That was Jay's reaction upon discovering at last the way I truly love to write. I don't know how my stories are going to end when I start them. I don't know who my characters will meet along the way, where they will go, or what trials they will overcome. I set out with a pen and a notebook and a vague concept, knowing that there is a story to be told. This is why I can't outline. To outline I would have to know what the story was about and I would lose the mystery, the journey. I outlined a story once, and never wrote it. Because where is the joy and discovery when you know what is going to happen?

True, my stories often end on a different plane of existence than they started. Threads are tied in the final knot that did not exist at the start. Threads I wove in at the beginning don't make it to the end. I must go carefully through my first draft and pick out the loose ends and tie them up or cut them out. Sometimes I'll use outlining to help me, now that I know what is happening.

Often times I forget about the book because I don't care any more, I'm no longer compelled to write it. This is why I'm delighted with you, my dear friends. You make me drag out that seventh draft and do the polishing work that planners do before they start.

So, surrounded by fractalling systems, outlines and the necessity of character development, I'd like to hear from some of the other people who throw systems to the wind and write on the fly; write what they hear singing in their head, what the ink decides; write what the characters choose, what the muse speaks; write what the wind sings, without plans, without notes, with abandon.

*cackles* *highfives all pansters/skirters*

YES! I do the same thing, Jaynin. Although, I have to say. Sometimes when I'm not sure when to end the story, I think it might be nice at least to know where I was GOING with the story, if not at least the journey there.

I tried figuring out a story ahead of time once. Hardest 8K words ever.
I prefer to just write. Have fun with the characters and see what happens. I lose interest if I already know what's going to happen in a story, or if I'm writing a boring part and know the interesting stuff doesn't happen until later. When I don't outline, no section is more fun that others. It's all an adventure. And having an adventure is one of my main reasons for writing.

Well--I'm completely the opposite. If I don't have everything planned out in triplicate, down to the last detail--I go bezerk. There's just something about having a clear plan and knowing what you're going to do. My problem is that I'm constantly changing my outline--thus leaving me with drastic ten thousand word revisions and throwing out entire chapters for the fun of it. (Willow--you could probably attest to this)

So I guess I'm a mix. I start an outline--only to change half of it once I've written another three thousand words in the book. That's the nice thing about being a writer. It's like writing a recipe. Except you can change it in the middle, add whatever you want, and even forget to bake it--and it's still yummy. =)

eruheran

I tried writing using in depth outlines, and it never worked well, since things always changed as I went along. I finally discovered that a brief outline of one or several pages is usually all I need. The brief outline gives me a road to drive the story down, and while I know the destination and some of the stops along the way, there are always plenty of surprises.

I tend to have a very slight idea of what I want and then I build on that.

I'm a skirter for the most part. I have written a couple of stories where I had a relatively clear idea of where it was going. Right now, I'm writing by the seat of my pants; I have a very vague idea of where I'm going, but I'm letting the story lead me, in a sense.

@ Huey--LOL! Yes, I know what you're talking about. You have a lot of fun stuff to do over Christmas break.

I think the problem with outlines, is that often your characters morph into people completely different from how you had imagined them.

And then the plot just won't work because the characters would not behave that way since they are so different.

*eye twitches* Did you mention characters not behaving as they should? Hrm, yes, I can see that side of it.

"Skirter"... I love that! Fun topic.

I used to be the epitome of literary abandon. My first novels were written for forums, so I literally posted a chapter as soon as I'd written it. And even though the end of the book was often far removed from the beginning, I had no trouble finishing. (It helps, like Jaynin said, to have friends pulling on your arm - "When are you going to post more?!?")

After my first few stories, I decided I really did like to write and tried to get serious and mature. After trashing a few lengthy drafts because I thought of a change partway through, I decided I would try to do more outlining to prevent costly revisions. So I joined the ranks of the outliners and attempted to preplan the entire novel before laying pen to paper.

And since then I haven't finished a single novel. In fact, I don't think I finished anything until I rediscovered the art of short and started writing short things.

Interestingly, short things, by their very nature, don't get a lot of preplanning. To me, it's a waste of energy to write a synopsis for a 3-page script when you can draft the entire thing in the same amount of time!

I gradually started doing more and more "random drafting," mixing drafts with notes, but NaNo pushed me back over the edge to literary abandon. I spent a month planning loosely and then had no choice but to write like the wind. And in so doing I rediscovered my writing method.

I can't preplan the story to death. I get stuck while trying to make a synopsis, which is lifeless to me until I've drafted part of it, snap into some kind of mold. However, I can't just start drafting at the beginning and write straight through. I get derailed because I don't know where I'm going.

So I've come to a sort of medium - I develop a story best by drafting, but I typically write the ending first. It's what works for me, so I make the most of it.

I still do notes. World-building, character development, and logic issues are all things I often sort through by writing notes. I also use notes to make sense of drafts. A mixed approach is what works for me, so I run with it.

