dickens lived there"), ask a serialistic person and they will give you a list ("take the third left, second right, go straight over the crossroads and it's the fourth house on the left"). Very different approaches to the same problem, neither is wrong, neither is right, but never the twain shall meet, and don't expect one to be able to follow directions from the other with any degree of comfort.

    I have two completed works in my "trunk", and at least seven incomplete -- most of which seem to stumble around the 15-20,000 word mark. There is a very real possibility that the original idea simply wasn't strong enough to carry a novel. It's possible that an outline would have "saved" me from that, but as I am not doing this to keep the lights on, but doing it because I enjoy it, where would the fun have been in that?! As it happens, I am an eternal optimist, and firmly believe that most or all of these will get finished... and finished well.

    For the record, I find that if I pull a piece out of the trunk and start plugging away, I tend to have Eureka moment which, perhaps, steers me in a different direction and allows me to carry on (which is what I love)

    Also for the record, I have seen a lot of posts on here over the years from dedicated outliners who have designed their world, created a magic system, named the currency and formulated the banking system, looked at the lineage of their dragons, but not written a damn word and have no idea what the story is. This isn't wrong, but it's as wrong for me as would plunging in on a wing and a prayer be for them.

    TLDR; forgive yourself and keep writing
     
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  12. Seven Crowns

    Seven Crowns Moderator Staff Supporter Contributor Contest Winner 2022

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    My feelings on this have changed over the years. I still don't like the term "pantser." It seems so silly. The metaphors for it (gardeners and architects) are even worse. They take an abbreviated metaphor and reword it. Makes me think of "custodial engineers" instead of janitors. I think it's better to just be honest. You have people who plan the details before the first draft, and you have people who don't. Outliners and non-outliners. I guess pantsers is okay though. Everyone understands what it means. I just wish it was something else, haha.

    I think the pantsers don't want to be defined as an absence of another's quality. It's somewhat belittling. They want their approach to have value and so it's not a "non-anything." They have their own title. They pants. (What a weird sentence.) Anyway, I think of these groups as outliners and non-outliners because I like the bluntness of truth. It's not as if one group is trying and the other isn't. It's just two different approaches.

    With that out of the way, this is what I've found. Non-outliners have complete mastery of the units within a story, the base unit being the character. They seek out complicated/damaged characters and pit them against each other. They choose a setting that allows a particular plot to happen (this is pre-planned) but they don't necessarily know its outcome. So there is a preparation step. In order of importance it is:
    • unique characters
    • a basic conflict
    • setting that accommodates the above
    So though there's no outline, these ideas are shaped into workable forms before that first draft begins. That might just be done in the writer's head. When the words are finally going on paper, these writers keep ratcheting up the tension. They don't ever let the story coast. If a problem is solved, a worse one appears. They're building a basic story structure as they write it. They have an innate understanding of where disasters occur. So I guess I'm saying that just because you don't outline doesn't mean you don't plan. You feel out the nature of the different elements before you commit to writing.

    If you're lost in the murky middle, you need to build your understanding of story form. You should cheat and look at a basic outline chart. For me, the middle involves the moral dilemma. There should be a crisis that forces the MC to be honest with themselves and face a moment of transformation. There is a lie which the MC has always believed, and now they are forced to accept a new truth. Then the story continues. So if I were writing up to the middle without an outline, I would be shaping the tension and setback for this midpoint reversal. A test of character should occur. You still don't have to outline, but you need to know the nature of the midpoint when you reach it so that the MC is prepared to do that pivot and change the direction of the story.

    There were two guys who really proved this non-outlined form to me and that it can very much be made to work. It's very possible to create art without an outline, but you must understand the elements of your art. Anyway, one of the guys who absolutely clarified this idea is Elmore Leonard and the other is Kim Jung Gi.

    Here's a good article by Elmore Leonard describing how he writes without an outline. Notice that he stresses the need for characters and a premise before he starts the novel.

    Here's Kim Jung Gi drawing (in ink) without a sketched outline or references. He has complete mastery of the elements. There was an insane amount of practice to reach this level. I often watch this on double speed. I find it inspiring. It's all about study and observation of the units of your art.

     
    Last edited: May 9, 2022
  13. Xoic

    Xoic Prognosticator of Arcana Ridiculosum Contributor Blogerator

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    Yeah, well I'm not British, so I don't say that. I think of it more as working without a net or an outline.

    I also look at it in terms of when people do the planning. Some try to get it out of the way beforehand, as if they can predict and solve all problems that way (you can get pretty close at times). The rest—the 'pantsers'—just wade in without a detailed plan and then have to work out the problems afterwards, often through a lot of revisions. There are pros and cons to both approaches, and I've used both, though by nature I'm a very intuitive writer. All my studies into story structure lately are aimed at strengthening my understanding of story so I know how to solve the problems, whether I try to do that before or after throwing down a first rough draft.

