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Plotter or Pantser?
Do you have your story all planned out or are you a fly-by-the-seat kind of writer?
Authors come in two broad categories – plotters and pantsers. There’s also something called a plantser, which means a little of both but I stick to just the two main categories for now because otherwise you can end up with ploatser and palotters and it just gets exhausting.
Plotters are just that. The have the plot of their story or novel outlined, know exactly where things are going to go (although things can stray here and there, hence all the sub-categories) and are usually meticulously organized.
Pantsers are the opposite. No outline and no idea where the story is going. Just thoughts and the freedom to create whatever they want.
I’ve always envied plotters because my writing style is a squiggly line intercrossed with a multitude of rudimentary crayon colors spewing forth from a volcano of misdirected thought.
And I know that image from Always Sunny is overused but yes, that looks like me when I try and actually plot a story. Hint: It doesn’t work. But look at me making detours like I’m writing a story here. Without further ado, presenting Plotters vs Pantsers – some differences:
Plotter: I have seventeen different sheets of traits for my character and a whole backstory that won’t make its way into my story, but is essential.
Pantser: Hmm..I think I’ll name this character Harvey. And now he has three legs for no reason.Plotter: Oh no – the murder is coming up. I dread killing off my creation. I love him so much.
Pantser: Ha! Behold characters – I AM YOUR GOD. You die, and you die and you get sick but don’t die and you..live but I’m going to make you eat a cat. (This actually happened in a novel I wrote during Nano.)Plotter: In chapter six we will find out the big secret Lady Monica’s been hiding from her husband and in chapter seven, I will write the consequences of that secret.
Pantser: Oh hey, it’s halfway through the story and I just learned that Lady Monica is married! Neat. I guess I should have added that back in Chapter 1, huh?Plotter: Oh dear, I just thought of an interesting plot twist now I have to go back and change my entire outline.
Pantser: Oh dear, I just thought of an interesting plot twist. I’ll just add it in here and then go back and re-write the 37 scenes I already wrote out of sequence and see where I can squeeze it in.Now the truth is, most of us do a little bit of both, but there’s no wrong way to write. After all, if you’re getting words down you’re already doing great. Now if you’ll excuse him, I have to go make someone eat a cat – and after that I’ll probably write a story.
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What I’ve Learned from 100 Submissions
I just made it to the big 1-0-0 everyone! No I’m not that old yet. 100 submissions. Lifetime. And by lifetime, I mean since late 2018 when I first started sending them out in earnest. I know, I know. What can I say? I’m lazy. But somehow I made it to 100.
It all started with one submission several years ago…
Actually it was 2015. Someone I followed on Twitter announced they were looking for stories for an upcoming anthology. I submitted one, my first submission ever. It was accepted and gave me my very first story writing credit. I then proceeded not to submit a single thing until almost four years later because of the aforementioned laziness. But after I actually started to, you know, submit things, I gained a little insight into writing and the submission process.
Here’s what I learned after reaching 100 submissions:
Write for yourself. To be honest, one of the reasons I didn’t submit for three years after my initial acceptance was i didn’t believe in my stories. They didn’t fit a specific genre. They were too silly, or not scary enough, or too weird or…you get the picture.
So eventually I took a look at all the half-finished stories and wrote whatever the hell I felt like. You know what? They started to get accepted. One of my first paid-for pieces was even about a writer writing and you’re NEVER supposed to do that and I got away with it. You have a story in your head, that no one else can tell. It belongs to you. Write it down.
Do as your told. You’re a writer rebel. A loner. No one can tame your words. But if you don’t follow the submission guidelines, you’re going to end up at the top of the rejection list. That means if they ask for your story to be put in Comic Sans in purple font, that’s what you give them. They’ll never do that by the way. Please don’t do that.
You’re going to be rejected Rejection sucks! I know. Before I even started submitting I was a lurker and I heard the rejection horror stories. Writers online chatting out they sent out dozens and dozens of submissions and got maybe one acceptance. It’s just the way things are. Some places receive hundreds of submissions and there’s only so many spots to go around. Don’t take it personally.
Cover letters are awful. I’ve looked back at some of the old cover letters I wrote and I’m surprised I ever got anything published at all. They contained so much ass-kissing it was like a donkey make-out party. So instead of telling markets how wonderful they are, I’ve been keeping my cover letters as boring as possible. Here’s my name, here’s my story, here’s where I’ve been published. And if anybody has any tips for me, let me know. I hate writing these things.
Read it out loud. Think you have that story ready to go? Yeah right. 5 minutes after sending, you’ll look it over and notice you changed a character’s name three times, their hair color twice and suddenly they’re gender fluid. Know what helps? Reading it out loud. You’ll catch a ton of issues, even typos. Just don’t do it in a coffee shop on a busy Saturday afternoon. Don’t ask me how I know this.
Numbers don’t matter. Because we all know how much writers love math, right? I found myself trying to look up the average stats on the web the other day and thank god I had 100 submissions because it made the math easy. I had 12 acceptances (12% acceptance rate). Is that good? Bad? Am I just (shudder) average?
