Storytelling for Pantsers

by Annalisa Parent

  What’s Unique for Pantsers

  As we saw in the example in the character chapter, sometimes pantsers have to write themselves into and out of plot. You may not know as you begin to write where your characters are going, where they begin their story, or where they end it. That’s ok.

  It’s never too late to come back in and change things up.

  Remember, this cyclical nature of writing is important to keep in mind. As pantsers, we may want the writing process to be linear, but it simply isn’t. We must accept and work with the process for creative flow to happen. When we fight the process, we get in our own way, and then complain of “writer’s block.”

  I understand. Trusting that I can come back later, that I can fix it in the revision, or the next revision, or the next, well, this can be super scary and one of the frustrations for pantsers. What if I mess this up?

  I get it. No really, I do.

  Empathy Moment Brought to You by the Letter K for Knitting

  I’m a beginning knitter. I can knit a scarf with enough proficiency that it’s wearable without unraveling. However, I’ve paused more complicated projects for years because I have messed up, I didn’t know how to fix it, and I was so terrified to tear it apart, drop stitches, and start all over again. (Do you feel that way sometimes about your writing?)

  So, recently when I made a mistake I didn’t know how to fix, I did what any wise beginner does and I got some help.

  My friend Deb is a master knitter. She takes one look at a piece and knows what needs to be done to fix it. She digs right in and starts pulling out stitches. She knows where to go and what to do. I watch her with trust...and terror.

  The same is true with writing. Deb came to a place where she is comfortable tearing apart knitting, and I came to a place where I was comfortable tearing apart writing, by doing. You will get to that place as you grow as a writer. In the meantime, you are here to learn, just as I sit beside Deb and learn to count stitches, find dropped stitches, etc. You have made the wise decision to read this book so that you can learn and grow. That is the first step to success.

  Getting the right kind of help and support is essential on your journey to publication.

  The Parts of the Story

  Let’s get down to the business of storytelling. I am sure you know about the parts of the story. I’m going to help you to fill in some of the blanks many writing classes leave out.

  To review the parts of the plot diagram: The exposition is going to tell us the situation normal in your novel. What’s going on before things change and chaos ensues?

  Here are some of the elements you’ll want to be sure to include in that section of your novel.

  Characters: All the World’s a Stage

  Yes, the exposition is a place where you need to show us some of your main characters, but, and here’s a TOP TIP: Not all of the characters in your entire novel need to appear on page one of the novel.

  Imagine a play where within the first five minutes the entire cast crosses the stage and does something or other. You’d have no idea who was who, whom you should really care about, or why. In short, this would be very confusing. Such a scenario might make for a good comedy or existential satire, but if you want to put together a cohesive, understandable story, you need to introduce your characters gradually.

  Introducing characters in a gradual trickle as the plot unfolds familiarizes the reader with a character’s importance, and overall role in the plot.

  Introducing your Setting

  Another newbie mistake you want to avoid like the plague (besides clichés, I mean) is over-explaining the setting. (Remember that setting acts like a character—no gratuitous over-telling.) Your setting gets maybe a paragraph in the exposition. If you’ve currently written more than that, you need to seriously consider reduction.

  There are, of course, exceptions—especially depending on how you use your setting as character (remember Heart of Darkness?)—but the days of romantic descriptions of rolling fields are over. The modern reader wants to get straight to the point; in other words to move to the inciting incident as quickly as possible.

  Conflict

  Lastly, your exposition introduces the main conflicts of the story. Is there a war in the background or foreground of this novel? Does the first character we meet hate the second character we meet? Is there a long family feud? Has there just been a theft? We will see these incidents right away. If your plot is character-driven, we will also see the principal character conflicts that will drive the plot.

  Remember that the exposition is short. Why? Situation normal is boring! We want to start to see what’s going to change and what the conflict is going to be.

  Speaking of conflict, there absolutely has to be conflict or else it’s not story. There are all kinds of interesting novels out there (especially from nineteenth century America) that are an entertaining exposé of a quaint way of life, but unless your protagonist is facing a constant conflict that he or she is attempting to overcome, you haven’t got a story, you’ve just got a cute portrait of an age.

  Be the Captain of Hooks

  Your exposition begins with a hook. Your first sentence needs to make your reader want to continue reading. Furthermore, the first five pages are essential to grabbing your reader’s attention (and, of course, for those of you who want to traditionally publish, the attention of both the agent and the publisher).

  We talk about the seven types of hooks in the Writing Gym, but the main thing you need to remember is that a good hook follows the M rule: Mysterious and Memorable. Your hook is a mic drop kind of a statement that makes the reader want to know more, and one that won’t soon be forgotten.

  Need proof?

  Name this novel:

  It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was an age of wisdom, it was an age of foolishness, it was an epoch of belief, it was an epoch of incredulity, it was a season of Light, it was a season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.

