for the pantser
I am seriously considering writing my next novel, whatever that might be, as a shameless pantser, with just bare sketches of characters and problems.
The reason?
Well, I think I’m a constructive person by definition. I’m thinking forward, I’m considering implications, and I’m evading trouble. I, as a person, loathe the unexpected. I love small, closed spaces where nothing can hunt me down. Sometimes, I’m afraid to sleep because I fear somebody will stick a dagger in my back through the matress. I never, never take risks if I can avoid it.
However, whatever is that I have–a soul, a demon, a mischevious genie inside of me–this thing makes me do the stupidest things ever. It makes me take every dare, it makes me jump off the roofs, it makes me speak out and fool around, cunningly waiting for the moment when my conscious self is distracted or lulled by its “oh come on, it’s fine, everybody’s doing it”. Or, in case of writing, “oh come on, give me a chance, or else you won’t finish this darn thing”.
So I write something truly interesting only when I get out of the outline. Not when I’m writing the scene I envisioned, but when I’m writing the scene that just got into my head and seemed fancy, and what the hell, nobody’s getting to see my first draft anyway.
I do nice character sheets. However, the characters always surprise me in the end. They speak differently. They act differently. They fall in love in different ways. And there’s nothing I can do about it, nothing I would.
I can’t possibly write an outline relevant to them before I know them. I can’t know them before I actually write them (not rehearse. Write).
There will, of course, be some core in what I’ll be writing after I’m done with NaNo. (Yes, I’m bribing myself with a permission to write another thing when I’m finished with current one. Surprisingly, it never fails.) And that core shall come to me. And everything else shall, too, in due time.
Also, I really really want to write something I don’t usually do because it’s, well, unusable: an idyllistic description of some dreamy place I’d rather be.
(That’s a fun thing to do, come to think of it, because I’m very good at shattering utopian dreams of my own.)
