Labotomy of a Writer

Changes in Writing

I’d like to thank Anastasia for the honors in being her guest today!

My name is Elizabeth Mueller. I’ve been writing for as long as I remember. I write into the night while the kidlets snooze or when they are out to school. I love to help others in beta reading, critiquing, bouncing ideas (brainstorming and philosophizing are my weaknesses!), and just about anything writerly.

Today, I’m posting about a particular struggle I have as a writer.

One thing that I do—which I believe is the bane for many writers—is every time I finish a how-to book on writing, and after I apply it, my writing changes. My book was thin, starving and gasping for rich oxygenated imagination. Well, I was able to apply the correct techniques to get it closer to publication, but I had to find a happy medium so that it wouldn’t stifle my creativity.

After reading a book on writing, I wrote an entire novel (Rock Star). I was so excited to get it all out. I finished at only 26, 442 words, approximately 109 pages. How bad is that? I remember as I wrote, I was so careful to apply the rules of dialogue—keeping it snappy, lively and natural. I also applied the speech tags: Editors/publishers, for the most part, like the ‘said’ word rather than their exotic synonyms. I had also learned about infodumping. That was my biggest downfall! My scenes were short and choppy. I didn’t go into character or setting description for fear of infodumping.

Yes, I was very frustrated with my book and confused on how I could fuse my newly acquired knowledge with my writing. I tucked it away and wrote an entirely different novel. After submitting Rock Star to my critique group, I was ready to fix it.

I grew a lot 2 novels later when I got back to Rock Star. I was able to apply the learned rules, plus more, without hurting it. Now it is 115,220 words, 371 pages! I’m slowly editing my novel and will submit it pretty soon. I’m so thrilled to do this!

Have you found that about your work, when you’ve just learned new writing rules? That it makes you write so differently, it almost feels forced? Stifling? How do you cope with it?

Anastasia, thank you for letting me share my passion for writing with your lovely followers!

Here we go! Another video blog for you guys to enjoy! This one is much longer than the last one, so I hope you enjoy it.

People Mentioned in the Vlog: (PS I hope I said everyone's name right!)

Dawn Embers
James Garcia, Jr.
Kurt Chambers (His Post I mentioned)
J.D. Brown
Elizabeth Mueller
Kristie Cook

NaNo Poem:

Read the first two installments HERE and HERE. Remember, I'll be posting the entire thing together at the end of NaNo!

Kristie was the first to volunteer to be a guest on my blog! I won't take up space here with a long, rambling introduction. Kristie has some great advice and thoughts here about plotters vs pansters so I hope you enjoy! I'll have another vlog up for you tomorrow!

Pantsing Through a Series – Is It Possible?

Plotter or pantser? What are you? I consider myself a pantser, although possibly I’m more of a hybrid. I know, from past experience, that I Can. Not. Outline. If I do, I know what happens. If I already know what happens, I lose interest, explaining all the incomplete manuscripts sitting in the attic from my early years.

On the other hand, I do have a climactic scene in mind when I start and a couple plot turns and twists for how to get there. And as I go, I jot down notes for more plot elements and scenes.

For the most part, though, my characters drove Promise and Purpose. What I originally had in mind changed drastically. Those key scenes I imagined in the beginning are still there, but very different now. And a lot of the fun of writing these stories was when something came together without planning it. When something seemingly random would flow out of my fingers and I really didn’t understand its purpose until 150 pages later, when it suddenly showed its meaning. Just like when reading a good story!

For example (not a great one, but the first to come to mind), in one of the last revisions of Promise, a character showed up in a scene that he had never been in before. I thought, “Okay, dude, why’d you decide to show up now? I mean, I’m about to wrap this up and you suddenly want to jump in?” But by the time I finished revising that scene, I realized he needed to be there for the new ending. None of the other characters would have worked. I couldn’t have planned it any better.

So I’m really hesitant about plotting and outlining. In fact, I’m actually scared of it. After all, pantsing has worked so well for me, when outlining has not. But I have a whole series to write and I don’t know if I can do it right without some extensive planning.

When you look at really good series – ones with planned endings – there are elements from earlier books that all come together in the end. Take Harry Potter. Each book brings in characters, objects, experiences, etc., from earlier books and they all accumulate, twist and turn together for the last book. You can’t carry that off so brilliantly without a plan. What if Neville had been killed in Goblet of Fire instead of Cedric? What would have happened in Deathly Hallows, then? If Rowling had been pantsing and that had happened, she’d probably be kicking herself as she’s writing the last book. But there’s nothing she could have done about it, but find someone else – someone less perfect – to pull the sword out in the end.

Writing a fantasy creates even more hazards. When you’re creating a world, you have to mind your own rules. So you can’t say in book two that Elmo can’t fly more than 50 miles at a time, and then in book five have him fly from New York to Moscow. If that lengthy flight becomes absolutely necessary for the plot’s progression, then it would have been nice to know while writing book two, right?

So the pantser faces quite a dilemma when writing a series. The answer seems to be clear: Plot. Outline. Plan ahead. Sacrifice the thrill of learning the story as it progresses to ensure it’s as good as it can be. It sounds so easy. It probably is easy.

But it frightens the comfy pantsing-pants right off me. What will I do if I lose interest? Will I be able to finish what I’ve started? Will I still love it or will I hate every minute of it? I suppose it’s like following the advice of an editor who wants you to cut a scene you love. You do it because you know it’s in the best interest of the story. As writers, that’s what we have to do – whatever is best for the story.

So what are you? Plotter or pantser? Are you writing a series? Have you had to change your methods? And any tips for this pantser who needs to plan?

Kristie is the author of Promise, released in July 2010, and Purpose, releasing in December 2010. She can be found at www.KristieCook.com and www.a-musedwriter.blogspot.com.

I am so excited about this new blog venture! Fantastic Friday Writers is a group of five writers in the fantasy and/or sci-fi genres. Every other Friday we will be posting blogs about the same topic. This is sort of like a group blog - a group blog has multiple writers posting about a weekly topic on the same blog. This group has multiple writers posting about a weekly topic on different blogs.

The linky widget below will allow you to 'hop' to the other blogs to read their posts! This is sure to be fun! Our first posts are merely introducing ourselves and this new project. As we are in different time zones, some posts might be up later than others on Friday morning. Regardless, you will still get five different view points on the same topic.

Now, myself, I write High Fantasy but I have a few ideas in the future for Sci-Fi and Urban Fantasy. My followers know that I am highly character driven in my stories and I post often about this topic. World building is a key component to writing Fantasy and Sci-fi stories, so I also blog about this a great deal.

This new group will blog about world building, character development - gearing all posts to fantasy/sci-fi genres. We will also discuss other aspects of writing such as critiquing, query letters, etc. This is sure to be fun for everyone and I hope you guys enjoy hopping around to the different bloggers in the group.

SO - without further ado, use the Mr. Linky below to meet the rest of the Fantastic Friday Writers!



Next week we'll be discussing what inspires our fantasy/sci-fi minds to write what we do! That is sure to be some great posts - see you then!

I warn you now, in case for some odd reason you didn't already know, that I'm a huge dork. Now, enjoy the video!!

More lines of the "Twas the Night before NaNo" poem. Read the beginning HERE. I'll be posting up the entire poem together at the end of this month for you to read all at once.

With my butt in the chair, pencil in hand
Muse and I ready for a long writing stand.
First one page then two, and straigt on to three,
day one was epic, the words flowing free!
Day two arrived with a flourish of ink
I barely had time to breathe or to think.
Third day came and went with more on the page,
the plot unfolding with the actors center stage.