  Though we may not remember the entirety of the opening sentence to Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities, most of us, especially in the literary world, associate “the best of times” with Dickens.

  Why?

  It is both mysterious and memorable.

  Pattern Disrupt

  Stories happen not because of situation normal (BO-RING!), but because something comes and interrupts situation normal. This “something” is the inciting incident. I like to call it the “and then.” (Drawl it out like a drama queen for full effect, and you’ll see what I’m getting at here.)

  The “And Then” has to be big; it has to interrupt the pattern this person (your character) has been living for a long time.

  Does the character get fed up with situation normal?

  Or, in the classic hero’s journey, is he called to the quest?

  Does something new come into his or her life to interrupt the pattern?

  Whatever it is, we need something to interrupt what’s been going on.

  The inciting incident is the kind of thing that disrupts our lives. Consider this:

  My name is Emma and I guess I’m like most teens. Some days I hate my mom. (Who thinks yoga pants are cool? So gross.) Some days Mom’s my best friend. (The day Brad dumped me to go to the prom with Loose Lips Lucy and Mom bought me the beautiful beaded dress and took me to Chez Olivier? Well, Mom wasn’t so bad that day.)

  But lately Mom has been acting strange. (Even stranger than most moms, which is saying something.) It’s not anything I can put my finger on. Well, there was the Mug Incident, when she dropped that mug in the sink and then broke into tears when it shattered. That was something.

  It’s like she’s extra nervous or something. I don’t know. It’s just weird and I want things to go back to normal—if you can call anything about our life normal.

  I am the only one in my class who not only isn’t Catholic—in an all girls’ Catholic school—but I’m the only one with a single mom. As if that doesn’t m
ake me weird enough, she’s a single mom by choice. I’ve never even met my dad—and Mom doesn’t talk about it.

  Whatever. We’re supposed to go out to dinner tonight and I am so not into it, with the way Mom’s been behaving lately. Besides, she made a reservation at Chez Olivier. It’s not even a special occasion. It’s a Wednesday, for Pete’s sake.

  I know there’s no way out, so I head downstairs to get in the car. I’ll just jet as early as I can and play some hoops with Beth and Charlie.

  —

  Dinner is an absolute nightmare.

  If Mom’s had the jitters for the last two weeks, tonight’s an encore performance. She’s dropped her fork so many times, the last time the waiter brought her a new one, he brought two. She’s spilled her water glass and soaked my dress. (I can’t leave at least until it dries because it looks like I’ve peed myself.) And she’s shaking so much, the glasses keep clinking.

  If I weren’t enjoying the food so much, I would crawl under the table and hide. I cannot tell you how many times I have thanked my lucky stars that Chez Olivier is not the kind of place my friends frequent on a Wednesday night.

  I’ve never been more embarrassed—and we’re only on the starter salads.

  “Mom, can you pass the salt,” I ask. It occurs to me that she might spill all of the salt given her current condition, so I watch her hand closely.

  “Hello there,” A man I didn’t see coming stops beside our table.

  Great.I roll my eyes. That’s what this was all about. Another one of Mom’s flings I have to make nice with.

  The man stands at the end of the table as my Mom’s eyes grow to dinner plate size. She jumps to her feet, banging the table on her way up.

  “God, Mom, can’t you just…”

  “Emma, this is your father. I, I’m sorry. We bumped into each other two weeks ago, and I just didn’t know how to tell you.”

  “Hi,” the man—my father—says, but I can’t squeak out even the simplest hello.

  SHOW STOPPER!

  GAME CHANGER!

  Emma(who’s kind of a whiner, let’s be honest) is about to be seriously shaken, her life will be turned upside down by the entrance of a father she’s never met into her life.

  That’s what you want your inciting incident to be. An event that sets the course of events in a new direction.

  You’ve heard the rumor about the middle child, right? Moody. Unpredictable. Black Sheep. All around a difficult case. Welcome to the middle of your novel.

  Why is the middle so hard to write?

  In the middle we ask: What events are required to get my character from here—the end of the beginning—to there—the beginning of the end? In other words, from the inciting incident to the climax, but I like thinking of those moments as the end of the beginning and the beginning of the end, as it helps to reframe them in a useful way, don’t you think?

  One of the reasons pantsers struggle with this section is because, well, they’re pantsers. Now look, fellow pantser. Look yourself in the mirror, and repeat after me: I’m a pantser and that’s ok.

  You just talked to yourself in the mirror. How foolish do you feel? (Scale of 1-10. Tweet me a number @annalisaparent. Oh, this is gonna be fun.)

  But seriously, folks, let me take a moment to say that one of the biggest problems we pantsers face is an identity crisis.

  We want all of the answers (What happens next? What’s my protagonist’s motivation?)...without having to go through the treasure hunt it takes to find them.