    You can't rely on untrained intuition, unless you're one of the natural geniuses who have somehow absorbed the ideas of story structure through osmosis. I'm not and I readily admit that, so I need to study it deliberately. But as I've learned through my visual art studies, once you've committed something to memory your innermost mind has access to it and can do amazing things intuitively. I guess I learned this a long time before that, when I learned how to ride a bike. And doubtless when I learned how to walk and talk, though I don't remember that. You do all the drilling even through you keep falling down, and eventually you'll be able to ride without any conscious thought required. To get there takes a lot of practice after learning the fundamentals. Later I did the same with learning how to drive. The things we internalize that way become intuitive—the unconscious can take over, and it's so much faster and more flexible and natural than the plodding (/plotting) deliberate conscious mind. It seems to be able to figure things out that the conscious mind would never come up with.

    But yeah, even when I write straight-ahead (an animation term that equates perfectly to pantsing, compared to working pose-to-pose which is planned out) I need a good cast of characters that relate to each other well and to the theme(s) of the story, a basic conflict, and I need to work out at least the large movements. Not in detail—just a rough idea of the overall shape of the story.
     
    Last edited: May 9, 2022
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  14. Xoic

    Xoic Prognosticator of Arcana Ridiculosum Contributor Blogerator

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    Sometimes I don't have an end in mind when I start, but if I get to around chapter 3 or so that way I put on the thinking cap and try to come up with a vague concept for one anyway. Otherwise I have no idea where I'm headed.

    Usually if I just keep writing with no end in mind I get completely lost and its unsalvagable.

    But I should add that often, even when I come up with an idea for an ending, that might not be where I end up. Usually it isn't, you can't predict the twists and turns an improvised story is going to take. But it still seems to work better for me to have a target point in mind to aim toward, even if I have to keep updating it as I go.
     
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  15. Xoic

    Xoic Prognosticator of Arcana Ridiculosum Contributor Blogerator

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    @Seven Crowns I think we discussed this before, it's from the book Into the Woods.

    One way to tighten up the middle of a story is to break the central act into three smaller ones, so you end up with 5 acts rather than the standard 3. This automatically livens things up, since the end of an act is a big turning point. It gives you two additional mini-climaxes spaced around the middle (mirror point), so there's lots of excitement.

    Of course this is ostensibly something for plotters, but not necessarily. If you understand some of these concepts it gives you ways to conceive of your story and to think about how to fix it. Just like if you don't know anything about how an engine works it doesn't help to lift the hood of your car when something's wrong under there, but if you know a few things (the basics) you might be able to do something. Knowing what an act is and its function allows you to think much more clearly about what's going on through the middle of your story and how to work with it.
     
    Last edited: May 9, 2022
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  16. Seven Crowns

    Seven Crowns Moderator Staff Supporter Contributor Contest Winner 2022

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    Yeah, I agree with you. You've got to get the theory of story form within you, then you can use it effortlessly.

    In the past I've always sided with the outliners, simply because I appreciate maximum effort (insert Deadpool joke), and I thought they were trying the hardest, but when I started noticing these writers who could produce a novel without an outline, and it was legitimately fantastic, I really started listening to them too. I've found that they don't outline but they do prepare ahead of time. They're very careful with how they select the elements that are going into the story. Then they trust their sense of story to see the characters through.

    I think those are the steps that can throw off a pantser. That 1) planning is going on to set up the story, and 2) very careful study was done into writing theory.

    You don't actually see this happen with a non-outline writer. It looks like they just sit down and start typing, but there's still a process. Or there should be. If you try the same and skip one of those two steps, then IMO you're in big trouble. You're going to fail in the middle (signifying a weakness in story structure), or if you're really unlucky, right after the inciting incident. You might also make it through the middle and just get bored of it all (a weakness in characters and tension in the plot). I suppose there are some exceptional writers who really, truly write blind and break all form, but they're outliers, I think. From what I've read in interviews, most of the pantsers are very selective with what starts a story, and that's mainly the characters.

    For the record, I do outline. I create a zero-draft. My story is written in high-speed impressions and then I'm assembling them in the first draft where I also edit as I go. But if the story is very short I might just think about it a lot before starting. The one I'm working on now has no outline, but I gave it a lot of consideration. I'm even playing around with a few different endings. I haven't committed to any of them, but I'm aware of when/where they would veer the plot away.

    (I have the highest respect for Elmore Leonard. That guy is a god-emperor of writing. What's also unique about him is that he edits as he goes. There's another sin, haha. I guess I should say that he edited. You know what I mean. These guys live on forever.)
     
    Last edited: May 9, 2022
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  17. Naomasa298

    Naomasa298 HP: 10/190 Status: Confused Contributor

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    I think Stephen King pantsed Cujo. He was high most of the time he wrote that.
     
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  18. Xoic

    Xoic Prognosticator of Arcana Ridiculosum Contributor Blogerator

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    Hah, a very bold move!! Pantsing a rabid dog. Why was it wearing pants to begin with I wonder? :confused:
     
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  19. Not the Territory

    Not the Territory Contributor Contributor Contest Winner 2023

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    I think King pantses most stories, doesn't he?
     
