Drawing from the Well
Queries: 55 (+2)
Rejections: 46 (+0)
First Eighth
Chapter 6/90 (+2 to progress, +1 to total)
Scene 25/500 (+5) – 5% of scenes
Word Count: 6507 (+1791) – estimated 4.8% of goal
I’m starting to create some separation in my queries again which feels good. I’ve almost got ten live queries out there. I’m still maintaining hope that my agent is out there waiting for my query to hit their inbox. It will happen.
As for Book Two, I’m making progress. Yesterday was a great day overall. I realized that I needed to crowbar in an extra chapter which is why you see the bump in chapter and scene count. I don’t mind that. It will make some things more believable immediately and down the line through this book. Plus, 90 and 500 are just cleaner, rounder numbers than 89 and 498. There’ll be nice percentage breaks at this point. That, of course, is allowing the zero-word scenes to remain. When I go to collect the manuscript together from all the scene content, those will get weeded out and put into a holding area to clean house. I’ll clean up my worksheet at that point too. Speaking of which, I forgot to post a screenshot of my progress the last couple of times so here it is.
Filling the Well
The Bible: 79%
Miraclist: 35%
The Handmaid’s Tale: 25%
Blue Lily, Lily Blue: 24%
No progress here, but today should be an EXCELLENT reading day knowing my schedule. Plus, my YouTube queue is almost empty. That’ll give me a chance to listen to some of the New Testament and, time permitting, Raven Cycle 3 afterward.
Polishing the Well
Last night we had an Eighth Grade meeting at my daughter’s school focused primarily around them finishing their middle school careers and transitioning to high school. It’s already less than a year away; I can’t believe it.
What do you mean “why did you put a picture of spaghetti up there?” They served spaghetti for dinner at the meeting. Obviously.
Well Chat
Finding Your Middle Ground Between the Two Prevailing Schools of Thought
I had a thought the other day as I dove into drafting Book Two. Now this is on a subject I’ve talked about a lot and that is the continuum of Pantser-Plotter. I have taken pride in calling myself a Plotter for years, but I’m finding that there’s more to it than that. So here are my thoughts on finding your way on this continuum and taking ownership in it.
Let’s start by level setting. A Pantser is so called because they consider themselves to fly by the seat of their pants in their writing. They like to walk in without a plan and write whatever comes to mind. Plotters, on the other hand, work diligently to plan out the events of their books and meticulously organize things for maximum effect. Pantsers often complain about significant and/or multiple rewrites, revisions, and edits. Plotters complain about taking a long time to get into the writing itself. Pantsers criticize Plotters for sucking the creativity from their writing process. Plotters criticize Pantsers for lacking direction.
Here’s the truth of the matter: NO AUTHOR IS PURELY EITHER. As I said, it is a continuum. You may be closer to Pantser or Plotter (that’s me), but you’re never purely one or the other. Pantsers have an idea of where they’ll end up or ideas about things they want to happen in their story; that’s plotting. Plotters come up with unexpected ideas as they write; that’s pantsing.
Okay, Brian, you’re so smart, what’s the big deal then? The Big Deal is freeing yourself from the title and writing in a way that makes sense.
We’ll take one of my recent realizations while writing Book Two as an example. I am a proud, professed Plotter. That said, When I was mapping out the scenes (what I call my unofficial First Draft), I “knew” what I wanted to happen. I had targeted the major turning points in everyone’s arcs, I had determined the connecting “bones” between those critical moments, and I had designed the arcs themselves to tell the part of these characters’ stories that it was time to tell. And then I started mapping which for me is creating the tendons that connect the bones.
Guess what happened.
Go on, guess.
Now that you’ve guessed, I’ll tell you (let’s see if you’re right): new ideas came to me. Now, these weren’t ideas that shifted the bones around or even changed any of them fundamentally, but changes did occur. For example, at the end of Book Two (no spoilers, promise), I had intended for one arc ending to occur with that character essentially alone. As I was mapping scenes, I found that other characters were shouldering their way into the ending. So I let them. I figured out how it could work while still offering the solitude to the intended character and eventually finessed it together into an ending I’m even prouder of.
So what happened here? I PANTSED! Sure, those who are closer to the Pantser end of the spectrum would posit that I was still plotting but that’s exactly my point! I pantsed WHILE plotting. For me, mapping out the scenes is beyond plotting. My plotting process includes only Phases 1 and 2 of my process (that’s world building and outlining, see my post here). That means once I move on to Phase 3, I’m drafting. Granted, I call it something else, but it’s too deep and precise for me to consider it planning anymore. Thus, I DISCOVERED something while writing. And I consider myself a Plotter.
That’s one of the things that Pantser Purists think gets lost in plotting: discovery. They tend to like to discover their story and not strangle it with a framework. For me, I’m learning that the framework isn’t a corset, it’s a guide. It’s bumpers on a bowling lane. You can still score any number of points/pins with your throw, but the bumpers keep that from being a zero for the most part. My outline, my plotting, creates those bumpers.
This is not the story I wanted to tell. What happened just yesterday was that my creative brain hijacked my planned scenes. I was moving on to Chapter 5 and was reading the details of its first scene that I had left for myself. Essentially, I was eating the breadcrumb before making the sandwich to remember what it tasted like. As I was reading my notes, I found that something was going to happen that had no prior setup. Granted, I’m at the beginning of the book, but emotions need a source otherwise it strains the bounds of credibility and threatens to shatter the bubble of suspended disbelief. If that happens, the book gets closed. So I went back and designed a pair of scenes that set up the emotions that would already be present in Chapter 5 (now 6 because of the inserted chapter).
THAT was my discovery. And the new scenes were fun and fast to write. So I increased my word count, stabilized the book, and discovered something all in one fell swoop.
When it comes to finding your place on the Pantser-Plotter Continuum, you have to let go of preconceived notions and hard labels and just find what works for you. The creativity will come when you stop trying to strangle it into place.
And on that note, I’m back into the salt mines of drafting. See you soon.
May the tide carry you to safer shores.
BSG