  If you’re a pantser after my own heart, sometimes you want to expedite this whole process. You think, if I could only think my way out of this. And so you reflect, and you hem, and you haw, and your characters move nowhere. Anyway, that’s what happened to me, before I found a better solution.

  Your middle will not arrive through thinking. It is better to be writing, and writing something that won’t make the final cut, than to be thinking about what you want to write.

  Now, not to get all meta on you, but as your character muddles through his middle to save the universe or find love or whatever, well, you’re on your own journey: to find your novel. (Please don’t write that novel. It’s got a cheese factor of Roquefort. Pee-yew.)

  But if we were to write that story and if you were the protagonist in that Cheese Factory of Novels, imagine this: You’re fighting your way through Pantser Palace with only a pen. That’s write, er, right! Your only tool is your words. Do not be deceived by the Siren Song of Self-reflection, or “if I maybe drew a diagram” or one more plot sketch, character sketch, setting outline. NO!

  You are a warrior! Fight through the despair by writing, fight through the confusion, the frustration, with writing.

  If you understand and you’re ready to write through the middle, turn the page.

  If you are still clinging to your stubborn pantser ways, turn to page 19.

  Ah, I see you’re still with me.

  Your middle, in brief, follows through on the problems presented in the exposition. So, if the two main characters hate each other, this is where they’re going to become bigger enemies, or battle each other, or suddenly decide that they actually have a lot in common and they’re friends.

  How to Avoid the Muddle of the Middle

  It’s not a bad idea, especially for a first novel, to write the beginning and then the end because the middle is where many writers get bogged down in too much detail and the story gets killed.

  If you know where you want your characters to end up, it can make it easier to fill in the middle because you have a North Star of sorts.

  It’s your job to find the method that works best for you. You can try these methods on for size.

  Ground Control (to Major Who?)

  One of the things that pantsers get confused about is the constant influx of new ideas, the promise of what-if. While this is exciting, it can also be disconcerting, as you’ll likely feel like you’re never going to finish your novel for having too many ideas. Idea swamp.

  Idea swamp is where having something to ground you is essential.

  There will be moments where it’s useful to follow a new impulse, and others where—well, not so much.

  How do you know the difference? Think back over your entire plot and ask: Will this idea serve my plot? If it’s a yes or a maybe, proceed. If it’s a no, invest your energy in completing your novel on the trajectory you were already traveling on.

  However, even that method is not foolproof. Your character may, in fact, indicate something to you that needs to be changed.

  If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times (or at least, I probably will by the end of this book). Vortex Moment: Remember, plot creation is fluid and you, the author, need to make decisions about what is ultimately going to serve your plot and what isn’t. Sometimes you won’t know the end, or the beginning, or the middle or…

  Part of being a novelist, and especially a pantser of a novelist, is being ok with uncertainty.

  My only tip to you is that when possibility comes knock knock knocking, take a moment to look back at what has been and where the story wants to go, then decide if taking a side trip is going to be worthwhile.

  Like real-life road trips, sometimes we can’t see the benefit of a journey until we’ve done it. (Ask The Wife of Bath #ObscureCulturalReferences.)

  Where do you come from? Where do you go?

  Remember when I said there’s no right way to write? Well, the middle is a place where that couldn’t be truer. You can write the bookends, as I’ve suggested, or you can go with my method: pure and utter chaos.

  When I am working on these preliminary stages of a novel, I do not write my chapters from beginning to end, in other words in the chronological order in which they occur. I write them as the characters reveal parts of themselves and their lives to me.

  As I am doing this, of course it can get quite confusing. I often have difficulty remembering what the characters have already done, or how they met the objectives
that I had placed for them (or, let’s be honest, that they had placed for themselves).

  Flannery O’Connor stated that stories do have a beginning, middle, and end—but not necessarily in that order.

  Well, pantsers, we’re off the hook!

  If the beginning, middle, and end can be fluid, then so can the order in which we write them.

  If you’re stuck, jump forward. Or backward. Remember the fiction vortex? In the later stages of my novel writing—once I’ve written the bulk of the book, I sometimes feel a bit lost with all the material and what I’ve done so far.

  Coming back to plot

  One of the tools that we use in the Writing Gym to help bring some clarity to the plotting process are plot cards. These help us to identify important events and we use them in an organized system to see where we’ve been, what we need to fill in, and where we’re going.

  We identify each major scene. We evaluate what happens and how it helps to move the story forward. This last sentence that I’ve said is of vital importance.

  Anything that does not help to move the story forward gets tossed no matter how much I like it. This is where the famous phrase Kill Your Darlings comes from.

  Yes, this is tedious work, but the revision process is vital to a quality manuscript—especially for pantsers.

  Using the plot cards ensures that each and every action the character makes is directly tied to the overall plot.

  I’ll talk more about how I get all of the pieces to intertwine and play together in the pacing section. For now, just remember that at every moment in your novel there needs to be something at stake. If there’s not something at stake, that scene gets tossed.