Starting Up—Jillian Grant Shoichet
I’ve been writing with the DeadLies for nearly a decade, and I am chagrined to admit that until M.G. Sondraal’s post about plotting and pants-ing, I had no idea how to spell the word “pants-er” (pancer? pantzer? pantzyr?), let alone what the etymology of the term might be.
In Deadly meetings, we often talk of plotting and pants-ing; I always nod and say, Yes, I’m a bit of a plotter but mostly a pants-er, and inside I’m thinking to myself, What am I confessing to?
But a few years into an intimate relationship (and ultimately, that’s what a dedicated writing group is), I can’t admit to my ignorance without also admitting that all along I’ve been pretending to be something I’m not – or, at least, something I might not be – to a group of confidantes. So I just keep nodding and smiling and saying, Yes, yes, a pantser: that’s so me.
Now, the reckoning: I’m not nearly as much of a seat-of-my-pants-er as the real pants-ers in our group, but I’m not nearly as plot-oriented as the true plot-crafters among us.
I’ve coined a new term for myself: When it comes to story writing and telling, I’m a plodder.
As a plodder, I’m often stuck in the middle. Not moving back and forth along a “continuum,” which sounds a bit like dancing on a rainbow bridge. More like I’m mired in a peat bog. I watch with envy as those of us who dig down deep till their plot, fertilize the soil with backstory, water their growing narratives. I’m thrilled by the aerial acrobatics of the fly-by-the-seat-of-their-pants-ers, who pluck character choices seemingly out of thin air, as surprised and delighted by what their characters do and say as I am.
As a plodder, I can’t plot a story without first knowing my character – what she thinks, how she relates to others. Plotting anything before I know who I’m writing about feels like an exercise in futility.
But how can I know my character until she does something? Doesn’t the nature of a plot shape character as much as anything else?
I slog a few metres towards the plotter’s garden. Then I look up at the sky and get distracted by the pants-er’s antics.
But then I look down and it occurs to me that a peat bog has its merits. It might not look like much in the beginning. Nothing grows very fast. If you misstep, you find yourself in a sinkhole. Sometimes, it smells. But once it’s burning, a peat bog burns hot – and it burns for a long time.
There are gardeners who move a plant half a dozen times before finding the right spot for it. They’re not the fastest gardeners on the block; no one would pay them by the hour. But their garden still blooms.
It’s okay to be a plodder. It’s okay to carve out my plot an inch at a time – watch how my character reacts to an event, then reshape my plot to suit her.
That’s what I tell myself, anyway.
