Planner or Pantser?

Last week I told you that I had decided to use a 25-year-old idea for my NaNoWriMo project this year. And then I didn’t tell you what that project was.

I wanted to leave you something for this week.

In the early 1990s, I went back to school at Los Medanos College in Pittsburg, California. While there, I was president of the Christian Fellowship Club for several semesters. That was an interesting time. I saw a lot of different things. I experienced a lot of different things. I learned a lot of different things while I was there, and all because of that position that I held.

My novel will be based upon my experiences with the Christian Fellowship Club at LMC. It will be a story of a maverick finding himself thrust into a position of leadership in a typically conservative organization.

And that leads me to my NaNoWriMo Topic of the Day.

Planners versus pantsers.

Like so many other endeavors, NaNoWriMo has grown its own vocabulary. One of the common dialogues you will find at NaNoWriMo groups is between Planners and Pantsers.

Some writers like to have their project planned out in advance. They have their research complete and organized. They have their book outlined. They know in advance all of the twists and turns that their stories will take. These are the Planners. 

Then you have those who prefer to Fly By the Seat of Their Pants. Hence, Pantsers. They usually have no idea where their story will go. They might not even have all of their characters in mind when they start. They like to be as surprised while writing it as their readers will be when reading it.

When I worked on my memoir project, I was definitely a Planner. It was a memoir. I knew where the story went, and how it ended. I knew all of the characters. I just needed to write those memories down in a creative way. 

This year, while my story is based upon my experiences, those experiences will be the basis for a fictionalized version of that story. My tenure as president spanned the better part of two years. I am going to compress that story into nine months, using material from the breath of my time there, plus some completely fictionalized complications.

Do I have this story outlined? Nope. Do I know all of the characters in the story yet? I know the principal characters, about five of them right now, but not all of them. Do I know how the story ends?  Roughly, yes, but I am going to include a fictional problem as a major point of the book…maybe the major point of the book…and I do not know yet how that problem will be resolved. I do have one specific event that will tie all of the others together.

Do I have any of this written down? Nope. I only have the basic ideas that have been living in my head for 25 years.

Am I terrified as I prepare to plunge into this project? Absolutely!

I believe I have joined the Pantsers this year.

Wish me luck!

Do any fellow NaNoWriMo players want to give us a snapshot of their experiences so far this year? Leave a comment!

Geo.

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I decided at the last minute to participate in this year’s NaNoWriMo. Over the Halloween weekend, I wrote out a few pieces that I will schedule to post over the next few weeks. Fridays with Dale have already been scheduled through Thanksgiving.

Here is my first piece for the month…

Geo. Parker

I’m sure I’m crazy.

I decided to take another shot at NaNoWriMo.

For most of the last few weeks, I was certain that there was no way I was participating this year. So many projects; so little time. There is the as-yet unfinished memoir. There is the stalled California Conservation Corps podcast and website that need to be jump-started. There is the poetry writing that I have recently discovered. (Thank you, Linda Boyden!) There are the ever-present Writers Forum website and newsletter that take time.

How could I park all that stuff for a month and shoot out 50,000 words on a different project? There is simply no time in my life for that sort of commitment.

Then about a week ago…

Hmm. Maybe I could finish the memoir this year. Then it wouldn’t exactly be redirecting my attention from a current project. Then I could feel like I was following through on other commitments, anyway. However, at this point, the memoir doesn’t need 50,000 new words. The only new writing it needs is an 8,000 word bridge at one point. What it needs is editing. It needs words removed in most of it. It needs words rearranged. It needs good words replaced with better words.

NaNoWriMo is not for any of these things. NaNoWriMo’s purpose is to crank out 50,000 words on a new project. No editing allowed at all. The common phrase is that NaNoWriMo is for writers to ‘puke out’ 50,000 words.

New project, huh?

Well, there is the fantasy world that I have been thinking about for about thirty years. Last year, I finally started running a Dungeons & Dragons campaign in that world. I even wrote a short story set in that world to explain a background character. Yeah! That’s it! A fantasy novel!

But I’ve actually been stuck in that setting, too. Well, NaNoWriMo will help me brute through those blocks, right?

Still…it doesn’t feel ‘new’ enough for NaNoWriMo.

Then, on the last Friday of October, two days before NaNoWriMo officially starts on November 1, I had a new idea. Well, ‘new idea’ in that I have never written anything in it before.

But it’s an idea that has been stewing for 25 years.

And that will be my NaNoWriMo project for 2020.

Stay tuned for more of my 2020 NaNoWriMo journey.

I would ask for you to share your 2020 NaNoWriMo project origin stories, but since NaNoWriMo is now officially underway, you’re all probably busy with more important projects.

Geo.

Writers Forum is open to submissions for the blog or the newsletter.

Type of Material and Guidelines for e-newsletter and Website Submission: 1.) Your articles on the art or craft of writing. 2.) Essays on subjects of interest to writers. (200 words can be quoted without permission but with attribution.) 3.) Book or author reviews. 4.) Letters to the Editor or Webmaster. 5.) Information on upcoming events, local or not. 6.) Photos of events. 7.) Advertise your classes or private events. 8.) Short fiction. 9.) Poetry.

Please submit copy to the editor at writersforumeditor@gmail.com . Electronic submissions only. Microsoft Word format, with the .docx file extension, is preferred but any compatible format is acceptable. The staff reserves the right to perform minor copy editing in the interest of the website’s style and space.