I write a lot of notes too. Like you said, Philli, they help make some *cough* coherent sense out of the writing.

I, too, am a "pantster". XD Which is why none of my stories are finished. Yes, I've been writing since I was eleven years old, yes, I've never finished anything. *shameface* -_-;;

The first story I knew the end to was one I wrote this spring. I was inspried by a song. Wrote the 7 page short story in a week. Guess what? I don't have short thoughts! Guess what? I'm turning it into a novel and have no idea how it will end!!! *runs crazily around the room*

Okay, I'm being way too over dramatic. Forgive my immaturity. I'm supposed to be a role model! Goodness! XD Least to say, I can relate with other fellow "seat-fliers".

Well, I normally make a few notes on what needs to happen (just so I don’t forget) and then fly by the seat of my… skirt. I write what Philli calls literary abandon. I have never been unable to finish a book, and I love the freedom of an artistic writer vs a structured one.

I think it is a balancing act. I also think personality plays into how we write too. Some need outlines, some don’t. Some do both. *shrugs*

I am so not a pantser. I kinda ramble off and forget what the story was about after a while. My characters start talking about boring stuff. (this is also why I don't really do the character intro thread. I can't seem to get it to work for me. <grin> Not to mention the time commitment. LOL)

I'm a pantser...skirter...whatever you call it. I do sometimes have something I'm working toward, but sometimes I'll start a story with only a few characters and a general concept of the current situation. If I was to outline, I'd be making up everything I put on it as I went along. So I don't usually outline.

I think I'm a pantser. I work by writing down, essentially, images from my head. I hate outlining my stories. But I have to know where they are going, have a point B, etc, or my characters will be wandering around in a desert endlessly...

Aarin: ...Getting bitten by snakes.

Me: Hey, that was more your fault than mine. And how did you get in here? Shoo!

My characters are also so unmanageable... I do fractal and essence map them. It's fun. Even if they don't stick to the fractal, like Aarin.

Haha, Amanda, I love your characters.

As for me, I think it depends on what I write. Before I put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard), I have to have a clear idea of what's going to happen in my head. I don't write it down or anything, but I make a point A and a point B, and then I get to figure out how to get there.

My last story was developing for three years before I actually put pen to paper; no outline, no fractals, no nuthin'.
Right now, I'm trying to write a story where I know my characters and how they're supposed to develop and relate with each other, but I barely know the plotline, so this story is more random than my last.

I think I'm a random mix of both a panster/skirter and an outliner.

It depends on the novel for me, if it's ready it'll write itself and I'll have the whole thing in my head ahead of time, if it isn't ready, there's a lot of floundering and pushing, but it can be good to do that as not all of them will work themselves out without writing them to paper. So, prewriting for me and how much I do depends on the novel itself. Generally though, I don't start a project without having at least a basic plot arc or I get stuck and don't finish. My few experiments of trying with no sense at all of where I'm going never got father than a few thousand words.

I'm very much the same way, Ardyth. It depends on the novel. In previous years I have been a die-hard Panster, but now I'm starting to warm up to the outline idea. Maybe...like it even...

Still not really an outliner, though. It's generally in between with me. I'll outline some of it, like partway through, then just write, go beyond what I've outlined, but then stop to outline again. It's more of a 'whatever I think will work best at the moment,' kind of thing. (Or whatever I feel like doing. )

I am as much a panster as they come. My most recent story, which I have had since I was 12 and is the only one I have completed, started at a random point with random characters of which I knew not the names, origins, or anything at all. It started from the despair of a child whose imagination was dimming. But I grow ahead of myself....

From when I was very young I would go into my basement and do what my family called, "play-by-myself" which was essentially one word. I would run around, make noises, and if you watched closely perhaps you could have determined what was going on. My brother particularly enjoyed sneaking up on me, waiting for me to say something in my imaginary world, and then he would respond and embarrass me.

As I grew older, the system for playing-by-myself became more controlled. I simple walked around fairly silently with something long and thin (sword, pipe, whatever it may be) and bounced a ball with it. That ball would bounce of walls floor and ceiling but almost never leave my control. I think it gave my hands something to do while my mind departed.

As I grew older yet, I began to lose the knack. I couldn't start a story each time I wanted to do this; I couldn't continue old ones; my mind was filled with computer games and other stuff so that nothing was original. I eventually found how to break out of this prison of maturity. I would start my playing-by-myself *gasp* right in the middle of a story! Right at the climax, anytime where tension and stress was high.

One day I jumped off the last stair of my basement to give playing-by-myself one last try. Four guys (no names, nothing) were in room with a long hallway for an exit. The whole place was on fire and an angry demon (balrog from LOTR movie actually) was chasing them. One got burned more than the other three, but the men escaped. They were blessed for their efforts by the good god (who used water over fire), but the only blessing the one more burned got was his burns removed. No special powers, nothing. Lo and Behold! The Red World was born out of despair of my imagination departing me. My 107k word novel that resulted proves that it has not.

