About This Workshop
Flying by the seat of your pants to
write the first draft for your book feels so freeing. It’s a time to play, to
experiment, to try out new ideas. What fun!
But diving into a project as big as
a novel without any plan at all often means a lot of extra work after the draft
is completed as you scramble to revise hundreds of pages that might have no
cohesion, inconsistent characters, or a wandering plot.
One way to lessen that extra work is
to go into the rough draft phase of your book with a better idea of where the
story’s headed. That doesn’t mean knowing everything about your story (how
boring would that be?), but it does mean knowing something to give your story
direction.
“Outline” is a scary word for most
pantsers. It sounds restrictive, it sounds tedious, it sounds boring. So, there
will be no “outlines” here. Nope. None. Instead, you’re going to build yourself
a “framework” for your story that’s open and flexible, with plenty of room for
playing, experimenting, and checking out new ideas off the beaten path whenever
the inspiration strikes you.
Story Planning for Pantsers: Keep your freedom, but keep on track, too.
