We are thrilled to have Julie Cohen as our guest today. Pantser or Plotter we can all earn from this informative piece.
When I started out my writing career, I would have considered myself
a ‘pantser’: someone who
Somewhere around my eighth novel, things changed. I was writing a
story about an artist who was drawing a comic strip that echoed her real life
(except with added giant space ants), and I discovered that I couldn’t just
make stuff up as I went: I had to plan the events of both stories. I didn’t
plan out the whole thing before I started; I just paused, every now and then,
as I wrote, to work out what was going to happen a couple of steps down the
line.
As the years and the novels have gone by, I’ve become more and more
of a planner and less of a pantser. This is partly because my novels are
getting more complicated, and maybe also partly because my brain is getting
older and less flexible. Now, before I write, I usually make a plan on Post-its
for the general story. Sometimes I try to write a synopsis, too.
My latest novel, TOGETHER, is the most complicated one I’ve written
yet. It starts in 2016, and goes backwards, following a couple’s life from
their 43rd wedding anniversary all the way back to the day they
first met in 1962. Because it starts at the ending, I absolutely had to know
the ending before I started to write. Because it’s told backwards, I had to
plan out each part of the novel in incredible detail, so that everything made
sense, and yet no twists were given away beforehand.
It was a novel that was even difficult to talk about. “At the
beginning, in 2016, which is actually the end of the story, but you read it
first…”
I used to think that planning my story this way would ruin my
enjoyment in writing it. Why even bother when you know the ending already? But
it doesn’t at all. A neat plan is very different from a living, breathing world
of a novel. I still discover plenty about my characters and my story as I
write. And there’s a whole different kind of satisfaction in travelling with a
map.
From starting out my career as a ‘pantser’, I’ve now gone in the
other direction, so much so that today I need to start writing a new novel, but
I’m panicking a bit because I only have a plan for the first 25,000 words.
What I’ve learned above all, though, is that every novel is
different. What works for one story, and at one stage in your career, may not
work for another story, or another stage. Every novel, whether planned or not,
is its own journey.
About
Julie
Julie Cohen’s new novel, TOGETHER (Orion),
was chosen by the Independent as one
of their Ten Best Book Club Books, and her two previous novels, FALLING and
WHERE LOVE LIES, were shortlisted for the Romantic Novel Awards. DEAR THING was
a Richard and Judy pick. She’s a popular teacher of creative writing and runs
her own literary consultancy. She joined the RNA New Writers’ Scheme in 2002
and since then has published twenty-one books. Her website is www.julie-cohen.com and she is on Twitter
as @julie_cohen
