I have written a lot of novels, though I haven’t published many. I have been asked – how long does it take you to plan them, to write them? How do you do it? This is a question that has a very annoying answer – it depends. The first November novel I wrote, I planned in one day and just threw myself into the experience. I was a ‘pantser’, I wrote by the seat of my pants. These days, I am a ‘plantser’, someone who makes a plan but often goes off script.
Some people need to do a lot of preparation before writing a novel, some can get in there because there is an idea burning in their mind and they need to get it out of them. There are different amounts of planning you can do, and you only need to do as much as you feel you need to do. See? The answer is very annoying. However, the answer is also reassuring to those who think- I haven’t done enough, and for those who feel they do too much, because there is no such thing. You do enough planning, that is enough for you.
What is ‘planning’, ‘pantsing’ and ‘plantsing’?
These three terms arose from the November novel writing challenge and have gained a life of their own. They are casual enough to be fun, yet give enough information to reveal a lot about the people writing.
Planning
This is where you have every beat of your story planned out. You know each character’s backstory, family tree, motivations, weaknesses, love interests and so on.
A great way to plan the beats of your story is through the Save the Cat- Beat Sheets. I use them for all my novels now, although I am known to be distracted by shiny things and wander my plot off the beaten path.
Some writers need to know everything that happens so they don’t get lost, or so they don’t struggle to finish their story.
Pantsing
This is the slang for writing by the seat of your pants. Get an idea, and just go for it. Some great fun stuff comes pantsing. The backbone of Written Off is built on the pantsing way of writing, where you are given a prompt and then set off to write something.
There is a lot of freedom and a lot of anarchy when it comes to pantsing. A friend of mine who likes to write slice of life stories or relationships and drama in the everyday ‘pants’ a lot.
She says “..you can’t plan the types of everyday drama that happens in my stories. I collect things that happen to people all around me, either friends or things I observe, and then use them as I will. Who knows what will happen, who will fall in love with who?”
My friend would like to remain anonymous, so her friends don’t know she is using them for her stories.
Plantsing
This is where I now fall, a combination of planning the story and going wherever the narrative takes me. Whenever I write a novel I need to know where it ends. I will get an idea, or a world or a character, and a story will start to brew, but I always need to know where it ends.
I use the beat sheets from Saves The Cat, linked up above, and plan out the general idea of the story. This helps me get started as well. I have a beginning point and an end point. I can now catch the train all the way to the end of the line. The what now?
** I had a model of writing I called the train line model. A train goes from A to Z, stopping at as many stations as there are on the train line. The metaphor holds that each station is a plot point that is vital to the story. The train line can wander and meander all it needs to, but it must hit those train stations. I may expand on this model in a later article. Now, back to the story. **
This beat sheet gives me the bare bones structure. If something cool happens, a minor character suddenly becomes important or fun, then I will follow that. I check back in with the plan I made, and often try and crowbar my story back in line.
I do a little bit of planning at this stage, enough so I don’t feel out of my depth, enough so I know where I will be going with the narrative, but with wiggle room to have fun with it. Short stories I can possibly go in without a map, novels, I need some guidance.
What other novel planning can you do?
I started this article discussing the three styles of writing. I’m sure there are more and with more official-sounding names, but there are other things you can plan out. They would be:
- World building.
- Character building.
- Plot building.
- Writing space building.
As before, you can do as little or as much as you want, or need. My friend, who wishes to remain anonymous, does very little world-building because she sets her stories in contemporary suburban Melbourne. She does a lot of character building, however, since her stories are so much character-driven. You need to believe these people are real, recognise flaws and positive aspects, and possibly recognise yourself in one of her stories. I am yet to find myself in one of her stories, but she has teased me about it.
For me, I do enough of each of these to get me started. I think I need to do more of the world and character building, which will be a future-me exercise. I have written about this before, how the November challenge makes me write fast, maybe too fast. So perhaps I need to slow down and consider my writing more.
Some genres may need more planning than others. If you’re writing contemporary horror, you can get some history building for why the mental asylum was abandoned, but you’re in the current day, so other world-building may not be required.
High Fantasy or Space Opera will need a lot more world-building to establish lore, races, traditions, and to make your world logical and believable to the reader.
World Building
The more you know about your world, the better you can set foot in it. If
your world is as alive in your mind as it is on the page, then your readers can walk through and feel the world. Some of the best works of fiction refer to the world naturally, characters exist in it, and refer to things because the characters live in the world and the writer understands their world so well.
How much world-building is enough for you? I love building worlds. I currently have over 10 different worlds I am building, dropping notes into my files here and there. Just got an idea for a new world of floating islands this week, so I am building that. Do I have a story? No, not yet, but that may come.
I know writers who love to build worlds as well, get into the history and the politics, but then don’t want to write stories in this world. They have their reasons. Some don’t want to write stories because then they have to leave those worlds.
I say the best way to build your worlds is to write short stories set in your world. That way, you can visit over and over again, and actually walk the reader through your world and experience it rather than trying to tell it in exposition.
Then we go back to my anonymous writer friend who does very little world-building because she sets her stories in contemporary Melbourne. Other writers don’t do much world building because it might not be relevant to the story. Too much time spent building the world if it doesn’t serve the narrative. Some may see this as a waste of time, others might see it as just some fun creative boogeying.
My opinion? I sit on the fence. I personally love world-building, but I do it in a way that I remember things and add to them as I write, then update the file. So I build my world as I write the narrative as well.
Do as much as you want, play in the sand pit, as long as you get to write your story in that sand pit as well.
