Guest Post: Author Danielle Kazemi

Confession of a Pantser

There is an ongoing debate over whether or not you should plot out your novel. I admit – I
am not a plotter. I am more of a pantser, watching the characters come alive on the page. There are problems with that. Many problems which seem to spring up every time you start writing the next chapter.

A plotter is someone who spends an enormous amount of time defining everything which
happens in their novel. It can go on for pages about certain things they want to happen, detailed
backgrounds, whatever else they can think of. This drives me crazy. I like to get straight into the
action and watch the story unfold in front of me.

This does not mean to starting to write without a definite direction. There is an overall goal
(defeat the bad guy, get the girl, blow up the Empire State building, etc.). What being a panster
means you have no idea what happens between the start of the writing and the end of it. The middle is hazy. You may have a few scenes picked out you want to see happen but you're not sure exactly how they fit in.

If you try this way to write, be prepared to write some stuff which should never see the light
of day. Not everything a pantser writes should be published or even shown to someone else. You can fix most things you write though so don't automatically write it off as a writing style.

Read through the file to yourself and realize that there are parts in which “A miracle
happens.” This means your good guys or bad guys do something amazing which adds to the book but there is no logical reason why it occurs. It tends to happen more when you are writing about good guys. Everyone wants the good guys to survive.

Keep the file nearby and start a new one based around the same concept. This time, you
have a better idea of where the story is heading. Basically, you wrote your plot points already. What this second draft is doing is connecting the points. For example, if you are reading a point where the bad guy is blowing up a building but you have never seen him before, you can add in the second draft a section where he is first introduced.

It seems like this takes twice as long as people who would only plot but it takes about the
same time. The only difference is that you are writing out the plots instead of sketching them on
some other piece of paper. Copy and paste scenes into the order you want and you will have a well written novel soon. You will need to edit carefully. You will also have to watch out for bridging gaps which occurred because of the disjointed pieces being added to one another.

No matter how you decide to write, you're going to edit and delete and add things until your
fingers want to fall off. That's good though – it shows you care about your writing. And when you
care, it really shows through.

Danielle Kazemi can be found on Facebook, Twitter and on her Blog. She is the Author of the Dragon's Fire Series and Soldiers of Legend Series.