#pantster

[starofthemorning16]

[st0rmyskies]

If Champions parents were sheikah deserters, is champion sheikah?? Is the blonde hair and blue eyes a disguise?

I haven't decided, personally, whether Champion's parents were of Sheikah origin, or if they were Hylians who joined the Yiga later in life.

Or, even worse, if Champion was abducted from a family and assimilated into the Yiga at a young age.

[muffinsandpages]

I was happily writing when I realized that I could change a big/small plot point that would solve so many problems but also royally mess up my planning and idk if I want to take that road or not

Problem is, I need to decide what to do before continuing because I'm at a crossroad. It's either this or that

[kevinklehr]

Pantstering my plot

I felt like I was pantstering even though I have an outline. But it’s an updated outline on an excel spreadsheet clearly showing what currently happens in each chapter, and what needs to be changed. And as I created this spreadsheet ages ago, it felt like I was pantstering recently, giving the characters licence to delve into other subtext while I hardly remembered what I planned for them in…

[nanowrimo]

5 Techniques to Help You Write Your Novel

Every writing project is unique, and the methods that help you draft one novel may not work for another. If you’re getting started on a brand new project this Camp, NaNo Guest Vee James has some suggestions for different techniques to help you explore your story. It took a few NaNos before I realized I was developing different techniques each time I sat down to the challenge. I think we all do this naturally, but it helps to step back and observe the process. If you’re strictly a pantster, you’ve been working on the story ideas in your head. If you’re a planner, you’ve set to paper the story concepts, characters, and an outline of what you are about to produce on paper. Some people take a hybrid approach to NaNo. Granted, the basics remain the same: butt in chair, accomplish the hourly/daily goal, and allow yourself to tell your story.

I discovered that each unique novel presented particular challenges, and I had to adapt my style and writing techniques in order to explore the story and keep the production happening. Some of these came from writing instructors and wonderful podcasters. Some came from “how to write” seminars and workshops. Others grew out of a feverish search for “more words.”

Here are five techniques I’ve found that helped me advance writing projects:

1. Research

It was a surprise to me to discover the concept of researching for fiction. I initially thought, “Just make something up.” But there are so many ways to broaden your approach. Plumb your memory, take a course in something related to the story, talk to an expert, and ask lots of questions. You could even become like the character in order to feel what they feel. If you’re writing a western, go ride a horse.

2. Write Scenes Out of Order

If you have a premise, you’ve already got scenes in your mind. Don’t wait until you get to chapter 18. Write that scene now. You can always revise it when you catch up to that point and it gives you something to develop toward. To expand on this technique, when you’ve written the scene, ask yourself, “What happened just before this?” or “What does this scene lead to?”

3. Put disparate characters together and have them have a conversation

Often, we write secondary characters who take a more subdued role in the plot. But what would happen if your protagonist’s best friend had a conversation with the main antagonist? Or if the antagonist’s agent of destruction came upon the protagonist’s love interest? In my experience, these conversations frequently produce more depth in your secondary characters and almost always it’s something you weren’t expecting.

4. Play with Genre Tropes

What have you chosen to write? Urban fiction? SciFi? Fantasy? You already know what your reader expects you to write, and what the plot ahead holds for them. How can you twist it? Sometimes the simplest thing you mentioned in chapter one can be the linchpin of a great plot twist.

5. Study Film

It’s no accident that some of the most astounding stories have been told through film. Quite simply, movie companies invest heavily in every aspect of their production and hire some of the best writers around. Yes, it’s a visual medium and has some advantages over prose. But the main lesson with movies is in the structure of the stories they tell. Here’s a good example: when I was writing a fairytale novel, I wanted to stay true to the classic story structure. One afternoon I was watching the comedy, Galaxy Quest, taking careful notes on the structure. I realized the story structure mapped very closely to what I was doing in the fairytale. It was comforting to see this, and it also gave me some ideas on how to approach the ending.

Most importantly: NaNoWriMo is a thrilling if exhaustive experience, and I urge you to immerse yourself in it completely. Write with utter abandon, delve deep for concepts that will give you the next 2000 words, and try new things like you’re a Mad Scientist in a hurry. We all know that what you end up with is a messy creation. But you will find you have given yourself a great gift.

Vee James is a cross-genre author who loves to write comedies, fairytales, and YA supernatural. He participated in NaNoWriMo for ten years in a row, writing over a half-million words, and it led to nine NaNo novels plus two more non-NaNos. Out of this work, he’s published four novels, with a fifth nearing completion. If interested, visit his site at www.veejames.com and leave a message. He loves to talk to writers of all kinds. Vee's photo by A. Roger Hammons Photo by Daniel Álvasd on Unsplash

[alana-lantana-the-writa]

writeblr intro ☀️

Hi there, I’m Alana (she/her)! Welcome to my (mandatory) writeblr intro! This is my first time doing an intro like this so cut me some slack if it sounds a little awkward haha.

