On Being a Writing Pantser

If you’ve looking into how to write fiction, you’ve heard the terms pantser and plotter. Pantser being someone who writes “by the seat of their pants” by just seeing where the story goes. A plotter being someone who maps out the story before writing it. 

I started out as a pantser. Which led to a whole lot of story starts that didn’t go anywhere. I figured the solution for that was to plot out my books. So, I did a lot of research and took a lot of notes. I watched several romantic comedies and plotted them out. Still didn’t finish anything.

However, I do think this helped me to internalize the flow of a story. Having to point out where the specific plot points are is difficult. As is diagraming a sentence. But, I can tell when a sentence sounds wrong and how it should be fixed most of the time. And with my study of plot structure, I got much, much closer to actually finishing something. 

I wrote about three quarters of a novel length iZombie fanfiction. I used a combination of plotting and winging it with that book. I didn’t finish it for two reasons:

1. The final season of iZombie dropped and I lost interest in my version of events, which took place after season 4.
2. I started struggling with getting depth in the characters’ points of view. 

But, I knew I was close. I put aside the iZombie fanfiction and turned to Lucifer fanfiction. I ended up writing a series of Lucifer fanfiction stories to explain what happened after season 3. I thought I finished them, but my husband said that I left the story hanging. So, I wrote about half of a last story to finish the series. Except then season 4 dropped and once again I was faced with my fiction being AU (alternate universe). 

Then, I saw BBC’s The Musketeers and once more the fanfiction bug hit me. So, I started writing one. Up to that point, I was writing in third person. When I started struggling with the iZombie story I wrote some scenes in first person and then switched them to third to fit with the rest of the story. So, when I started the Musketeers fanfiction, I again started with third person. Then, I realized it might work better in first. So I switched – mid paragraph I think. 

I stuck with that story for about a month before I got to the point where I wasn’t sure what direction I wanted to take it in. And was once more running into the issue of what I wanted to write didn’t fit with the original story. Plus, I’ve wanted to sell my fiction and I can’t sell fanfiction. 

So, I took a chance and decided to take my ideas and turn them into an original story. I wrote a draft and liked many parts of it (you can find it in my Alternate and Deleted Scenes section). I also decided to switch to first person. When the first draft made me realize where the story really needed to start, I went back to that point and started over. Thirty two days later I had the first draft of a novel. The first novel I ever finished. It was around 125,000 words. Which is super long, so I decided to break it into two books. 

So, what was different about this time? I didn’t do any plotting. I wrote until I got stuck, then did a little bit of brainstorming to get me back into the flow and was back at it. Any “outlining” I actually did ended up getting scrapped, unless it was just a general note.

I also wrote in first person. My characters really came alive and writing the story became easy. At first I just wrote in Retta’s point of view. Then, when my husband reviewed Knight (book 1) for me, he pointed out areas where my writing could be strengthened, and that’s when I realized I needed to write from Anders’s point of view as well. The first draft of King (book 6) did have sections from Anders’s point of view, but they were in third person. Yikes – it was so weird to read them. But King was written before my husband started reviewing Knight. After getting comfortable switching between Retta and Anders, I changed King to do the same. 

Something funny happens when you write this way – things show up and you don’t know what’s going to happen. This is very evident in the unfolding of the tale of the dagger. In Pawn (book 5), Retta finds a dagger under the map table in the Strategy Room (formerly the War Room). Before I wrote that scene, I had no idea there was a dagger under the table. And I certainly didn’t know the dagger was going to become such a big deal, either. 

I wanted to share a summary of my thought process over several days as I wrote through where the dagger came from and what it meant. Note – there are some spoilers here, but I won’t reveal the answer to the final mystery. You’ll have to read Pawn to find out.

Retta was attacked and collapses on the floor. From her spot on the floor, she sees a dagger on a hidden shelf under the table. She takes the dagger, because having it in hand makes her feel better. She goes back to her rooms and puts the dagger on the bed side table. 

