Samhain Publishing Ltd Weblog

Help! I Can't See My Plot For The Fog!

I think I’ve bought just about every writer’s guide on the market. If there’s a book out there about writing, I’ve bought it. I read every one. At the end of every one I feel inspired, determined… and then I begin the first step each of these wonderful guides strongly suggest and I falter. Actually, that’s probably an understatement. I freeze up, my fingers refuse to move and my muse catches a bus to Splitsville (a lonely, isolated and depressing little berg just south of Dumpsville and down the road from Whoop-Whoop).

What is this hideous technique so thoroughly and comprehensively endorsed by so many writers guides that brings all my dreams and creative aspirations to a screaming halt? Pre-plotting. Knowing everything that is going to happen chapter-by-chapter – and, in one particular guide, page-by-page! (Boy, did that How To book make me feel like a failure!) According to just about every guide I’ve read, pre-plotting is vital to writing a book. No, not just vital… vital! With italics. And double exclamation marks!(!) I’ve tried pre-plotting, I truly have, but when it comes to writing, me and pre-plotting don’t mix.

I get bored with the story, or so bogged down in the details of each scene that I lose focus of the story (a writer’s equivalent of not seeing the forest for the trees, I guess). Or, worse still, the excitement of the idea is lost by the time I’ve finished planning and what I write is dry, lifeless and stale.

So, what is the alternative? What other dangerous, rebellious, reckless option is there?

Not pre-plotting. Just sitting down to the computer/legal pad/café napkin with a seed of an idea and letting the words flow, without any real idea where those words will take you. The multi-published author, Jo Beverley calls it Flying Into The Mist. I only learned this phrase last year, but I think it describes the technique (and I have to use that term loosely) very well. Savage Retribution began with a sentence written hurriedly on a scrap of paper. But chapter six I still had no idea where I was going. Fair dinkum, I was surrounded by mist.

What is mist? Mist is a phenomenon of small droplets suspended in air. It can occur as part of natural weather or volcanic activity, and is common in cold air above warmer water, in exhaled air in the cold, and in a steam room of a sauna. While not completely opaque (does one use the “word” opaque to describe anything else apart from stockings, I wonder?), mist does prevent things being seen clearly. It hides detail, it conceals objects. When writing, mist hides your characters’ actions, and therefore, your plot. It means you don’t really know what your characters are going to do. They may very well surprise you and suddenly refuse, point-blank, to apologise to their boss for being late and will punch the insufferable snob in the nose instead. When flying into the mist, it doesn’t matter what you thought may be important for character motivation – say, that enormous broken heart you decided your hero needed for backstory from a previous relationship – because your hero will abruptly take a-hold of the joystick and point you straight for a barely visible child-hood fear, telling you that’s what’s really important, that’s why he can’t commit to your heroine who, while you haven’t been paying attention, has decided she wants this sweet story of unconditional love to be a spicy tale of intrigue and mayhem, with maybe a spot of midnight skinny-dipping thrown in for good measure. Flying into the mist is fun. It’s surprising, mysterious and, at times, frightening – but in a good way. It’s when the mist becomes fog that you need to be careful.

The only difference between mist and fog is visibility. Fog is defined as cloud which reduces visibility to less than 1 kilometer. Mist is that which reduces visibility to less than 2 km. It is remarkable what that extra kilometre of “whiteness” conceals. The risks are inherent. Fog blocks out the creative sun and that small seed of an idea you started with begins to grow twisted and misshapen.

I’ve flown into the fog more than once. Four chapters in and I realise I’m flying in completely the wrong direction. My light, witty editor-requested contemporary romance has turned into a somewhat disturbing investigation into the power-plays of a relationship. Hmmmm. Here’s the thing though (and my advice to anyone who likes to fly into the mist – “flimmers”, Jo Beverly calls us) – despite the hours spent lost in the fog, they’re not wasted minutes. No word written is a wasted word. Even if you delete every one, you haven’t wasted them. They have been filed deep in the drawers of your subconsciousness, the well-source of your creativity. Those “wrong-way” words, even those deleted words, may reveal all sorts of things you didn’t know about your characters, or they may revel glimpses of the next flight you will take, a mysterious trajectory through a misty sky. OK, I’m getting a little carried away with the whole flight metaphor here, but you get my drift (can you tell I’m flying into the mist with this blog? grin)

I guess, what I’m saying is this…. It’s totally OK to not plot. It’s totally OK to see where the words take you as they come, to follow the flight-path regardless of the cloud concealing the way. If you ask me, it’s more than OK. It’s scary, mysterious, at times frustration, but lots of fun too, and really, isn’t that what writing’s all about?

Lexxie Couper is an award-winning, multi-published author of paranormal romance (both sensual and erotica). She is also a proud Aussie, a wife, mother and dog owner, and ridiculously afraid of flying.