Good reasons to plan your novel

There are many reasons my first book failed, but most of those reasons come down to the fact that I did not plan it. I felt like plotting my book would infringe on my ability to be spontaneous, creative and write from the heart. I didn’t want to painstakingly plan everything, that sounded boring. I’m a writer and all I wanted to do is write.

I was wrong. Not only was writing my book that way an extremely painful and difficult experience, when I finished, it was obvious no planning had gone into it. My readers pointed out that my story was a series of scenes with no real connection to each other. There was no plot, no character arcs, and a lot of unnecessary scene setting and rambling description that never really led anywhere.

Plotters vs Pantsers

Writers who plan are known as plotters, those who don’t are known as pantsers (as in they fly by the seat of their pants). I am not a naturally organized person, so I assumed I was just a pantser, but the truth is I was making a big mistake by not plotting out my story.

I am going to make the assumption that there are no true pantsers. As in, even those writers who are categorized as pansters, either 1) use their first draft as their plan and implement structure through their revisions or 2) Have a genius-like mind and create plans in their heads as they write. Not only that, there is a misconception that plotting stifles creativity and therefore those who plan are more rigid and less creative. Obviously that is not true at all. J.K. Rowling is probably the most famous plotter and no one can say her stories are not creative. Everyone has a different process, but at some point, planning should come into the mix.

Early planning makes for faster, easier writing

As a new and non-genius writer, I saved a lot of time when I plotted before I started writing. Since planning didn’t come naturally to me, I hit the books. My favourite resource was K.M. Weiland’s Structuring Your Novel. She also has a ton of great stuff on her blog. James Scott Bell’s Plot and Structure is also amazing. With what I learned in mind, I had a decision to make. I could either 1) rework my first story based on what I’d learned or 2) start fresh with a new story.

I decided, since my first story had so many issues and I had a new idea, that I wanted to start fresh. I spent about five months researching and plotting my new story before I began writing it. Generally, I followed what I learned in the plotting and outlining books I read, but I also found methods that worked best for me. I wrote down key events I knew would happen, I got to know my characters and I summarized each scene before I began writing. This allowed me to look at my story on a macro-level and change things before I started writing full scenes I’d only have to delete later. It also allowed me to connect scenes in a way I hadn’t done before. Everything was leading somewhere, my characters had goals, and each scene depended on the one before and after.   

Plans change

Did my plan change once I began writing? Absolutely it did. The act of writing opens up creative channels and new ideas will come flooding in. I found I often stopped writing to rework parts of my plan. But when you begin with a plan, you always have direction, and you won’t write yourself into corners that are impossible to get out of. I saved time because I wasn’t writing wasted scenes that would only be cut out later. I also didn’t have to add as many missing scenes after my first draft. When I finished writing my second story I still had to cut scenes and rework things, but it was way less than what I would have had to do with my first story.  My first story probably took about three years to write and rewrite and edit (and remember it was still in really bad shape), my second story was completed in about half that time, my third story, which I just finished, took just over a year to write. The feedback I’ve gotten on my last two books is so much better. All of this improvement happend because of good planning. I’m moving forward. I’m learning all I can. And that’s what the process of writing a book is. It’s much more than sitting down and writing. It’s a journey.