The Beauty of Plotting and How it Pays Off
As writers, we relate to two types of writing styles: plotter and pantser.
Most of us will declare as being pantsers. Although ideally, we will like to be plotters, sometimes plotting everything out so precisely can take the joy out of writing our stories. Plotting doesn’t allow us to get swept up into the scene and be able to explore other avenues that we have initially plotted. Once we are more than halfway through writing the first draft of our WIPs, sometimes we moan and bang our heads when we think of diverting the story in a different direction. It shouldn’t be too hard to find the middleman of plotting vs. pantsing, finding that happy medium of being able to have a plotted outline to direct our story, while also having some open air in the plot to add and change the story as we write it.
But sometimes as we get swept up with the idea of pansting, we can lose oversight of why plotting is just as important.
This came to mind while I read Emily St. John Mandel’s recent book, Sea of Tranquility.
While reading the books synopsis, you can’t help but scratch your head and wonder how a book with so many story lines could work (and be able to pull it off). That’s where plotting comes into play. As I read this book (with my writer cap on) I couldn’t help but mentally applaud Emily on how well she woven in these multiple story lines to work seamlessly in the end. As a reader, when you have so many story lines going on at once, you want that pay off in the end where you get that ‘ah ha!’ moment and everything clicks into place. As we readers know, sometimes it works and other times it doesn’t.
When I think back to the structure and layout of Sea of Tranquility, I wonder how much of the story was plotting vs pansting. In this example, I dont think much of any pansting was done. And as a writer, plotting isn’t as nearly as fun or exhilirating as pantsing, but just solely using pantsing when drafting your WIP can set up those first few drafts for failure. Finding that happy medium of using plotting and pansting can easily remediate that. Question is whether we want to listen to what our head tells us is the best method, or do we simply enjoy the chaotic mess of pantsing and just want to go on a wild ride with our WIP. As much as I see the benefit of applying both, I know in the end I’ll follow what my gut says for that moment (which is almost always pantsing).