Marilyn's Musings

Writers frequently debate whether it’s better to write by the “seat of the pants,” going day by day, discovering what happens as it happens, or to plot the story in an organized fashion, perhaps creating as much as a twenty-page outline before any “real” writing begins. Steven James makes a good case for the pantser in his book on writing titled Story Trumps Structure . He’s a pantser himself; that way his writing is more organic. I started out as a complete pantser. After each day’s writing session, I asked myself, what should come next? What makes more sense? I slept on that question, and the next day I got up and started writing. Although the process did indeed seem organic, what I wound up with was a mess! I had scenes I didn’t need and others that didn’t help the novel. I had to go back with an evil eye and cut out—so painful!—extraneous details. For example, one recent novel I drafted was over a hundred thousand words. That’s probably too many! But after I cut al...