When discussing writing, people often divide writers into
plotters v pantsters. I will confess to never having liked the terminology. For
one thing, it implies that writers who primarily use intuition are not as good
or competent at achieving a cohesive storyline as those who outline obsessively.
This is blatantly not the case. There are a myriad ways of writing a novel and most
writers are somewhere on the spectrum of the two. The terminology is also
clunky as it is hard to visualise a pantster and people can look at you
strangely until you explain. Equally a plotter can make a writer sound Machiavellian
or vaguely sinister.
This weekend, I watched a talk given by GRR Martin (the author
of Game of Thrones). While he writes in the fantasy/Science fiction genre, much
of what he had to say holds true for all writing.
For example, he gave a quote from William Faulkner about the
human heart in conflict with itself is the only thing that matters in writing a
good story. This is probably more true of the romance/woman’s fiction genre
than the fantasy genre. The human heart in conflict is the core of all romance.
It is why romance is a character driven genre and why it is the most popular
genre. It is the characters.
What first drew me to his talk however, was his description
of writers as on the architects or
gardener spectrum. An architect makes a plan first and knows precisely where
all the wiring, the load bearing walls, the pipes for the plumbing will go
before the spade full of earth is dug. There is little to no deviation from the
plan. A gardener on the other hand may know what type of seed he has planted but he doesn’t actually know what precisely that plant will
look like and how strongly it will grow
or the precise shape of its flowers. Good gardeners do have a broad design in
mind when they plant but it is a far broader design than the detailed one that architects
use. Martin pointed out that with
writers, that seed is watered with blood. And boy, do I know that feeling!
I believe the concept of an architect-gardener spectrum more
fully encompasses how writers write. It is also ore easily understood than pnasterv plotter. Personally I would love to be an architect in many
ways but there again the times I have attempted to fully plan a novel in
advance are the times when I have had the biggest revisions or found myself the
most bored. For me, I have to want to tell the story and if I have planned it
down to the last detail, and simply have to churn out write the words,
where is the enjoyment? I like discovering motivations and little twists. I
like being able to improve on the original idea. I may not know everything about my characters before I put the first word down but I certainly know them thoroughly by the end. I do like use my intuition and instinct, rather than being slavishly devoted to a plan. And yet, I know there are other writers who draw great comfort from their plans and details.
There is no right way to write a book or tell
a story and everyone needs to respect their own individual process. I have
learnt the hard way that I am far more of a gardener than an architect and I
need to stop fighting it.
You can see the full interview here. It is rather long and
he does cover the pitfalls and pleasures of being an author. The bit about the
writing process is about halfway in.
No comments:
Post a Comment