Kat in her infinite wisdom has given me an opportunity to do some grandstanding. If you don’t like me, then blame her; it’s her fault. Anyway, she put out a Facebook post asking people to blog for her about how they plot and outline their work. I’m always up for some free publicity, so jumped at the chance.
On the face of it, I’m very much the wrong person to ask, because I don’t have a consistent approach. When I set out to write my first novel, Charlie and Me, I had two characters, an endpoint (which changed), and absolutely no idea of what the plot might be. I just waded in. Same with my second novel, Blain, a detective story. I had only one character, a very controversial subplot, an endpoint (sort of), and that was it.
For short stories, the ‘process’ is even more nebulous. One of my biggest stories is a fairy tale, based on two photoprompts of a path through some trees, and a fire on a beach. How I got to a fairy story from there is anybody’s guess. A lot of my work comes from photoprompts from a really close friend. I’ll find a picture in my Inbox at 10 in the morning, and a note saying I have to post a story by no later than 5 PM. That tends to make it hard to indulge in the luxury of plotting.
Some of you may have read my story about the shape shifting alien telepath in ‘Why I hate being the dog.’ This came about during a writing exercise during a day out with the Circle. One of our number brought her dog along, and he was the basis for the alien, she was the inspiration for Soon-ya. I’d seen a sign for a village fete on the way to where we were, and one thing led to another. But I had a set time in which to work, so again I pretty much winged it.
The way I write is known in literary circles as pantsing,, which I assume is a reference to seat of the pants, and not a criticism of my storytelling skills. It may not work for everybody, for those getting angsty about the Plot Bunnies. I have a friend for whom I do some beta reading, and she’s still agonising over both her characters and the plotline for her first novel some 14 months into the project. I feel like giving her a good shaking and yelling, ‘Get on with it, woman!’ I sometimes feel as if she may be employing delaying tactics to avoid actually knuckling down and getting the job done.
Kat has allowed me to add some links. If you like to read about clowns, aliens, love affairs (straight and gay), multiple killers, time travellers, robots, clowns, dragons, or pirates, you can find most of my short stories here:
You can find some more stuff, including my first novel, the fairy tale, and the notorious redneck Lee Roy F***wit, here:
For a daily dose of rambling, you can find my blog here:
Thank you and goodnight.
**This is a modified version of something contributed to TipsyLit.com, modified by Duncan himself, and posted here.
I haven't been called 'wonderful' in a while, Kat. :)
ReplyDelete