So, that’s the end of the dagger. Except…Chekhov’s gun, or in this case, dagger. Which means I either had to edit out the dagger, or it actually had larger significance. 

I decided it must have more significance and wrote a scene where Anders tells Retta that the dagger isn’t just a dagger. I was thinking he was going to say that the handle was unique – perhaps two snakes entwined. Then, I thought maybe there was something stamped on the blade. 

Nope, turns out there’s a secret compartment in the handle of the dagger. Oh – really? What’s inside? Maybe a rolled up piece of paper. Nope again. Turns out there’s a key inside. 

Huh…so what does the key open? No idea. Why was the dagger under the table? Who put it there? How long has it been there? No ideas.

Then, Retta asks her father about the key and he says it looks like a key for a puzzle box. Puzzle box? Really? Interesting. So, where’s the box? No idea. What’s in the box? No idea. 

Now that I know it’s a puzzle box, do I know who hid the key? Nope. Which means I still didn’t know how the key got in the dagger or how the dagger got under the table. 

Retta meets with Jephson, head of the Thieves Guild. She asks him if he knows anything about a puzzle box. He says, yes, a puzzle box was given by Petidar (George, killed in Queen, Book 2) to Margaret (second queen of Jador, died in a carriage accident about a year before Retta comes to Jador) and it’s in the vault. Is it? Something tells me it’s not in the vault. But, did Petidar give it to Margaret? Maybe. Did she hide the key? No idea.

Retta goes to the vault and the box isn’t there. That doesn’t surprise me. What does surprise me is that Celeste finds a book in the vault titled A History of Jador and the Elves. Jador had a history with the Elves? That’s news. 

Retta reads the book and finds out the puzzle box was given by the Elves to the crown over 200 years before. Okay…why isn’t the box still in the vault? Is there a second box that Petidar gave to Margaret? 

Retta talks to her friends and they figure that Petidar must have had someone steal the key to the vault and then he stole the box. When he was caught with the box, he claimed it was a gift for the queen.

Incidentally, this also explains why the Captain of the Guard is now responsible for the key to the vault. I’d established that a while before and figured it was because the king wanted to make sure it was under protection. Well, that’s true, but he decided to do so after the key was stolen once. When Petidar stole it in order to get in and steal the box. Yea! That loop is closed. 

The box is most likely at the Petidar estate, they think. This is true. It’s on a side bar in the formal dining room. [Note: I actually realized that as I was writing the first draft of this summary – I hadn’t gotten to that scene yet.] Talbot (current Duke of Petidar, George’s youngest son) thinks it was a gift from Margaret. Retta doesn’t know that yet, but she’ll find out when she visits Talbot.

Well, clearly Petidar never opened the box, because Retta found the dagger. She figures the dagger must have been put there by Atters, the head of the king’s apartments, whom Anders fired. Except, as of when Retta finds the dagger, that was over a year after Petidar was killed, and at least three years after Margaret died, so why hadn’t Atters retrieved the dagger if he put it there? And what’s in the box? 

Then, while thinking over this issue, I realized that it wasn’t Atters that stole the key to the box. That was stolen by someone in the queen’s entourage who died when she did. And, they died before they could tell Petidar where the key was (and Atters knew nothing about it). Petidar probably had someone look for it, but it was already hidden, and the secret was taken to the grave with the thief. Until Retta found the dagger. 

So, every mystery was solved except the big one – what’s in the box? Clearly it was something that Petidar wanted very much. It’s also something that must have bearing on the current story. At one point I wondered if it was some kind of seal from the Elves. 

Then, I realized what’s in the box…

If I recall, I came to this realization while putting away groceries. Not all the details – that I worked out deliberately. But the central bombshell that was revealed by the secret compartment in the box occurred to me out of nowhere.

However, the tale of the box and it’s contents didn’t end there. Retta understood how serious the information she discovered was, so she spoke with Tyler Steffon about it. After that discussion, she decided to leave everything as she found it and return the box back to the vault. Where it sat, in the back of everyone’s mind (including mine), more like a canon than a gun. And then it was fired in King.