I was asked to present a workshop for the Tasmanian Writers Centre this year, on a subject of my choice. So I did one on plotting.
Plotting is one of those things that divides writers into two camps. Do I map out the story before I start my novel, or do I just begin writing and see what happens? The latter is also known as pantsing”, as in “writing by the seat of my pants”.
I fall very definitely into the plotting camp. I’ve tried pantsing, and it works for the first couple of weeks. But then it sends me into such a state of anxiety, worrying about what I’m going to write tomorrow, and where the book’s going, and if it’ll ever get there, that it’s just not worth the angst. Plus the story falls apart more and more, so that by the end of my first draft it’s a horrible, knotted thing that I can hardly bear to look at.
Writers who are dedicated to pantsing tend to think that it must be boring to write a novel which you’ve already plotted in some detail. “There are no surprises,” they say. “It’s like painting by numbers. Don’t you get bored?”
To me, this is a bit like saying, “It must be boring exploring the west coast of Tasmania if you’ve got a map.” Because the thing about maps (and plots) is, they only give you an outline. They tell you where you are, and where you might go next. They tell you there’s a cliff somewhere behind you, and the ocean half a kilometre away.
But they don’t tell you about the breathtaking view from the cliff, or the size of the ocean swell, or the crabs scuttling sideways across the beach. And when you see that view, or the swell or the crabs, you can always change your mind about where you’re going next.
Like maps, plots only tell you a certain amount. And they’re not set in stone. I plotted Haunted Warriors (Rogues #3) in considerable detail; it was probably the most thought-about plot I’ve ever built. But halfway through the actual writing, I suddenly had a glorious idea that changed everything.
It wasn’t in the plot, and theoretically I could have ignored it and still come up with a decent book. But that would be boring. So I scooped up that glorious idea and re-plotted the book to incorporate it.
Your journey isn’t tied to one particular route, just because you’ve got a map. And creativity/inspiration/surprises don’t stop happening just because you’ve got a plot.
So that’s what the workshop was about. Plotting as a tool for inspiration. Plotting as a map, not a compulsory journey.
. . .
Like so many people, I have a love/hate relationship with computer technology. When it works, it makes everything so much easier. But when it doesn't work, and I have to call for help, it makes me feel like a five-year-old struggling to learn to read. The people on the other end of the phone are usually very helpful, but they persist in asking me questions like, “Do you want to activate your VOIP?” And I have to say, pitifully, “What’s a VOIP?”
Getting connected to the National Broadband Network was a classic example:
THEM: Now press the button on your new modem beside the word “Wireless”.
ME: There’s no button beside “Wireless”.
THEM: Yes there is. Please press it.
ME: But there’s not a button.
THEM: There must be. There’s always a button.
ME: (beginning to panic) But there’s not.
THEM: Are you sure?
ME: Totally!
THEM: There SHOULD be a button. Have another look.
ME: There’s NOT A BUTT – oh, hang on. Do you mean this one?
In my defence, it didn’t look like a button. It looked like a strip of light. And it turned out that I was looking at the wrong “Wireless”. There were two of them. And only one had a button.
From a distance, this sort of thing is a joke. But at the time, the sense of humiliation (and occasionally panic) can go deep. I remember doing a computer workshop years ago, and finding myself in a cold sweat over something I didn't understand. There was no logic to my terror – we were all there to learn, and there was absolutely no expectation that we should know it already. But still I huddled in my chair with my heart beating far too fast and a desperate desire not to be noticed by the person running the workshop.
And it’s not just computers. A year or so before that, when I was teaching an adult education course on workplace writing, I saw this sort of thing from the other side. The workshop was for people who struggled with report writing, etc, and we were exploring fiction techniques that would hopefully make it easier. We were halfway through an exercise when one of the men in the class had a full-blown panic attack because he couldn't do what I was asking him to do.
This sort of fear goes right back to school days. When I talked to the class later, they had all had awful experiences at some point in their schooling, usually involving a teacher either punishing them or holding them up as an object of mockery for something they couldn't get right.
Humiliating children has mostly gone out of fashion, thank goodness. But the aftermath is still with us. So my struggles with the NBN were a good reminder that something that looks so obvious to a person who works in an industry isn't necessarily obvious to everyone else.
This article was first published in issue 95 of Forty South magazine.
Before Lian Tanner settled down in southern Tasmania to write internationally acclaimed fantasy novels, she did lots of stuff such as being dynamited while scuba diving and arrested while busking. She once spent a week in the jungles of Papua New Guinea hunting for a Japanese soldier left over from the Second World War. Learn more about her at liantanner.com.au.