Not long after I blogged about my new writing process, I ran into a change.
I had trouble getting traction with a prompt. That’s happened before, but, it was taking longer than usual.
Once I formulated the key to the premise, I started dumping possibilities and defining parameters. I had made up a medical condition and spent a lot of time investigating how that would impact the character and theorizing how they would react and respond. I had, I think, over 2,000 words of notes before I drafted a flashback summary of how it all began and his first investigations. I wrote this because I felt that I needed to firm up a starting point, even though I wasn’t ready to draft.
I needed more notes, but it was slow going. At one point, I thought I had the theme but there were so many things I had to ‘experience’ as the character that I kept drafting very short unsequenced moments which led to more theorizing and attempts to define his new reality in my notes.
My notes and draft fragments started to feel like a collection of analysis and responses from a bunch of medical researchers and patients. Probably too many for one short story. I worried that I might have to write a novella.
When I had around 3,500 words of notes, I reached a point where I felt comfortable building on the flashback. I have a tendency to like starting in media res, so I opened a few weeks after the start, with the character now out in the world, showing the impact of his situation. After I drafted an opening scene, I skipped ahead to his arrival at his old work place, then dropped the flashback in.
Then I extended the flashback to include a scene where his boss had visited him at home. Then tacked on a couple of the unsequenced moments that I thought were most crucial.
Then, I went back to writing new material. The present, his attempt to return to work, showing the challenges. I had some ideas from my notes, but the scene I wrote wasn’t any that I had envisioned.
At this point, I realized I had never defined his character prior to the start of his issue, so I pantsed a scene where he tried to meet with friends to show who he used to be.
And then I realized I had not included one type of scene I had hoped to include. I had theorized that his adaptations might lead to what looks like a couple special skills, so I wrote a scene in the present where one of these show up.
I followed that up with another one where the other special skill, one that appeared briefly before, shows again.
So, this was new. These last four scenes were all pantsed to some degree. They used information and rules and built on ideas for scenes that I’d played with in my notes, but none were exactly what I’d imagined. I’d used no outline, and the sequencing itself was pantsed as well, based on thoughts I had at the moment about what I should write next.
Partly I think this happened because, 1) I had no target theme (I’d forgotten what I’d chosen), and 2) it was a very immersive premise and I think I needed flesh out the events and effects by early sketch-drafting and by pantsing to understand it and its effects. I probably lost sight of the theme because I had to focus on this. Almost like immersing myself in a character and forgetting there was a story.
My advantage was that I had spent years as a pantser, as well as the fact that I have never forced my writing to work; I’ve always experimented and tried to find the method that works for any given story.
At this point, the draft was over 3,000 words and I still had a bunch more unused sketches and notes that fit the premise. And, when I looked at my accepted theme, I didn’t like it so much any longer.
When I pants an entire story, I can get very stuck here. But I had a new idea, and, in 100 words, drew the story to a conclusion.
One more weird thing.
Normally, the editing and revision takes as much time as the entire brainstorming/outlining/drafting process has taken, or more.
But, now that I’ve finished the complete draft, I can’t find much to edit. I’ve sucked out a few phrases that weren’t needed, strengthened a transition between sections, but that’s it.
And that’s really unusual.
Maybe I paid for it, with the struggles and pauses and fixes in the first draft that made it slow compared with the last dozen stories. I’m not sure this makes sense though, because when I pants an entire story it often goes that slowly. And I had no (conscious) outline, so shouldn’t there be sections to reorder or revise to work properly with the rest?
Maybe it’s the new blended writing process.