Are you a plotter or a pantser?

I'll start!

I'm a plotter. I create elaborate mind mapping documents and then I try to turn those into scene lists from which I write. I also use mind mapping to create character sketches and outlines. I'm insane and I know this.

This year, I'm a little behind and I plan to use the plotting bash to play catch up. I do have an idea and characters and the start of a scene list. My novel opens with a fender bender in a parking lot between the two main characters, Noah and Kendall.

I love it!

Go Tigers!

Hehe. Those of you who know Vikki and I might be surprised to hear this, but I'm the exact opposite. I'm a total pantser. (Of course, those of you who know Vikki and I already know that, so maybe not such a huge surprise after all.)

When I sit down to write, I usually have a vague inkling in my head of my characters and what their story is. Once or twice, I've had a shadow of an idea about were the story was going to end up. Sometimes my brain even sketches out a rough snapshot of a scene or two, but I have to go into my writing with a blank page. I can't plot in advance. The day I write an outline or a scene list, that's the day my story dies. I can't even do character bios ahead of time.

The worst part of that is that then the plan for where the story *should* go becomes the last thing ever written. It's sad to watch, really, and it's happened many times before. I've learned my lesson -- no writing planning-type stuff down for me.

~Nikki
http://www.nlberger.com

NaNoWriMo 2006 - Aundroma I: Memories
NaNoWriMo 2007 - Aundroma II: Missions (won!) AND Pineapple Upside-Down Cake
NaNoWriMo 2008 - Aundroma III: Momentum (won!)
NaNoWriMo 2009 - Death Makes A Lousy Dinner Date

As I think about my writing process, which I have been trying to figure out for the past...oh...several years...I don't know exactly what I am. I LOVE lists so I attempt to lay out an outline, and I have notecards for specific scenes, and then I think about my characters ALOT. I spend lots of time w/ them to understand why they do the things they do. BUT when I'm writing I also tend to just let things go where they will and stray from my outline. Sometimes I end up re-writing the whole thing.

HOWEVER

I am bored once I outline. Maybe I should try being a complete pantser this year and see if my productivity level rises.

Hm...this has given me something to think about. I definitely want to at least get some details out of my head and onto paper so I will remember them....but maybe leaving the outline out of the equation for this story wouldn't hurt...

What about the rest of you?

-Kate the Sape/Snapefan4life

"The day you do suss out what you want, there'll probably be a parade. Seventy-six bloody trombones." - Spike

Last year, I was a pantser! I knew my characters and their motivations inside out, and I knew (or so I thought) where I wanted the story to go and why. Unfortunately, I was very wrong, despite months of thinking about my characters and who they were, and the novel fizzled out at just over 30,000 words. I never finished! And honestly, I probably never will. It was a good exercise, but now that I've sat down and re-read the whole thing, it has far too many weaknesses to justify doing anything other than scrapping it and starting over...and I don't have the energy for that! Not with those characters anyway!

This year I'm plotting! I've spent a fair amount of time working out the characters and why they might act the way they act, and I've spent a good chunk of time building the world they live in, and most importantly, I've written and revised (and revised and revised and--oooh, now that I think of it, that detail won't work, let me just write that down...), and I actually feel ready for this year's Nano as a result. I'm confident that I can make it to the 50,000 mark...and possibly beyond, at the rate things are going! (There is a LOT that needs to happen to get everyone from Point A to Point Z!)

I'm finding that plotting is the much better process for me.

Euphemia (2008)
Heir of Solland (2009)
Need to waste some time this Nano? Check out Subeta!

I like to plan out my characters and events that will happen then let it fly. I often come up with events after I've begun

This year, my plot is not really there, so I have to relie on my characters to make the conflicts this time. Pants for the win, right? At least I hope...

Fun Fact: Claiming NaNoWriMo as your religion and your writing desk, along with the buliding that houses it, a place of worship will not get you federal tax reductions.

NaNo 2008: To His Face-Fantastic FAIL (13k)
NaNo 2009: Blackjack-We shall see...

I guess I would be a reformed pantser, maybe. When ever I would start to writing something that I thought would be cool I would get about 20k words in and then lose it cause I had no Idea where it was going. Although now that I have been introduced to the phase outline process I feel I am a definite plotter, with a little pantser thrown in for spice!

I do have an idea for my story (Albeit a very played out idea, but it's my first time so go easy on me) and I am almost finished with my out line, I just need to figure out how to end it.

- What doesn't kill will probably make you wish you were dead -

I am very much a plotter. I pantsed for years but always got stuck when I had no idea what would happen next.

Plotting gives me a road map. I tend to deviate from the plot I initially write when new and exciting things happen on the page, but having some sort of outline gives me a place to fall back on if I get stuck. My process changes a little with each book I write. For my NaNo project, I hope to have a working scene list before November 1st, but we will see.

