A Fourth Novel?
A few years ago I found myself sitting on the veranda of a home in the Cayman Islands and writing. Everyone else was inside doing heaven knows what. But not me. In fact I would sneak away from the others whenever I could. In that perfect space and time, I wrote and wrote and wrote. The characters flowed from my fingertips easily and effortlessly. I had no roadmap for them at the time. I never do. I am, what in the world of writers, is called a “pantser.”
It is a name I learned in 2021. I had never heard it before. But on a quiet afternoon while watching a video in our family room I learned the common titles for the two types of writers - the plotters and the pantsers. I am sure they do not teach the “pantser” method in creative writing courses in college - a good thing because I would have thought that the latter would have been far too risky - and because my imagination had not been stoked to think like a pantser at the time.
I found my writing voice after I had already written my first book, The Book for Math Empowerment. It was not until I was doing a creative writing assignment for a class that my pantser voice fully emerged. When the end of term assignment was done, it formed the first chapter of my memoir, Fragments of a Woman’s Life - titled only after the book was completed, and after my brilliant editor, Ellie, had organized those random essays that formed its core. I wrote the essays. She edited them exquisitely!
So how has being a pantser worked for me? Very well. It manifested again in novel #1, Vanessa - a Love Story, Novel #2. Vanessa - the Next Chapter. And again, in novel #3, Flora’s Saga. This trilogy is just the beginning and the end of a dynasty of women. Well - not quite a dynasty. Just two friends who made history as the essential characters of my books.
My fourth novel, The Between Years, is not about those women, Vanessa and Flora, who now recede into the background. It’s about Flora’s twin sisters, Yvette and Dominique. They are twins who look identical, but could not be more different. They are briefly mentioned in book 3, but come alive in what is now novel #4. More about them in another post.
I hear stories about writers who spend years writing a book. I applaud them if one has chosen to write a novel that is historical fiction and requires extensive research. Or, if one is writing a non-fiction book that again requires extensive research and very thoughtful organization, complete with charts, graphs, quotes and possibly diagrams. I applaud those authors for their grit and persistence and mastery to get it done. They plot and plan and stretch themselves to the limits of their unique brilliance. They deserve our admiration and support. In fact, by contrast I must appear somewhat irreverent and lazy. So be it.
When I teach my writing workshops, I teach, but do not compel, my students to write as I do - irreverently. To be a pantser! It must scare some of them not to know how a plot is going to flow; how a character is going to evolve; how the book is going to end - the things the “plotters” do. But that’s okay. They may not be pantsers! But they will learn other essential things from me. They will learn 1) how to avoid writer’s block. 2) How to “hear” a character’s voice. 3) How and when to describe how a character dresses. 5) What a character sees, hears, fails to understand, etc. 6) And hopefully they will understand how to differentiate between “showing” and “telling”, both of which are essential skills in writing fiction. I won’t have to tell them. Their characters will tell them. I will only show them how to bring those characters alive.
#characterdevelopment.
fictionwriting.
#lovestories.
#writinglovescenes.
#Writer’sVoice