Pirates, Pantsers, and Plotters

And don't be forgettin' today be International Talk Like a Pirate Day. 

Argh.

Ye can learn more 'bout it here.

'N if ye need help translatin' into scurvy pirate, here be a few resources:

Here, here and here.

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From PowerPoint

I've tried. I really, really have tried.

I sit down at my computer. There story's there in my mind, and I'm going to do an outline. Just a simple outline. Nothing fancy. Nothing complicated. I can do that. Right? It's simple.

I stare at the monitor, my fingers poised.

Nothing.

I stand and stretch, get a drink, and come back.

I can do this. I'm organized and orderly in every other aspect of my life. For heaven's sake, my DVDs and spices are in alphabetical order!

The monitor stares back at me. The keyboard mocks me. Nothing comes. I've been at this for an hour, an hour of precious writing time and I have nothing to show for it.

Like a junky needing a fix, I have to do something, get it on paper. The story's there. It wants out. I've been dreaming scenes for days. Too many days. If I don't get it down, I'm going to lose it. I'm old that way.

From PowerPoint

Fine. What is I just write a little bit of the story? The beginning. Just a little and see if I can force an outline of some kind out there.

And I write. And write. And write.

It's thousands of words later, and I'm jazzed. The story's coming. I'm getting those scenes I've been dreaming about down finally.

Other things are happening that hadn't occurred to me before, taking me down different paths than what I've been dreaming about.

And I like the way it's going!

For me, once I'm actually in the writing, my creative juices just flow like crazy. It's like they feed off the starting ideas and blossom out like yeast fed some sugar (all right, I haven't have breakfast yet).

So, that's my problem. I keep hearing from authors who outline who talk about how much easier writing is if people will just plot things out first. I'm happy for them. I'm astounded I'm not one of them.

I don't just jump into a project blind. I have a psychological profile I do up for my main characters which helps me establish backstory and motivations. At lot of that stuff, however, grows as I write. Characters become important I hadn't even considered creating when I imagined the tale.

I use Dan Wells' 7 point story structure format. It's simple enough that I can get some basic stuff down that I know I want to happen without pinning me down too much.

I tried to outline once using 3x5 post-it notes. Got 35,000 words into the story and went in a completely different direction with the tale and negated all the rest of my cards. Stopped the story cold and it was months before I picked it up again.

For me, the writing happens in the edits. The sooner  I get it down on paper, the sooner I can do the real writing.

What about you? Are you a plotter or a panster? What's appealing to you about your chosen style?