ABOUT ME

Have been writing since I was a kid :)

Black 👋🏽

Hobbies (beside writing obvi lol) include drawing, reading, baking, and making miniatures

From ‘Murica 🦅🍔

WRITING

I will be upfront in that I am a tried-and-true pantster and nothing will ever change that, so 99% of the time my stories change a lot from what they start as. But I do have some WIPs that are in varying degree of draft-hood!

WIP 1 🩵🇯🇲✨ My current baby right now lol. It’s basically a historical fiction with magical realism and Jamaican cultural elements. Imagine Encanto but Jamaican lol. Most of the story is set in the 1950s between the U.S. and Jamaica but parts include flashbacks to early 20th cent. Jamaica. It obviously deals with a lot of real-world issues of the time BUT it also includes romance, slice-of-life, and just coziness to break up real-world struggles!

WIP 2 ���🤰🏼🤰🏾🍼🕰️ The emojis for this one are crazy 😭 But basically it’s another historical fiction story set in the 1950s (that time period for some really weird reason ends up in a lot of my stories 😭) It’s inspired off of those “unwed mothers” homes that were prevalent back then and just how the conditions were really horrible for single mothers/teen mothers.

WIP 3 🩵🧚‍♀️⛰️ Haven’t really started writing this one yet, but the best way to describe it is an adventure story with the main characters being fairies in a fantasy yet still “post-apocalyptic” world. It will make more sense once I actually start working on it 😭

GENRES

Historical fiction, magical realism, fantasy, sci-fi, dystopian

Sometimes subplots of romance

[shantismurf]

"The Mushroom Mine" sign by @shantismurf, with assistance from @tickles-ivory

As part of the celebration of the one year anniversary of the Bagginshield Book Club, we asked the lovely @chrononautintraining a few questions about this wonderful work.

June 2024 Author Q&A with Chrononautical

Q1. What name would you like us to use and what are your pronouns?

A1. Chrononautical or Chrono, She/Her

Q2. How many years have you been writing? 

A2. Most of my life, but posting publicly for about 15 years.

Q3. What do you think of as your writing style - are you a plotter or pantster?

A3. Pantster, primarily, though I've learned my lessons and do like to know where a story is going to end when I start it these days so I try to plot. 

Q4. What’s your favorite genre/trope to write? 

A4. Speculative fiction: stories about magic or science fiction, primarily. 

Q5. Is there a genre/trope you haven't written as much of yet that you're excited about for future writing?

A5. I'd like to do more comedy.

Q6. Was there an idea or scene that inspired A Passion for Mushrooms?

A6. Passion for Mushrooms is one hundred percent inspired by the quote I used for an epigraph: "Hobbits have a passion for mushrooms, surpassing even the greediest likings of Big People." - The Fellowship of the Ring, J.R.R. Tolkien. 

When I decided to write it, the fandom already had more than a few stories about Bilbo planting gardens and deciding to stay in Erebor with a miraculously alive Thorin. I was completely here for all of that, of course, but I wanted a story where the garden wasn't special because of gold or rare plants bought with gold. I wanted there to be a treasure that Bilbo could appreciate with the Baggins half of his heart, as well as the Tookish bit. And I know next to nothing about mountains, but I do know mushrooms do okay in caves, so... 

Q7. Did you do any special research before writing the work?

A7. If you're asking this because I go deep on How To Pluck A Chicken In A Medieval Kitchen during the cooking scenes, you're right and you should say it. I am a middling cook, but all of my ingredients come from grocery stores. I had to do a fair bit of research on the cooking aspects of the story that were furthest from my own experience. Fortunately, the professor already put tomatoes and potatoes in Middle-earth, so I didn't have to go Full Historical. 

Q8. Did the story change from how you originally envisioned it? Were there scenes or plot elements you had to cut out?

A8. It absolutely did. Because I am, as previously said, a pantster. I wanted a bigger bang for the ending of the story than I was set up to get. I could have stopped with Bilbo and Thorin getting together and had some simple falling action, but that didn't perfectly tie the subplot of Dis and Tauriel back to the main pairing, which I knew I wanted. Having Doron try to poison Bilbo was actually a late in the game choice. If I'd planned that from the start, I would have threaded him into more of the middle sections of the novel. 