The truth is, it doesn’t matter. If you’re sending your stories to super high-tier places like The Dark, Uncanny and Diabolical Plots, you’re going to have a much smaller acceptance rate (if any acceptances at all.) If you have a lot of simultaneous submissions, your rejection rate is going to be higher. And absolutely NO editor will ever care about how many rejections you’ve gotten. Only if they like your story or not.
I guess what I’ve learned after 100 submissions is I like to write. And you there, if you’re submitting, keep at it. Submitted means you committed. And damn it, taking that leap is the hardest part of all.
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How to be a Problematic Author
Good day class and welcome to Authors Behaving Badly 102. Today we’re going to teach you the finer points of being a problematic author and maybe, just maybe, you’ll end up looking like a bad person as well.
Fingers crossed!
First things first. I’m not going to go in depth into racism, sexism, ableism, hatred towards the LGBTQIA community etc. That should have been covered in 101, which I presume you’ve all taken. But for those who need a refresher:
- You can use microaggressions in your text or dialogue if you want to be subtle OR blatantly make a social post about a marginalized group. Either one is acceptable if you really want to alienate your audience and lose readership.
- An out is the “Mea Culpa” response. You can blame it on things like “you were in a bad space” or “gee I just didn’t know” or “I guess I have some learning to do.”
- Denying everything is acceptable. Just make sure your audience doesn’t trust their own eyes and ears. At all.
- NEVER mention privilege. It’s always been rough on you – even when it hasn’t, it HAS. See bullet above.
Now let’s move on to reviews. Let’s say you receive a review on your novel that goes a little something like this.
I know, I know – TWO STARS? How dare they? You spent literally minutes of your life writing this novel! So how do we, as a problematic author, deal with the situation?
Here’s are a few ways to respond to the review. And yes, you NEED to respond to the review. How else would the reviewer know that their personal opinion is totally wrong?
Say things like:
- How many books have YOU written hot-shot?
- I went through all your Goodreads reviews and noticed you gave low ratings to all the egg and chicken themed books so maybe YOU’RE the problem, Karen.
- Dox dox doxity dox dox dox. Dox.
- Hey author friends, I got a bad review today. Want to talk loudly on Twitter on how we wish to do the reviewer harm? If they’re another author, we can one-star all their stuff and if they’re not we can just drive them off the internet forever.
These are just a few. You can be creative and show up at their house etc. Just remember, your ego is far more important than their well-being or personal safety.
Finally, let’s move on to the content itself. Look in your syllabus under Sensitivity is for the Weak. Let’s say you’re writing something that someone of a certain race, gender, sexual identity etc. may find offensive as it doesn’t truly represent them.
Tough cookies.
It’s ART! And suffering is art. As long as you don’t suffer, dear author – because you’re the only one that matters. Your audience is not the victim, here. They knew what they were getting into. They bought the ticket. It’s your ride. Sensitivity readers will only make sure that you handle delicate situations with the proper respect they deserve. And who needs that?
This covers the basics. In Authors Behaving Badly 103, you can look forward to topics such as Gaming the System, Breaking Promises to your Readers, and the popular Everyone Else is Jealous of Me.
Until then, stay willfully and stubbornly ignorant. Happy problematic writing!
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How Silver Shamrock Caught the White Plague
Okay kids, you think Silver Shamrock you think Halloween (3) or perhaps St. Patty’s Day, but this time it’s associated with April Fool’s. Sadly for this publisher and its authors, it was no joke.
Silver Shamrock is (was) an indie publisher that had a nice following, a nice array of authors and quite a few titles under its belt. It seems like they had gotten into trouble last year regarding the editor’s views on content warnings but that book drama escaped me. However, this one did not.
You see, on March 31st, Silver Shamrock put forth a promo on social media for a book entitled “The White Plague Chronicles” by Gene O’Neill. It wasn’t the author or the title that caught flack though, it was the promo copy, which I shall leave for you below in all its um…glory.
That sound you could hear is the sound of racist dog whistles blaring from your computer. Like, who thought THIS was a good idea? Backlash was swift and within a few days there was a loud uproar from the book community. Authors fled the publisher in droves. Mr. O’Neill and his defendants took to social media telling people they need to read the book rather than make assumptions about its content, but offered no explanation how the book was different than the ad copy.
A quick read of the promo is all you need to realize why this book should never have been accepted in the first place but let’s break it down piece by piece.
Time is running out. An unknown terrorist organization has their hands on a previously unidentified virus that is far deadlier than Ebola, and even more sinister, as this horrific disease is genetically targeted to kill only the members of the Caucasian race.
Okay…
- How can a virus kill only Caucasians? That’s not how viruses work. That’s not how science works.
- Even “more sinister than Ebola” because it kills only white people instead of all people? Whoa.
- Who determines what constitutes Caucasian? If you’re biracial do you just get a cough or something? Does the virus look at 23andMe kits to determine who to target?
