Road Trip Wednesday: Plotter or Pantser

Yay, this is my first YA Highway Road Trip Wednesday post ever! (See the emblem. Do you see it? YES IT REALLY IS REAL) --------------------->

I've always wanted to do one, but thought it was some sort of exclusive club. I still don't feel like an exclusive club member or anything, but I will do a post anyway, because if you can't be free on the internet, then WHERE?

So, plotter or pantser?

For me, it depends on the novel. I have run the gamut from so pants-ed I was naked to spending a month making eighteen spreadsheets.Here are my thoughts on each:

Pantsing it: My first book I wrote with no clue where I was going. It was fun and kittens and daisies and I came up with all kinds of inventive and funny scenes. Aaaaaand it also took two years to finish and was insanely long.

Verdict: Unadulterated fun in drafting. Prepare to spend months--nay, years--in editing hell.

Planning it: Totally burned by pantsing it, I tried the Snowflake method. I spent over a month writing character bios, scene spreadsheets, chapter run-downs. Writing and revising were quick, but the plot felt...well, blaaaah. Freed by my outline from the shackles of having to write things that kept me entertained, I stuffed the book with mountains of boring crap. Because that's what the plan said to do.

Verdict: Less rewriting, beautiful chapter structure. Limp, bloated storyline.

The Middle Way: This is what I'm trying right now. I made a very general outline, then jumped in. I write a scene at night, and spend the next day at work planning what comes next, always trying to amp up the stakes and twist the characters a bit.The writing has been fast and each individual scene has its own unique punch. No blah blah filler scenes like in my last book.

Verdict, so far: Very fast writing. High enthusiasm. Streamlined plot. Lots of gaps between key scenes. Moderate rewriting required. Finished product = ??? The eternal optimist in me says it will be amazing. Too bad the eternal optimist is DEAD.

(Just kidding!)

What about you? Planner? Panster? Just love saying Pants over and over again because it's a hilarious word? Me too. Pants pants pants pants pants pants.

Share Your Dearly Departed First Novel

I was thinking about whether to post my thoughts on the now-infamous WSJ article on darkness in YA . But so many wonderful things have been said already, on twitter and across the blogosphere.

Instead of ranting, I thought it might be nice just to have some loving sharing time. Lots of folks seemed to resonate with the process of putting your first novel to bed. It got me really curious about what everyone's first projects were. So! I cordially invite you to share your first novel, first short story, whatever today. Anything you loved and lost, as Kari Marie put it so beautifully in her comment yesterday.

I'll get the ball rolling:

My first novel was about a bratty princess who was abducted by an evil wizard and forced into a war to rid the land of all non-human creatures. She killed the wizard (after falling in love with him), saved her kingdom (after learning they were genocidal maniacs), and instead of becoming the hero, royally effed up everything.

I wrote it when I was 19, and I still love it. But it was 150,000 words long (*urk*) for what was basically a middle grade premise. So I laid it to rest.

What about you? What are the stories you mourned for?

Dear First Novel: It's Over

Dear First Novel,

Welcome to your new home!

I'm sorry. I just can't keep revising you like this. Sure, it was great in the beginning. I'll never forget the nights we spent curled up on the laptop until 4 in the morning. Remember how I told you we'd win the Pulitzer because I didn't know anything about book awards back then? Good times.

But I'm a different writer now. I know how to vary my sentence structure and frankly, all your sentences start with "I verb" and are five lines long. My agent says I need to try other genres. I want to experience short stories, maybe some verse. You know. Find myself.

What? No, I will not self-publish with you. God, you want me to throw away my writing career on the slim chance we'll get 300 readers on Amazon? No. No. What would my Twitter friends say if they knew I was still with you? Oh, it's all about you isn't it? Quit your job, Julia. Stop hanging out with your friends, Julia. I'll bring in all the money you need, Julia. You know what, First Novel? No one wants to read about pirate werewolves. You have a STUPID PREMISE. There, I said it.

Oh, no. Please...please stop crying. Look, I still love you. You'll always be my first novel. What we had was the purest joy I've ever known. And someday when I'm published, I'll take you out of the drawer and wonder what might have been if I'd known how to write when I was 19.

...Goodbye First Novel.