As for cutting things out, the additional stories in the series started as deleted scenes/reader requests that I couldn't find use for. So most of what I cut didn't end up in the rubbish bin. Anything that wound up there really wasn't worth posting. 

Q9. Do you have a favorite moment from the entire series?

A9. I still really like "A Spy In The Shire" a lot. I know it's so self-indulgent to say that about a story focusing on an OC, but if the point of the Battle of Five Armies is to reclaim Erebor for the dwarves, then I want that to mean something. I want the average dwarf to be in a bad place. I want the average dwarf to need Erebor the way Thorin needs Erebor, to be willing to do anything to get back to the Lonely Mountain. Because if that's the case, then all the sacrifice means something. When I talk about this one luckless dwarf on the world's silliest quest to figure out how to help the king hook up with a hobbit, I'm talking about hope for the future. I'm talking about all the people who long for and dream of the home that Thorin was willing to die to reclaim. I think about them going back there and living better lives. It brings me peace.

[redux-iterum]

Writing question, not redux question! Do you or Lynx have any tips for planning such elaborate stories? Every detail of your world and writing has such thought put into it, so I’m curious how you organize or plan your works!

DULLARD: Well, what mainly helps this blog in particular is having two people working on this that specialize in different areas! My main job is to write the story, the characters and the more general lore, as well as answer asks. Lynx works in the specifics of the timeline, history, genealogy and keeping track of all the little details we come up with for future plots. I joke that I’m the blue collar to her white collar, if that makes sense - we have both sides of writing this setting covered. We also have an absurd amount of shared docs to keep track of everything and are in constant communication with each other, presenting ideas and discussing whether they’re worth keeping or not. We do write everything down, but I would be remiss not to note that Lynx’s excellent memory is the only reason half of this shit hasn’t been lost to the ether. 

If I had to give a specific tip, it would be to write EVERYTHING down - every plot point you think of, character note, idea (whether or not you use them), worldbuilding concept and anything else. You never know what you’ll forget, especially if you’re working alone! Having multiple documents organized by topic will help with that (one doc for mythology, another for culture, another for plot points, etc). Don’t do what I do, which is to name my documents and images extremely unhelpful names for the purposes of amusing yourself. You WILL lose track of which doc has what thing.

LYNX: I will be the first to admit that I'm far from the best person to give writing advice, considering I haven't published anything substantial and just have a lot of incomplete scribblings which may never see the light of day. Dullard and I also have wildly different ways of approaching our writing; they're more of a plotter/outline writer/architect and I'm more of a pantster/discovery writer/gardener. A lot of writing advice is geared towards architects while gardeners (at least in my experience as an aspirant writer) have their methods of writing left largely untouched, and so get the idea that writing as you go along is "bad writing" (ignore the entire body of works of Stephen King, Hayao Miyazaki, and Terry Pratchett, all written more or less on the fly). 

Yeah, so that's how I have barely written anything since I was a teenager :D 

I'm still relearning how to write myself; I just discovered I'm a gardener last year and I have years of ineffective writing advice to unlearn. I'll parrot some advice I've been told.

Keep documentation on-hand for easy referencing. I use the app Obsidian to make myself a personalized wiki for characters, worldbuilding elements, and suchlike. It's not built for having writing in it, but I can wrestle it into working for my needs!

It's okay to leave some elements ambiguous and open-ended. It means less work for you and more mystery and fun for your audience (even if that audience is yourself!)

If you're a gardener like I am, treat your long-form writing like each chapter is an episode of a TV show. You might have the season finale sketched out, so find ways to get your characters there and what complications arise in their path!

Your characters are tools. You may be attached to them, but they are here to serve a function in the narrative. If they are serving their function poorly, that's when they're a bad character.

The only wrong way of writing is one that stops you from writing.

[negative-speedforce]

Gonna toss you an early TST as well since I'm not sure where my spoons are gonna be tomorrow-

What's the most random place you've pulled inspiration from for a piece/OC/line/etc.? Do you tend to actively "choose" inspiration for a certain fic, or do you get with the more impromptu "flashes of divinity" type of inspiration?

What do you do when you're not feeling particularly inspired at all? Do you have a strategy or go-to method for drumming up new ideas?

I'm a 100% pantster. I have vague ideas, and rather than reminding myself of my planned plot via an actual outline doc, like a normal person, I have specifically curated playlists that are made to be played in order, because each song correlates to a specific plot beat. When I'm struck with writer's block, those playlists are my go-to.

Usually, I get new inspiration from either the real people around me, or when I consume a new media. For instance, I got a lot of inspo for writing Siv and Hailey after watching Arcane (they are so Caitvi-coded), and right now I have a bunch of inspiration (but no real, solid ideas) for some kind of Pyrrha fic after reading a book where the main character was a girl made as a weapon.

