From pantser to plotter

Or: How I learned to accept the limits of what my brain can do

When I started writing, I believed that the ideal form of storytelling was making it up on the spot. You have an idea, you think about it for a while, and then the story just pours out of you, perfectly formed. I loved the art of extemporization and improvisation. Give me a seed for a story, and I could rip out a first draft of just about anything on demand. Of course, as I learned later, the first draft of anything is shit.

Naturally, being young and cocksure, I figured that didn’t apply to me. I just had to get better at first drafts. I idolized those pulp SF writers who could sit down at the typewriter on a Friday night, write all weekend (with the assistance of benzedrine, probably), and turn in a finished novel on their way to work on Monday morning. Heck, even Barbara Cartland could churn out a novel in a few days, dictating the entire thing beginning to end to an amanuensis - no notes, no edits, just off the cuff storytelling. That was the sort of writer I wanted to be.

Even more than that, I wanted to be the kind of person who could just rattle off a story to an audience on command. “Tell us a story about this, Matt!” they’d say, and I’d dazzle them with my narrative skills, like some sort of character in an Arabian bazaar or John Hurt in The Storyteller.

What I didn’t realize at that point was that this kind of creativity isn’t nearly as spontaneous or original as it looks. It relies on learning tropes, riffs, and patterns, which you can endlessly rehash on demand, like a blues guitarist in a jam band or a session drummer. The illusion was shattered for me when I went to see Ben Elton live some time in the '90s: his show was peppered with spontaneous asides, improvisations, mistakes, and banter with the audience. It was superb. Six months later, I saw him again - and the so-called improv was exactly the same both times. And when the TV show aired, it was the same yet again. His performance wasn’t improvised at all - it was carefully scripted and rehearsed, crafted to create the illusion he was just tapping into his stream of consciousness. (I’m from a family of actors. I should have realized this way earlier in my life.)

For the next twenty-five years or so, my writing was almost exclusively corporate material and journalism. I rarely wrote anything longer than 1500 words, often churning out several pieces a day. My normal writing rate was (and still is) around a thousand words an hour. And still, almost everything I turned in was a first draft. I would do my research and outline the piece in my head, then sit down and write it in a single sitting, and I almost never had work rejected by editors. Before I put pen to paper (or finger to keyboard), I’d figure out what I wanted to say, who I was saying it to, what voice I wanted to use, the effect I wanted to have on the reader, and how to structure the message to ensure clarity and impact. All I had to do when writing was decide what words to use. The more familiar I became with the subject material and the clients, the easier it became. 1500 words on this, 750 words on that, no problem, I could just rattle it off without really thinking about it. Just like Buddy Guy.

When I started writing fiction again, I applied the exact same principles. Almost every single short story I’ve published has been a first draft. I’ve made a few minor changes here and there, and corrected a few typos, but to all intents and purposes, what you read is what came out when I sat down at the keyboard with an idea and an opening paragraph.

I had, I thought, cracked it. I had learned how to be the kind of writer who can just spout forth stories on command. I was, of course, wrong, for two reasons.

Hello, hubris, my old friend

The thing is, that what you’re reading isn’t really the first draft. It’s probably the fifth, or the tenth, or something. It’s just the first written draft - all the others have been in my head. When I sit down to write, I’m not really making it up. I sort of mostly know where the story is going, and I’ve already got a lot of the key phrases and sections roughed out. I’ve practiced telling the story to myself, often while walking in the woods or lying awake at night, and it’s already been through numerous revisions. So when I’m writing it, I’m actually doing the final edit on it as I go.

But more importantly, while that works for a short story, I don’t have the mental capacity to hold an entire novel in my head. Not even a novella. I can just about do it for a novelette, but that’s right on the limit of my cognitive ability. I can’t construct an 80,000 word piece in my head and hold together all the details of characters, settings, and world-building, let alone the plot. It’s even harder if I’m trying to write something that involves multiple character perspectives or shifts in timelines. It’s just too damn big and too damn complicated. Or, to put it another way, improvising a blues jam is easy once you know the riffs. Improvising a symphony is nigh on impossible, unless you’re Mozart. Which… I’m not.

When I got back to working on Yellow Flowers, I realized that I needed to rethink everything. My first draft had a lot of good ideas in, and I’m still quite proud of myself for having done it. The second and third drafts were more polished, but still essentially the same. However, about three chapters into the fourth draft, it became very clear to me that not only was my writing style lamentable and absurdly florid, but the story itself was weak. Something happens, then the next thing happens, then something else happens, then some other stuff happens, then it’s the end. There was no sense of drama, no buildup, no tension. No foreshadowing (and way too much flashback, when it occurred to me that I needed to explain something that had happened previously or else the next bit wouldn’t make sense). The character development felt like leveling up, rather than overcoming personal challenges and flaws. And the world itself was wishy-washy, inconsistent, and painfully generic.

In other words, it’s not totally terrible, but it feels like someone was brainstorming an idea for a novel and came up with a rough outline. Which is, to be fair, exactly what this was. It didn’t need polishing. Tweaking my first draft was getting me nowhere except a penthouse in Frustration City. It needed to be turned into a proper story. And that, I realized, was going to require a very different approach.

I think I’d better think it out again…

So, with the aid of my trusty new writing companion, NotebookLM, I’ve gone back to the drawing board and started creating a detailed outline for the story. Chapter by chapter, scene by scene, beat by beat. I’ve been trying to focus not only on what happens, but how the characters and their relationships are affected. And, like a movie producer, I’ve been very conscious of all the settings, costumes, and props, so that I can keep those consistent too. And instead of trying to hold everything in my head, I’ve been writing it all down, using a glorious potpourri of written notes, audio notes, and images.

And it’s beginning to come together. I’m pretty sure I know what I want from the Prologue and the first couple of chapters, but I’m resisting the urge to actually write them until I’ve finished the outline. Already, I’ve found myself going back to the outline and dropping something else into it because I know it’ll be important later. It’s frustrating - it feels like being in pre-production on a game or a movie when all you want to do is start coding or shooting, but you know you’re not ready yet. If I start writing now, I’ll just end up with yet another half-assed draft. But already, I can see the improvement and I know it’ll be worth it.

I’ve also found myself thinking about two other stories that have been going nowhere for a while. The Thousandth Night requires lots of interwoven interstitial stories that all come together at the end, and it’s essential that they’re presented in the right order. I have the main story, but the rest have been eluding me. And A Taste of Power, a complex fantasy, hasn’t progressed beyond three different versions of the opening chapter and two different framing stories after night on ten years. Outlining it is helping me figure out how to tell it in a way that works.

I still love the heady rush of sitting down at a keyboard and letting the words flow freely, with no real idea what’s going to happen next. I still like the idea of being able to improvise stories on demand. But when it comes to writing anything longer than a short story, that can only be the beginning of the creative process - at least, for me.