Freedom.
People often talk about the fact that writers are traditionally split into two distinct camps — the ‘plotters’ and the ‘pantsers’. When I wrote the first draft of my debut novel I was firmly in the ‘pantser’ column, writing with out a clear end in mind, just going where the characters took me. However, as I sit down to begin work on my second novel, I’ve got a sneaking feeling I’ve shifted allegiances. This time around I’m doing a lot more preliminary work before I write a single word.
Part of the reason is because I feel much more confident on where I want this book to go, the type of story I want it to be. Another large part of it is that (with the benefit of hindsight) I can see I would have saved myself massive chunks of rewriting if I’d done some of this detailed exploratory work before I started writing my first novel. That’s not to say I’d change my experience, because I learnt so much about the craft of writing by the exercise of simply doing, but that now I can see the benefits of having a strong spine on which to helix my story around from the beginning. And as strange as it sounds, having a plot and character arc planned before I begin writing has given me a unique sense of freedom.
I feel like I’ve got more scope to explore ideas early on (including ridiculous and unexpected ones) without having to write pages and pages of prose that might take me ‘nowhere’. (Even though I also agree that no writing on your novel is ever truly wasted — those pages might not ever make it in to the finished product, but they will likely enrich your understanding of character, place or motivation.)
So I like to think of my plotting exercises as a spine that centres and strengthens the core premise of my work. Like the skeletons inside each of us. You can weave around the bones, branch off onto unexpected tangents and limbs, explore the hidden places your characters take you, but that the central structure will still be there to focus your searches and remind you of the key issues. So I think it’s a win win. A strong and solid foundation mixed with the freedom to explore extremities all around.
Let’s see if that philosophy holds true when I’m due to start Book 3…