[writtenonreceipts]

Ate lunch, went for a walk (for some reason I get so anxious walking around outside that it makes my walks super short) and am now gonna settle back in.

Getting into chapter 4 where most of the set up and foreshadowing needs to happen which, while I'm excited for and nervous about being able to pull off.

Originally when I planned this book it was a short 50k novella companion to a bigger series, but then as these things go it finished at 85k. So I decided to flesh it out a bit more and push it closer to 90 maybe 95k.

Writing time! I have the day off so we're gonna write as much as possible today!

Right now I'm editing the first chapter of my og book and need to be held accountable for it 🤣 so you get my ramblings.

Notes pulled up, caffeine acquired and specific playlist ready.

Block the tag writtenwrites if you don't wanna see this/updates ❤️

[itti-the-mouse]

I think this story is just about complete ^w^

"Chapters" 2, 3, and 4 are complete, I just need to re-redo the opening i've basically memorized and the draft will be done, then I can do clean-up.

Particularly "chapter" 4 needs cleaning up because, well, i'm a pantster of a writer and some contexts changed. Oops!

And, for context, this was supposed to be only 3 "chapters" long, but the story ballooned out of control just like one of the characters' bellies.

If i can keep it up, i might actually accomplish my goal of getting it done before January ^w^ 🎆

[st0rmyskies]

I feel personally victimized by the revelation that Champ was yiga, there will be a class action lawsuit pending against this /silly

Seriously tho I’m just stunned that you kept it under wraps that long

~🐹

You are all welcome to sue me and take part in my massive debt with me.

Yeah I am BAD at keeping things under wraps. That's why being a pantster is great: the secrets I keep from y'all are typically something I've kept from myself, too.

Not in this case, though.

[doyouknowhowtowaltz]

💥🌻🚀 ?

💥 What is one canon thing that you wish you could change?

I’ve said it before! And I’ll say it again! It’s a damn travesty that they cut Sara’s response to “Be careful, there are a lot of creeps out there” because “Thanks- but don’t be so hard on yourself” is so funny.

🌻 How often do you read your own fics?

Mmm, hard to say. When I do reread my fics I usually reread huge batches of fics at once, but I maybe only do that 3 times a year. Recently reread In for a Penny, actually, it was cute!

🚀 Do you like to outline your fic first or create as you go?

I’m in the middle of a gruesome metamorphasis from pantster into plotter right now so kind of both. I usually never have a full outline before I start actually writing. But I do outline scenes as I come up with them.

[feelingthedisaster]

can someone explain to me what is a pantster (there is probably a spelling mistake there) is in writing? i've seen 'are you a planner or a pantster?' and i dont know what it means

im kinda new to the writing community online so all these terms are confusing (plus english is not my first language)

are there any more words in the writing community that should i know the meaning of?

[abcd-em]

talk shop tuesday: what's your outlining process like? are you a planner, pantser, secret third thing? does it change depending on the fic, and if so, why?

My outlining process has changed a LOT since first collaborating with @seek--rest !

I used to be a pantster with the vaguest and loosest outline so I could remember my ending, now I'm much more structured. Everything is outlined and dropped into bullet points but whether I stick to it is a different story.

How it ends. Is the only fic I've recently switched it up for. Bc of the non-linear storytelling, and the flashbacks to the past I wanted to make sure everything remained in order so I wrote out a complete timeline of events before I outlined the actual fic

Talk shop Tuesday

[shrinkthisviolet]

For talk shop tuesday: Are you a plotter or a pantster, or somewhere in between? How do you plot out your stories? Is there an outline in a document somewhere, or just vague concepts that fit together with vibes, or something else?

For oneshots, just pantser, but for multichaps/AUs, I’m sort of a mix of both! I do have an outline doc, especially for my long AUs in which I have to keep track of things across multiple fics, but I’m also flexible.

If I feel like tweaking something from my initial idea because the vibes call to me, then I will (ex: Morgan being involved in saving Ronnie rather than hearing about it later; Lucy going with Leia and Han to Cloud City instead of with Luke to Dagobah).

Though usually I only change it if it doesn’t mess with future plot points…or if it does but I feel like the direction is worth pursuing.

Tangentially related: I also have a snippets doc for when I get the muse for events far ahead of where I currently am 😅 I write fics chronologically, but a snippets doc lets me hop around a bit (especially since the muse I get for future events is more like snapshots than anything else). And sometimes the snippets spark inspiration if I get stuck on something later

talk shop tuesday!