What's the Plan?

by Rosemary Johnson

I am writing this blog post at 8.19 (to be precise) on Wednesday evening.  Feeling very guilty about leaving it so late. 

It is said that writers are divided into two categories: planners and pantsters.  In everyday life I am a planner.  During the gales last Sunday, when we were warned we might be without electricity, I was boiling kettles and filling up flasks, getting my washing on, preparing a main meal for lunchtime (in case the power cut came later in the day) and searching out candles.  But we didn’t have a power cut. 

I spent several hours this afternoon composing another piece for this blog, all about daily Bible readings from ‘New Daylight’ and Davidic psalms.  I wrote on, uncertain what each new line would bring.  Some people in this situation would say they were going where the spirit moved them, but I’m an Anglican.  After 400 words, when I should’ve reached the pithy bit at the end, I became painfully aware that there wasn’t one.  What I had a written was a sermon about David expressing anger at God, not a post for a writing blog.  I waited, and prayed, but God and I both knew I’d gone off on one.  In sadness… frustration, really… I had to leave it.

I just cannot plan writing.  I can plan a sermon.  I draw a bubble map of points I want to mention, and cross them off as I write the real thing.  I can't use this tool, or any other, for fiction.  I have tried.  Oh yes, I have tried, and failed.  In fiction, the getting-points-down-as-you-think-of-them technique doesn’t work because you can’t ignore the order in which events happen, and also I underestimate length and complexity.  On occasions, I have in front of me detailed plans for short stories and, in 2000 words, only covered a couple of bubbles, or after the first paragraph or two the plotline has taken itself off in a different direction. 

Don’t get me started on planning novels.  Like Mr Darcy in Pride and Prejudice, ‘In vain I have struggled…’ with many a planning tool, including annotating charts of story arcs… but the story goes as the story goes.  In my head, it makes sense, and, if the novel plot needs tweaking a bit, it can do so in my little grey cells.  Seamlessly.  What I do find useful is a database of characters, what they look like, a bit of back story, occupations, car model, names of friends and relatives, also significant actions and dialogue listed against numbered chapters.  This last comes into its own when you edit, taking bits out, putting bits in and moving things around. 

So, please do share with me how or if you plan.  Any tips, please?

Rosemary Johnson has had many short stories published, in print and online, amongst other places, Cafe Lit, The Copperfield Review and 101 Words, and contributed articles to Together magazine.  She written a historical novel, set in the Solidarity years in Poland.  In real life, she is a retired IT lecturer, living in Suffolk with her husband and cat.  Her cat supports her writing by sitting on her keyboard and deleting large portions of text.