Some resources I use for world-building include role-playing game books. There are books dedicated purely to creating sandboxes to run your players through, such as Cartograph, Worlds Without Number and the sister books from Sine-nominee publishing.
There are online resources such as World Anvil and Obsidian.
And there are monthly challenges such as the 30 Days of World Building challenge.
I am not sponsored or receive any kickbacks from mentioning these products.
Character Building
Another writing friend of mine says I am much better at world-building as I am at character-building. They then say they’re the opposite of me. I can see their point, however, in my mind the characters I write are fully formed, I probably don’t translate that enough onto the page. Something to work on.
I know you can get incredibly detailed when it comes to character building, pages and pages of fluff. I have this opinion that so much character detail can be wasted because the narrative needs to move. Too much building of character and world could weigh the story down. I am happy to say that I am coming out of that opinion. It is refreshingly educational for me.
My character building tends to start with a need for the story. I need this character, so I will get a mood, find a picture, describe them, and then have a tiny portfolio of them open on a screen in case something happens to them while I write.
Another friend of mine (I have friends everywhere) was looking for something to help give her characters depth, but nothing too long. So she and I are now looking for 1-page character sheets. RPG sheets are good, but we’re looking for something more. I am sure I have seen them before.
This is refreshing for me because now I can give my characters depth rather easily. Does your MC have a sister, and they meet someone who kind of knows them? Perhaps ask after the sister, make a comment about how attractive the sister is, MC gets mad and possessive. BOOM! Sudden character stuff!
And that is enough for me. There could be some family medical history, perhaps, but I don’t want that much depth. Or do I?
You can get character profiles that are pages long, and some writers swear by this. You can give nuance to characters the more you know about them. There can be funny stories said in a moment of vulnerability – oh my uncle was in the war. He mentioned it a couple of times. His brother, my dad, said he did some classified stuff, wouldn’t talk about it, and became very evasive. Suddenly, you have plot material. Are your MC’s accidentally uncovering what his uncle did?
So now I am leaning towards more character building, but not too much. I don’t think I can hold that much information about all the people I am writing about.
There are character portrait or doll makers out there, too, where you can come up with the look of your characters. I know writers who spend a lot of their creative energy making images of their characters. I do wonder if they like to draw more than write, but if that works for you.
Again, much like world building, do as much character building as you need or want to, but just make sure you write the story and get them walking through your world. Make good characters.
For character development, again, RPGs are a great resource to use. You are literally creating a character, in your genre, with skills and abilities that can help drive the plot. Your hero can have a random phobia, as rolled on a table. And you don’t need to spend any coin. There are many free RPGs out there for you to use.
There are character workshops and worksheets out there as well, a quick internet search will deliver countless examples.
Plot Building
This is where planners sit, building the plot, knowing where every event is going to happen and why and the consequences afterwards.
I feel, of the three building types talked about so far, this one is allowed to take up the most of your time. If you don’t have a plot, you don’t have a story. You may have an awesome world you’ve built with awesome swashbuckling characters, but if there is no plot, then there is no reason.
You also want to have a strong plot to match your strong worlds and characters. Now it is said that everything has been written before, and there are no original plots. Depending on your source, you may discover there are only 3 plot types in the world or anywhere up to 36 plot types. This article talks about the many different plot types and why the number is so different. However, while there may have been the same plots before, none of them have the same world and characters as you have.
But also consider the favourite kinds of stories you like to read, or your friends. Do you love a good action film or a good crime novel? The plots and tropes are often comforting and familiar, just with different characters with convoluted backgrounds in strange worlds. Don’t worry if it’s been done before, do it again! Heck, even Hollywood is redoing old films again. They’d better not ruin Highlander.
A few sources of great inspiration for building your plot can be Dan Well’s Seven Point Structure. Here is the Saves the Cat beat sheet you can download and fill in. Plus, there are countless other templates and worksheets you can find, some based on the Hero’s Journey (Star Wars, The Matrix), others based on other plot structures. Find one that suits your purpose, is not too complicated and still makes writing fun.
Building your writing space
This may seem like an odd one to look at, but some people can’t write unless they have the perfect writing space. The nook in their home when the sun is just right, and you have a warm rug and a cup of tea and some biscuits.
I admit, I can’t just sit down and write. I need to have a bottle of water, and sometimes some snacks. There is a little bit of prep before I write. If I am using my laptop, it is one of my two laptop desks, drink, snack and either the couch or the bedroom. Simple.
I understand people need to make their place as comfortable as possible before words start to flow, but I then start to wonder if they are delaying, procrastinating, just ‘not getting the vibe’ for a larger reason.
The truth is, you don’t need the perfect weather, light and snack ratio to begin writing. Once you begin writing, all those things fade into the background. Find your spot, set it up and get writing. Keep the spot, maintain the spot, so you don’t need to continually reset or find a new spot.
There are many opinions on the perfect writing space. Some suggest taking over an entire room and making it your space, some suggest finding a tropical island. You can find interior design inspiration, or you can buy flat-pack furniture to assemble into the minimalist desk you need to start your work.
You do need to do some planning if you’re going to write a book. Even those who write by the seat of their pants planned to write by the seat of their pants. Some people need more foundation work than others, but there comes a point where you have enough and you need to start that writing journey. You can’t wait for the perfect time, and you can’t wait until you’ve created all the Conlang, the Royal Family Lineage and all that stuff. You’ve gotta get started.
Find the happy medium that works for you, just enough planning to be dangerous. Now go write something awesome!