I began to systematize this story, going through many mental drafts in which LOTR elements were gradually eliminated, though only about 75% died. Elves and Dwarves disappeared, Siron began Nastar, Arron became Terin. Characters and story was consolidated; Mythrine disappeared and was brought into Reiyen. An outline was made...

...and subsequently abandoned. Only the first one or two stages of that outline remain in my current story. All the rest has faded along with the volcano in which Siron lived. That is the long story of a panster, written without an outline, by the way...

Haha, Reiyan! That's my story, sort of. Only I didn't play-by-myself, I played with my nearest sister. Lightning Ranger was our game, for years and years and years. We had other plots that eventually died out while LR stuck around forever, and ever, through four drafts, becoming what I like to call "My first and last novel." I still, when I get writer's block on that, I'll go hunt down my sister and beg her to play with me again, even though she's now in college and finds it embarrassing to be remembering that game. But since half the characters are hers, I have to have her help! I was talking about my latest draft of that novel the other day, (now seven parts,) and my mom's only comment was "I don't remember your play being that in depth."

Wow, those stories bring back so many memories. *thinks of playing with her sister, and best friend.*

You guys are getting your own thread. This is too good a subject to be a sidetrack that everyone is trying to suppress...

viewtopic.php?f=21&t=1613

Uh, Jaynin, when I clicked on the link it said "The required topic does not exist."

Well, that's weird... viewtopic.php?f=21&t=1614

There. try that.

That one worked.

Same here! The working link has a 4 at the end instead of a 3. Maybe that had something to do with it...

Well, what happened was a long technical procedure that resulted in the thread I started becoming a different thread altogether, and I in my moderating-novice ignorance forgot.

Glad it's working now.

Hello, other panster/skirters! Another writer by the seat of my skirt! I did actually a twelve chapter outline for Nano, and ditched it by the third day.

How come I just now found this topic lol?

Anyway... I'm very much a panster. I'll jot down a few things, some possible plans and things like that. But I go into my writing not having any idea, for the most part, what might happen next lol. I do have some things predetermined though.

Panster. Er, Skirter. My rule is to have an outline and never follow it. Or, that's my muse's rule. I think I have everything planned, I think I know what I'm going to write, and then the characters go wild over all the blank space devoted to them. That's when I get subplots galore and books 2x as long as they are supposed to be.

And I still have to make sense of that mess my characters wrote entirely on their own, Honor System. It is also the book that has been the most fun to write.

That's funny, Kathrine.

I use outlines almost obsessively. Every novel I write must have at least 3 different outlines, and before any chapter is written, it must be scored out scene-by-scene, for things to work out well. Sometimes scenes must also be outlined.

I know a lot of panster-writers, though. I live with one and, quite frankly, have never been able to figure out how it's done. I offer my humble admiration to anyone who can write this way.

- Terra

I am a complete skirter I am by nature unorganized, although I do love order! My problem is that I can't look at, say, a mess, and see the end result. I get overwhelmed. One of my sisters, however, is totally opposite of me. She is very organized.

Anyways, I can't outline to save my life. The only outlines I can do are brief ones which are exceedingly unspecific, and perhaps cover two or three chapters in two sentences.
I've finished two books, and neither of them were in any way outlined or planned. I started from square one, with a vague idea of the ending and some of the events, and then wrote. The first one took me two years. The second one took me two or three months. I fnd that if I keep rewriting a story over and over, without ever getting to the end, it gets mind bogglingly boring.
And it's strange, because as I rewrite, I get a better sense of the characters, and get to know ther personalities better; so it seems like it would be easier to write the eighth draft than the first, but that's not the case. I think it's because after writing and rewriting the first ten chapters over and over, you have a few scenes which you absolutely love, and you start writing up to that point, trying to get there as quickly as you can, and in between, and after, there are pages and pages of what has become, to you, total boredom.
I love writing out scenes that I haven't gotten to yet. I have heaps of little slips of paper, full of short paragraphs, scenes, and dialogue which I want to include. That, to me, is fun.

I'll write out scenes and the basics of a chapter on little pocket notebooks on my lunch break at work and then I'll dive into those when I'm actually writing. I guess it helps a little bit when I actually sit down to type it all out.

Interesting topic!

I actually write both ways--sometimes outlining, sometimes just flying off with an idea. Only I never outline in depth--I sketch basic ideas, key events and the end... and then I fly. I find I cannot write a book without being able to envision the ending, even if the ending ends up changing. It is the climax I work up to--the ultimate reason for the story. But I find that if I outline TOO much that's just as bad as not outlining at all! For me, there's a subtle balance between creative structure and creative abandon. I need both, and the right amount of both. (And structure CAN be creative! )