Have you lost the plot?

By Jenny Hilborne, author of mysteries and thrillers.

I have a chaotic mind and a tough time focusing on one thing at a time. I'm an erratic thinker with a short attention span. I often wonder how I got from one point in the thinking process to another. I'm a disorganized author.

When I sit down to write, my thoughts are scattered and my energy races off in several different directions, the result of which is a complex story with more than one plot line. These are the types of novels I mostly enjoy reading.

The challenge with a complicated story and multiple plot lines is the tendency to introduce the reader to a large cast; Stieg Larsson's series comes to mind. In Hide and Seek, I chopped out 14 characters during the editing process; enough to star in a novel of their own. I was still left with 41. I don't know what the optimum number of characters is. Each one in Hide and Seek had a purpose, and each earned their place in the story, but I would have preferred to write with a smaller cast.

A larger cast is more difficult to memorize, at least until the framework of the story is understood. This was part of the reason Dragon Tattoo took me several attempts before I stuck with it. If an author makes a reader do too much work, the reader might give up and move on to another book.

Another challenge with parallel plot lines is getting the threads to merge. In Madness and Murder, my two plot lines merged well and clues were dropped early on to show the reader how they would blend. I left the reader with questions, and the promise they would be answered. It's not always easy to get sub-plots to merge, as I've discovered with my new novel, Stone Cold, a current work in progress.

Stone Cold has a much smaller cast, but the sub-plot has grown legs of its own and taken over the main plot. I'm left wondering whether to cut the main plot and use it in another novel, or continue to try to blend them. Both plots have emerged as strong stories. As an author, I'm wondering what my readers might prefer. I love the complexity - do they? As the storyteller, I must choose how to tell the story, but a wrong choice could fail to draw the audience into the world I've created. I've agonized over it for weeks.

Reading authors such as Stieg Larsson can be work (and well worth it, once I got past the challenges he presented). I imagine writing his books and keeping track of the immense cast was not easy, but each character moved the story and he knew how to tell it. Authors have voices and stories in their heads, but who knew getting them on paper could be so difficult?

Authors: what traits of your personality make writing a challenge for you?

Readers: How complex do you like your mysteries and thrillers? Does a story with more than one main character and more than one plot line make it too difficult to follow the action?

The great debate.....

By Jenny Hilborne, author of mysteries and thrillers

That is...to plot or to pant.

Until I saw all the panster v plotter discussions on the various writers forums, it never occurred to me there might be different types of writers. I assumed, rather ignorantly probably, that writers opened up their manuscripts, be it longhand or typed, and just wrote the story in their head. 

I might have a working title and an idea of a story when I start, but I never know what's going to come out of my fingertips until I'm at my desk in front of my laptop. I don't even know if I have enough for a short, a novella, or a full-length novel until I start writing. 

As I understand the definitions, a plotter knows all the events of the story in advance and follows the route they mapped out to get the story from beginning to end. A panster writes the events as they occur in the writer's mind and has no idea how they will get to the end until they get there. From what I read in the discussions, each type of writer fiercely defends their own style and some have a hard time understanding the other.  

The dictionary definition of "plotting" is: secretly make plans to carry out (something illegal or wrong). Very appealing to all mystery/thriller writers. Plotting is also to mark a route or position. Maybe it's my horrible sense of direction (or my inability to concentrate for long periods of time), but I cannot plot. I've tried it and screwed up the bits of paper in frustration. Plotting (for me) hampers my creativity. I begin to feel like I'm following a formula and falling into old routines. I'm a true panster.

Whenever I write, without a map, it reminds me of a time when I drove with my parents from La Havre to Versailles and detoured off the road map we brought with us at every available opportunity. We wanted to escape the regular "route" and explore all the intricate little places we would have missed, or never even known about, if we stuck to the map. These places are hidden surprises, and often gems. I like to think of it when I write, not knowing where I'll end up or what I might find along the way. 

I googled to "fly by the seat of your pants", which is from where I imagine the term "panster" originates. It means: to pilot a plane by feel and instinct rather than by instruments. This about sums up how I feel when I write without any guide. I find it more thrilling, more energizing. I certainly wander off track and sometimes get lost, but I always find my way back - often on a surprising path and one I couldn't have plotted ahead of time, if I'd tried.

I'm intrigued by plotters. I imagine they must be extremely organized, detailed people with a clear idea of where they want to go. I imagine the editing process is less time-consuming for them.

I have a decent plot and numerous twists in my finished products, even though I'm not a plotter. Sometimes when I read, I can predict the ending of the book because of the way the plot is constructed and I wonder if the writer is a "plotter."

There is no answer and no write (pardon the pun) or wrong about the difference in styles. It's interesting to me how often this topic comes up in the writing forums. I've even seen these debates turn quite heated. I'd like to have some snazzy ending to this blog post, but, as you now know, I can't plot anything out in advance........