Confessions of a Reformed SOTP Writer

Hi everyone, Audra here. Happy April Fool’s Day! I’ll tell you right now, my husband is the king of practical jokes. Me? Not so much. They always backfire on me. Takes talent to pull off a good joke. I’ll have to research it. But in the meantime, I’ll just keep sitting with my back to the wall.

Seat Of The Pants writing, or SOTP to those us with such tendencies, has its good points and not so good points. SOTP writers write as the ideas come to them. We have a vague, fuzzy idea, or no idea at all where the story is going and give free rein to our characters. We know to start with a bang and end with a HEA. And the middle? Well, let’s just say, the ride was half the fun of writing the book.

For years, I’d try to plot out books. I’d pull out every how-to manual and attend every workshop. I’d read and re-read Dwight Swain and ponder the merits of scene / sequel, the character arc, GMC and more, only to get so confused, I’d minimize my screen, click on the Internet and get lost in Mahjong and Solitare. Talk about creating your own writer’s block!

Now before hothouse tomatoes get flung at me for dissing the very practice that has garnered some in our field tremendous success, let me state I have come to terms with my creative side. A creative side that doesn’t want to be boxed in, doesn’t want to follow a formula, doesn’t want to think, “Okay, so I just wrote a scene, now what am I supposed to do about a sequel?”

Do not stifle our creativity! We are writers, hear us roar!

Well, with that said, I’ll let you in on a secret: You don’t have to give up your creative juices to give the reader what they want. You just need a little acupuncture.

I found out a while ago that if you are a SOTP novelist, you spend most of your time in rewrites. Am I right? Come on SOTPers, I know you’re out there. You’ll whiz through a manuscript, send it into a contest only to have judges scratch their heads and utter a collective, “huh?” Stream of consciousness writing is great for a first draft. Problem is, until you confess your tendencies toward SOTP writing, you’ll be working and reworking that draft until you, your crit partners, and your computer are sick of the file labeled Great American Novel.

Let me offer a few hints to help you find the happy median between Pantser and Plotters:

First, there is nothing wrong with stream of consciousness writing for a first draft. Just shorten the process up. You need to sprint through your story idea like a greyhound after a rabbit. No plodding marathons allowed. Spend a few days – yes, days – working through your entire story idea. Once it’s on paper, the fun begins.

Getting the whole story on paper will make you feel so accomplished. Trust me. SOTP creating can sometimes drag into months. But you’ve avoided that. You’ve filled ten or twenty pages with ideas to work with. You’ve given yourself a roadmap.

Way to go!!

With this roadmap, you can see if your hero is all he’s cracked up to be in your romanticized mind. Does your heroine measure up? Does she have a fear of horses, or is it the dark barn she’s really avoiding? Do you need that many characters, or do you need more? Keep inserting those needles and see what nerve they tweak in the story. As your brain mulls over the overview, details will jump out at you. Take those details and write them down. You may not know where to place them at the moment, but they’ll be there when you need them.

Now, many of the Seekers have offered great ideas of organizing your writing – Myra, Pam and Tina had recent posts with great charts and spreadsheets. You don’t need to pick and choose a specific method, you can throw together as my concepts as you want, add your own categories – toss them together, shake, and spill. What your SOTP mind will see is a way to dissect your story for holes, to identify and include the elements important to every romance novel.

Do Not poo-poo Scene and Sequel. If you’re writing a scene, you run with it. If it’s a sequel, you stroll. Look at the jumble of thoughts in front of you and group your pieces together. Scenes and sequels do not need to be the same length, but they do need to give the reader a rhythm of sequencing. So, as you race through your story, slow down every so often for a sip of water along the way and let your character digest the information they’ve just received. Keep the volley of information going. Let your characters think, explore, discover.

And while they’re thinking, make their thoughts count. Don’t just fill up space on the page with words as some contest entries do, confusing morning journaling pages with a novel in progress when they get stuck in a corner. The roadmap reveals the obstacles ahead. You can prepare your characters so the transitions are smooth and plausible.

Of course all this stuff is red-lined in the multiple revisions SOTP writers are known for. Think about it. Wouldn’t it be nice to free up time and disk space with a couple less versions of the Great American Novel??

Now it’s time to share. What do you do to organize your thoughts? How can we Seekers and Friends help those in need of a short cut or two?? Toss out those ideas and keep them coming.

And let’s not forget to celebrate our holiday!! Share a practical joke you’ve played or one that has been played on you.

Include your email address and I’ll draw one writing idea and one practical joke for a gift bag of chocolate to be announced in the Weekend Edition!!

Blessings to you!!

Audra Harders still can’t believe her Steeple Hill Love Inspired debut novel, Rocky Mountain Hero, will hit the shelves January 2011! Wow. That’s the month after Christmas! And we all know Christmas is just around the corner. Or that’s what she tells herself : ) The celebration continues!!!