Columbia, SC Municipal Liaison
Once Bitten NaNo from 2005.
My BLOG

I'm with you Kate. I'm still trying to figure out what my writing process is. I like brainstorming before hand because it's fun, and I have used the Snowflake Method - http://www.advancedfictionwriting.com/art/snowflake.php - to figure out characters and basic plot (I'll be explaining how to snowflake a novel at the plotting session this weekend). But no matter how detailed the outline, or how strong the scene list, I find that in the writing, everything changes. And in the rewrite, everything changes again. And in the next rewrite, everything changes again. My drafts never look anything like their predecessors. It 's getting to the point where NaNo seems like one big plotting session for me. It's in the rewrites that the story really starts to take shape. And yes, this is a horrible way to write and write and write a novel. I shall accept your pity in the form of gifts of chocolate...

Christy

Winner - 2006, 2007, 2008 as Orual

Another mad mind-mapster here. I love having the visuals. With having the sub plots running along side-by-side and intertwined with the main story line visually, it makes it so easy to keep them straight. Never would have dared to dabble with multiple plots before discovering mind mapping. Some problems I've faced as being a plotter is over planning. If I put too much into it, I get bored. Also, even though I can always go back and edit/add/move/remove points in a mind map, I'm still a linear plotter. I just can not bring myself to outline a scene out of order. Haha.

I used to be pantser. I was just getting into outlining last year when I discovered NaNo. I had the first quarter of the novel outlined and that part of the writing went smoothly. After that, my story bogged down. Even though I knew where I wanted to the story to end up, I got lost in the scenes, became frustrated and failed with only 25k words.

- Tonya

I'm plotting seriously for the first time this year. I've taken a good look at how I write best. I've never finished any fiction, but I've done my share of academic and professional writing and I need to know everything I want to cover in advance. I have the start of a pretty strong outline so far, and I'm really optimistic about winning this year. Plus, it keeps me distracted and busy while I'm waiting for the first.

NaNo '07: The Syntax of Things--Failed
NaNo '09: Billy Nolan and the Bane of Olympus--?

I would say that I'm both. If I do plot, it's in my head, or write a quick summary of the entire book. I like to write and think as I go. And sometimes, I think of a new plot or scene in my head and either jot it down, or just remember it until I'm ready to type it. :-D

Ok, I think I take the plotting one step farther. I like not only to have a plot, but to work from another piece of writing all together. Last years Nano success was a three page Fairytale that I turned into a 50,000+ word novel. This year I'm using a Bible story that's a chapter long. It comes with the added bonus that I have to work out the culture, architect, and layout as historically accurate as I can. That and character names are going to be the road blocks to this story.

A mind troubled by doubt cannot focus on the course to victory.
Arthur Golden, Memoirs of a Geisha

Plotter. Hands down. I outline and re-outline until I run out of ink. But the muse...she's flighty. And one look at a word war timer sends her plummeting through dimensions of time and space where no outline can follow...

I also obsessively worksheet. But this year I'm giving myself less time to do it, so I might be behind before I get started!

To know what you prefer instead of humbly saying Amen to what the world tells you you ought to prefer, is to have kept your soul alive. --Robert Louis Stevenson

StarStones: NaNo Novel 2007
Eyewitness: NaNo Novel 2008
Broken Spark: NaNo Novel 2009

I do it differently every time. In fact, that seems to be a requirement for me. My first novel, I wrote from a prompt which suddenly got sideswiped from family-angst literary fiction into religious-persecution sci-fi a few chapters into the story. In '06, I used the Marshall Plan for Novel Writing (I have the book, if anyone would like to borrow it) to write two 25k outlines and a few assorted scenes. In '07, I put a sign on the back of my laptop that said "Want to be in a novel?" and stole characters from my dorm. (The person who modeled for the MC later implied that I had stalked him, which is completely untrue. I don't need to follow someone to understand their character. It's hardly my fault that my guesses were accurate. Harrumph.). In '08, I had 3+ different outlines and something like 7 drafts of the first chapter (all wildly different) as a basis.

This year, I'm using XMind to keep things straight. I normally despise mind-mapping, but it's working very well so far.

http://www.nanowrimo.org/NanowrimoUtils/MyMonth/95590-goal=200000-pc-day...
Ideal Goal: 200k
Minimum Goal: finish Only Child

I've never used mind mapping software before but after reading this post I checked out XMind. I like it. First of all, it's free which allowed me to play with its other features. Second, it really does help me visualize my plot as it expands way out of control. I'm usually a pen and paper kind of girl because I do most of my writing in the carpool line, but I'm trying all sorts of new things with Nano.

Something of both. It's kind of like I've watched a trailer for the season of television that is my story. Then I start writing. I know where I want it to go, but I'm not sure how it gets there. It does, eventually, and I'm as surprised as anyone else when it comes together.