Click!

15 February 2010 | Filed Under Age-Old Debates, Tales from the Author's Desk 

I love it when everything clicks together without any proper planning. I submit that it is one of the most satisfying feelings ever.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. I wanted to discuss the different ways to approach a novel from the organization side – basically, whether or not to plan out your novel.

First, we have the die-hard planners. Not only do they have a detailed outline that is almost as good as the novel itself, they have the character super-dossiers, a to-scale map of every forest or castle or closet ever, a history of their world that begins “At the dawn of time,” and probably a few alternate universes mapped out. (Obviously, I’m exaggerating. But if you know someone like this, please seek help.) These guys take hours to make sure everything is perfect, that there are no plot-holes to be seen, not even so much as a plot-dent.

Then, we have the seat-of-the-pants writers. Planning? What is this planning you speak of? They never know what’s going to happen from one sentence to the next. They could be writing about a schoolyard bully one second, and purple polka-dotted bunnies the next. It’s, quite frankly, a crapshoot.

Of course, this works for some people. I don’t begrudge them for it (don’t envy them either, though). Like most of my fellow writers, I fall somewhere in the middle.

As you might remember, I used the Snowflake Method to help plan out my novel’s plot. I didn’t use all the steps, meaning I didn’t go as in-depth in the method as I could have. I didn’t take a page or so to describe one quarter of the book; I did it in a paragraph. I didn’t write dossiers for my main characters; I marked down their wants and conflicts and called it a day.

As you can imagine, that left a lot of wriggle room. I have the big picture, but almost none of the small details. Which brings me back to my original statement.

I absolutely love it when story elements click together with no planning.

Allow me to show you why I’m gushing. If you’ve read my project summary, you’ll know that demons are chasing my protagonist. The plan was to have her make her first friends by them teaming up and fighting/beating the demons. That’s what my Snowflake says.

But how to get there? The following was all written by a semi-seat-of-the-pants model (i.e. off the top of my head, but with some larger goal in mind):

I start the novel with her breaking school rules by leaving the grounds. She gets chased by a demon. Then, instead of telling her sister what happened, she says she’s upset because a professor gave her detention. I thought, wouldn’t it be amusing if the professor approaches the group to really give her detention? So she did. Then I wondered, what detention should I give her? I gave her something that put her back where she was breaking the rules because I was too lazy to think of any real punishments. I mean, I didn’t think I’d need to show any of it! But now she has a week’s worth of chances to get chased by demons, and for her future friends to figure it out and decide to help her get rid of them.

The cherry on top? Where she’s doing detention will, I soon discovered, actually help move the plot!

Click-click-click-click!

Comments

2 Responses to “Click!”

  1. Sara S on February 16th, 2010 12:01 am

    Hooray!!

  2. Jenn on February 16th, 2010 12:27 am

    haha, thanks!!

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  • Welcome

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    Hi, I'm Jenn, new grad student and old YA fantasy writer. I've long dreamed of being a novelist, and I bet you have too. I hope you find my blog helpful, inspiring, and maybe just a little bit fun. (But not too much fun. Writing is serious business, you know.)

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