Two retired Black Ops specialists named Ryan O’Toole and Joey Hotsko are thrust into the unfortunate position of being humanity’s last hope. These aging combat vets have been recruited into a secret international organization known only as “The Association;” their mission, to do whatever it takes to stop the virus from being released.
Um…
- It might be interesting if they were Black ‘Black Ops Specialists’, but I don’t think that’s the case.
- Humanity’s last hope? Without the white people, humans will still exist, honey.
- But what of the Starbucks, man? WHO WILL GO TO THE STARBUCKS?
Together, they must travel from the backwater rivers and jungles of Borneo to the scorching desert outback of Tasmania, to the politically and religiously charged hotbed on the streets and back alleys of Israel. But will they succeed in stopping the madmen responsible for this atrocity before it is too late? Sadly, the answer will be no.
Interesting…
- So we know it’s madmen who are responsible for the virus killing all Caucasians but who and why? You’ve virtually given us no reason to care about any of this.
- Various people online have already pointed out that Tasmania has no scorching deserts, but I’m just putting it in here to use this gif, because I want to.
- Okay, so the global-trotting, aging Black Ops Specialists are unable to stop the virus. At this point we’d probably be halfway through the book and everything we will have read will be futile. Good plan! Top notch promo!
The plague will be released, and the effects of the deadly virus will be even worse than feared, mutating and evolving into a worse case scenario that will change the world as we know it, forever. Economies will fail, governments will fall, countries will crumble, billions of innocent men, women, and children will die, and a new world order will rise in what will ultimately become known as…The Collapse.
Wow…
- So I think you meant “worst case scenario” but I’ll let that slide as someone who doesn’t really care about regardless vs. irregardless and I know I’m going to get a few comments on that one.
- Without the lily-white people, it will be what we all thought Y2K would be. I guess it really was Starbucks that was holding the world together all along.
- As mentioned before who is included in that “billions”? How Caucasian do we have to be?
- New. World. Order. Oh my god, that is the icing on this racist cake made of only the whitest frosting with a side of very vanilla ice cream.
Prepare yourself for a journey into the heart of darkness…and far beyond.
- I have nothing to add except I hated that book.
So what could Silver Shamrock have done? Well they could have removed the promo, admitted their mistake and discussed what they should do to stop this from happening again. That would be reasonable right?
Instead, my friends, they flounced.
In the end, Silver Shamrock took down most of its social media, deleted their website and stopped publishing for good. Did they need to do this? No. Did they do this instead of listening to authors and readers about why this book was all sorts of problematic and perhaps learn the implications of publishing something with such strong, racist undertones. You bet!
Now, lots of authors with books under the publisher need to find their novels new homes and lots of readers who were waiting for those books, need to wait far longer.
They just should have stopped it.
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You’re Not a Real Writer If…
We’ve all seen that phrase before. It’s usually in a post on Twitter or in a blog where some cocky writer with a huge head decides they can gatekeep and distinguish the true auteurs of the craft from the lowly peasants of prose. Usually they go a little something like this:
You’re not a real writer if:
- You’re not a published author.
- You haven’t been paid for your work.
- You haven’t received at least 100 rejections.
- You haven’t received at least (insert odd number here) acceptances.
- You don’t write at least eleventy-million words a day. Before breakfast.
- Your fingers haven’t bled from the sheer volume of writing you do each and every day. And you have the incessant need to tell everybody about it.
The funny thing is, it has become a trope. As soon as someone posts their opinions on what constitutes “real writing”, other authors are quick to jump down their throat, rightfully so, but sadly giving those jerks the attention they’re looking for and don’t deserve.
I find the whole thing kind of boring, but it got me thinking. If I were to keep such a gate, what would the list be? Well, I’m glad no one asked for my opinion, so here it is:
You’re not a real writer if:
- You haven’t poured yourself a bowl of Cheetos, gotten completely engrossed in what you were writing, realize the bowl is now empty and blamed the dog. Except that you don’t own a dog.
- You can also blame a cat. Speaking of which…
- You’re not a real writer if you don’t own a cat.
- I’m allergic. I just negated myself.
- You accidentally hit a button and watched in horror as 332 hours of writing disappears before your eyes.
- After you try and rewrite all those words you lost, it’s never quite as good as before and you know it.
- Your characters won’t do what you want them to do and instead laugh as you lose your God-like dominion over them as they gaily chide you about that time you embarrassed yourself at the high school dance in 11th grade in front of your crush.
- You haven’t killed at least one character to wreak imaginary vengeance on a person who slighted you that day. I’m talking about you – cranky lady at the grocery store who stole my parking spot and then brought 25 items into the 12 item or less lane. I’m talking about YOU.
- You’ve looked at what other authors are doing, felt bad at all they’ve accomplished and asked yourself, “am I a real writer?”
Hey look, there is no magic formula or one true path to becoming a writer. You say you are? That’s good enough for me. You are. Now go out there and write!
Or don’t. I don’t care. Whatever you do – you’re a real writer.