My writing process (or lack of)

Whilst I'm waiting to hear back from HMB about the revised ms I sent back in December, I’m doing the  only thing I can do, which is get on with my next story. Reading about other people’s writing process has got me thinking about my own and I’ve decided that I’m in awe of writers who are able to plan their novel down to the last detail before they begin their first draft.

Whenever I start a new project I decide that this time I’ll have the plot and emotional arc of my hero and heroine straight before I even begin to think about beginning the first chapter. So I do all the things recommended by all the workshops I’ve attended and writing guides I’ve read. I fill in character questionnaires; I work out my hero and heroine’s goals, motivations and conflicts; I try to imagine how they would react in certain situations. However, the moment I start writing, most of that flies out of the window. My problem is that I only really ‘get’ my hero and heroine when I throw them together and get them talking to each other, interacting.

Not even bright stationery can improve my planning

At first I thought I just wasn’t taking enough time to plan, and maybe that’s true—I accept that I’m impatient and when I get an idea I just can’t wait to get started. However, I also think there comes a time that I just have to accept this is how I work.

However, I do have a system, although any plotter worth their salt would sneer to hear it termed that. What I do is this. I always start out with a scenario—usually the moment when the hero and heroine meet. For example, the first image that came to me when I wrote The Welsh King’s Spy was the moment my heroine pulled back a beggar’s hood and found it was the hero in disguise. Everything else started from that point. From there I fill in the character sheets and the most important thing I get from these is each character’s internal conflicts. From the conflicts I work out what the Black Moment is going to be. I do try to do a story outline but I’ve never yet stuck to one!

Then I start writing. However, the most helpful trick I’ve found is to draft out each scene before I write it. I do this longhand and for some strange reason I find handwriting it rather than typing it straight onto my computer frees up my imagination. It’s no more than rough notes, but all of my best ideas have formed at this stage. Then when I write that scene onto the computer I find the words flow and I get through the scene much faster than if I’d tried to type it out from scratch.

That’s what works for me. What about you? Where do you stand on the plotter/pantser spectrum?