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  20. Xoic

    Xoic Prognosticator of Arcana Ridiculosum Contributor Blogerator

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    If the characters really interact well (have good chemistry) and if I understand the conflict well enough, it does seem the story pretty much writes itself.
     
    Last edited: May 9, 2022
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  21. Seven Crowns

    Seven Crowns Moderator Staff Supporter Contributor Contest Winner 2022

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    Yeah, King doesn't use an outline. There may be some exceptions . . . that book with Straub maybe? But he's outline free from what I understand.

    --------------

    Edit: I guess to the question at hand, just to keep this thread on track, how do you guarantee that the middle of the story is reachable and that it works?

    I'd recommend this book. It's very short and deals with building a story around a central crisis. If I remember right, it even makes some claims as being useful for those of us who are outline free. (ha, I guess it says it on the cover!) You can see if it clarifies issues for you. It is guaranteed to remove the problem of the murky middle because it addresses that as issue one. It's one of my main sources whenever I talk about the MC's "moral crisis." It will expand your grasp of story and allow you to reach the middle with more success.

    James Scott Bell, "Write Your Novel From the Middle." He's always a solid source for writing advice.

    [​IMG]
     
    Last edited: May 9, 2022
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  22. IHaveNoName

    IHaveNoName Senior Member Community Volunteer

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    I’ve been writing since I was a kid. When I was younger, I wrote exactly like you did - I’d start stories with no clear idea of where they were going, then flame out after a half-dozen or so pages. I’ve probably got a dozen of those stuffed away; I did complete three novels and (later) a half-dozen or so short stories, but they weren't really any good. After college, I got the idea for the WIP I’m working on now, and I did the same thing as before - write out a dozen or so pages, make some notes, and then let it sit. Every few years after that, I’d get an itch and dig it up and make more notes, tweak a few things, and then lose interest again. Fast forward awhile. Years later, this thing crawled back into my head and wouldn’t stop bugging me, so I started working on it in earnest. Along the way, I read writing blogs online and picked up a few books on writing. Thre were two main things that I got from this that helped me out.

    The first was KM Weiland's blog. She has lots of great information about writing, but the section I linked to is about story structure. It's basically a plot or an outline, though I prefer to think of it as guideposts. Up to this point, it felt like I was doing a puzzle without the picture as a reference - scenes would pop into my head, and I'd write them down, but I had only a vague idea of the plot and where everything was going. The guideposts gave me a path to follow, but I could yank those posts out of the ground and move them if I needed to (and I did, on a few occasions).

    The second was Stephen King’s book On Writing. In it, he said "stories are found things, like fossils in the ground". When I read that, it struck a chord with me. I won't say I thought was profound or anything, but made me wonder - what if I started thinking of my stories like that? A few months after I read it, I got another idea for a short story. I was kind of burned out on my WIP, so I took a break. It was about twin sisters who are involved in a car accident; one of them (Maria) is killed, and everyone thinks the survivor (Marcia) is actually the one who died. It’s kind of weird, but that’s not really the point. When I was writing it, I had to describe their bedroom. I could see it in my head - a rectangle divided with the door in one corner of the long side - basically, one twin would have to go through her sister’s side of the room to get to her side.

    After I wrote that part, I stopped and asked myself, “Self, why is this room designed like that?”

    My self said: “Because it is.”

    “…Okay.”

    That was when everything started to come together: I didn’t create that room; it was already there, and I just described it.

    And that is the core of my writing style now: I don't create a story, I tell it. The story already happened - I just need to figure out how to put all the elements together in the proper order, with the proper pacing and details, in order to tell it properly.

    One final thing that I've found useful is visualization. I discovered this when I was working on that short story I mentioned earlier - when I was writing one scene in the middle, I felt like I was actually there as a spectator, watching events unfold. It was a rush, let me tell you. Once I figured out to do it reliably, I became much more immersed in the story, which helped me to tell it more effectively. It's difficult to do at first - you have to kind of zone out while you're writing and concentrate on the characters and the setting, but it also requires the mindset I mentioned above - telling, not creating. Once you master that, the story should come to you just fine.
     
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  23. Xoic

    Xoic Prognosticator of Arcana Ridiculosum Contributor Blogerator

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    Just ran across this video:



    Shaelin always gives solid advice, at least it agrees with my own proclivities. She's also a discovery writer by nature, as I am. I haven't
    seen the whole thing yet, but I'm dropping it here on faith that it will be as good as her videos usually are.
     
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  24. Aled James Taylor

    Aled James Taylor Contributor Contributor

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    I don't have a problem writing the middle, as I have little difficulty in thinking of more stuff that can happen. It's not until I define the end that I can look back and decide which parts are relevant, and which are not. For me, editing is a far greater task than writing. If you're having trouble with the middle of a story, my advice is to jump ahead and write the end, then work backward, defining what the characters need to do which will lead them to the end.
     
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  25. big soft moose

    big soft moose An Admoostrator Admin Staff Supporter Contributor Community Volunteer

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