Freedom and Framework: Story Planning for Pantsers

New for 2018!

Flying by the seat of your pants to write the first draft for your book feels so freeing. It’s a time to play, to experiment, to try out new ideas. What fun!

But diving into a project as big as a novel without any plan at all often means a lot of extra work after the draft is completed as you scramble to revise hundreds of pages that might have no cohesion, inconsistent characters, or a wandering plot.

One way to lessen that extra work is to go into the rough draft phase of your book with a better idea of where the story’s headed. That doesn’t mean knowing everything about your story (how boring would that be?), but it does mean knowing something to give your story direction.

“Outline” is a scary word for most pantsers. It sounds restrictive, it sounds tedious, it sounds boring. So, there will be no “outlines” here. Nope. None. Instead, you’re going to build yourself a “framework” for your story that’s open and flexible, with plenty of room for playing, experimenting, and checking out new ideas off the beaten path whenever the inspiration strikes you.

Story Planning for Pantsers: Keep your freedom, but keep on track, too.

See the main Workshops page for upcoming dates for this class.

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