Planning/Organizational Structure for Pantsers

Troy Lambert

How Can Something Called Plottr … Help Pantsers?

Does not Compute!

- Plotters outline before they write

  Pantsers don’t plot – they just write

  Right?

Aside: Many Pantsers do plot, just later in the process – most often between the first and second drafts

4 Ways Discovery Writers (aka Pantsers) Use Plottr

-      Post-Plotting

-      Revising First Drafts

-      Managing Story & Series Bibles

-      Tracking Tentpole Events

How Pantsers Use Plottr: The Visual Book Planning and Story Bible Tool for Writers

1st of Four Strategies: Plot as You Go

-      At the end of each writing day: plot what you wrote

Open Plottr: Use a free-form plot and create “main plot” and “scene 1”. In “notes” enter:

What did I write?

-      Tag characters and places

-      Brief summary I can use later

-      Questions for me the author

-      Questions for the reader

Go into as much detail as you need

At the end of the day, plot what you wrote

-      Write a summary of the scenes you wrote that day and notes/bullet points

-      Can tag characters and places in upper left

-      Write any questions I want to ask of myself, the author, and the reader

-      Include word count

-      Track events where they “should be” in the story

2nd Method: Deconstruction

1. Write your complete first draft

2. Take what was written and plot it on a Plottr plot outline in the main story free-form in the top line

3. Add one or more methods below what you wrote, e.g. 3-act structure and hero’s journey

4. Compare what you wrote to the other standard outlines – each a known, successful strategy, which does it best match?

5. Compare your actual word count percent of story to the standard, how well does it match that models recommendations?

6. Decide what changes do you need to make in your second draft

3rd Method: Story and Series Bible

1. Keep track of notes, people and places

2. If a fervent structure rebel, what you want to remember to be able to

research for future reference, say: How Strychnine Poisoning works

3. Put Characters in Here with Attributes: Height/weight/hair color/Shy…

         Are they protagonist. Villain, sidekick … relationships

4. Put Places (with Pictures), timeline, outline …

4th Method

1. Simple Plotting

2. I use Freytag’s Pyramid (Isn’t Original Freytag, It’s a Modern Modification)

On top of seven tent-pole events - Just Discovery Write Between Them

3. 8 Tent-pole Event Plots (W-Plot, Circle Events…)

Review

1st Method -Post Plotting

Write your scenes

Outline Them in Plottr as you go

Core Benefit: Keep the story on-track

2nd Method - Revising first drafts

Revise using a Plottr template

Core Benefit: Hit your story beats

3rd Method - Story plus Series Bibles

Organize your character and places

Use Plottr templates to inspire ideas

Track details across series

Core Benefit: Save time and energy

4th Method – Tracking Tentpole Events

Visualize the main turning points of your story on a Plottr timeline

Write what happens between them (without further planning)

Core Benefit: focus your creativity

Is Plottr Right for Me?

-      You’re a visual thinker

-      You already have a process, but you don’t enjoy it

-      You want an easy way to track your characters and places across individual books and series

-      You feel disorganized and unsure how to get on track

-      You worry about revising and losing sight of plot holes