I’ve been thinking about the Mermaid book. I know, the dragon book isn’t done yet. There is still so much to do, but I’m in the middle and I need something to look forward to, so I thought I might do some planning for the Mermaid Book. As I was thinking about where to start I had to laugh, because, I might be a discovery writer.
What is a discovery writer?
A discovery writer is someone who does minimal planning and just writes their story by putting their characters in situations and seeing what happens. Another word used to describe a discovery writer is a pantser, as in, they write by the seat of their pants. I have always said that I am a mix between a planner and a pantser, but I realized that that might be less true than I thought. I tend to find my characters, and their voices through writing them. I tend to put them in interesting situations and then write to see what happens. I rarely know what is going to happen next. I just know where everything is headed…most of the time.
Famous discovery writers include Stephen King and George R.R. Martin. But here’s the thing, I don’t want to be a discovery writer.
Wait, why not? It sounds pretty cool!
Okay, don’t get me wrong. I like discovery writing. I like putting words on paper to uncover who my characters are, I like writing along and finding new things that I never planned. However, discovery writing can be really slow. This is evidenced by things like the middle of my book that needs to be almost completely re-written. I think that if I had a more solid outline before I wrote the 1stdraft of my middle perhaps I would have been able to look at it more objectively and realize that it was boring. Instead I wrote something like 20,000 words that I’m cutting. I’m not going to even try revising them, I’m just going to cut them.
My plan with the Mermaid book is to actually learn how to outline a book. I can always revert, or find a middle ground if I really don’t like it. But I think I need a little more structure in the drafting portion of my writing life. I, at the very least, need to learn how to have structure so I can gleefully abandon it if I chose.
