Are You Plot, or Are You Pants?

There are typically two ways a Wrimo can get through NaNoWriMo: plotting and pantsing. The first involves careful planification of your novel before Nov. 1 hits and the second involves, well, winging the entire story. Each category has its own extremes, but also a multitude of in-betweens.

I have tried both techniques, and discovered I am a plotter. Last year I had a complete outline with every scene for my first novel and I breezed through it. Every now and then I added a scene, removed one or extended another, but it never veered of course.

Ten days after the start, I was done. And I was forced to take the pantsers' way.

It turned out okay, although I am now rewriting that novel. It's easier to do that than major edits. What I realised, though, is that every day during classes (shhh!) I would plan out the next 6-7k of my novel, to be written when the evening came. I could not come home with no idea of what was going to happen. I needed that plan. So even when forced to spontaneously write a story, I ended up planning it.

What works for me does not always work for others, however. How about you, Wrimos? Are you Plot, or are you Pants?

A Little Genre Problem

I like genres. I like to know in which genre my book is, or in which genre the book I'll read is. It gives me something familiar to work with, some kind of common ground I can refer to. It's reassuring.

Hence why being unable to properly categorize White Echoes freaks me out a bit. This story draws from three different genres while not fully being in either of them. When I'm asked, I answer "steampunk-ish", and indeed when I spoke about this novel, Susan commented it "sounded steampunk". It does! My problem is that I am still uncomfortable defining it as steampunk.

Perhaps it's because I don't know the genre well (yes, I know, writing in a genre you don't know! Tsk!) I intend to get more familiar as I approach revisions, but for the moment, I am gearing up for NaNoWriMo. And until the end of November, I will have a novel that is:

Steampunk because of the airships, the old-style guns, but without anything victorian to go along with it.
Fantasy without the magic, but there's a certain feel to the story that belongs to that genre, in good part because I write a lot of fantasy (*cough* always fantasy *cough*)
Science-fiction because of a few more advanced technologies, and 'science' explaining some of the out-of-the-ordinary elements.

My only hope is that as I write the novel, everything will become clearer. Am I alone with this problem? Have any of you written a crossgenre novel before?

Contradicting PoVs

There is one thing I absolutely love to do with PoV characters, and that's to have them contradict each other. Neither characters are lying, but their respective perspective on life reflects on how they narrate the story. There's a few ways this can become apparent.

1. Their opinion about others. Two characters can have wildly different opinions about the same third character. Say this third man is a king. The courtier who has just been awarded bigger lands may love this king, and describe him as just and generous. The king's wife, whom he hits in a bout of anger, will disagree with that. Or the people dying of hunger in the streets while he holds banquets might not be so keen on calling him 'generous'.

2. Their opinion about each other. This one is even funnier, if you ask me. A relationship isn't always equal on both sides. One character will not always reciprocate the other's feelings.

I just read a perfect example of this is Guy Gavriel Kay's A Song for Arbonne. The chancellor is madly in love with the countess, Signe. He knows it is an impossible relationship, and he has a wife and kids, but he considers this eternal love a simple fact of his life. Signe, however, has no clues about this love. She wonders at times what the chancellor thinks of her and concludes he must believe her weak, and in need of support.

This is fun. It's fun to read and it's fun to write. It's also quite realistic. Not everyone I consider a close friend thinks the same of me, and vice-versa. I often read about this kind of diverging opinions with unrequited love subplots, but it's not limited to it! Go wild.

3. Their versions of events. Two different POVs can tell the very same scene in completely different ways. What a rebel leader thinks of an oppressing government's fall is quite different to how this government's leader will feel about it. Pick any two characters in a scene, and they should have different opinion on what's going on.

There's nothing like contradicting PoVs to add some shades of grey to characters and worlds. You don't have to visit everyone's head to do this. Two characters with different backgrounds are more than enough to bring out the "contradictions" in your story and in your world.

Choosing your PoV(s)

I admit I have never managed to write an entire novel from a single Point of View. I write with large casts of characters. Sometimes it is because my plot spans major events in my fantasy world, but not always. Even in a small-ish setting, such as a single city, I end up with a large cast of significant characters.

If I let myself go wild, I would have a dozen different PoVs all the time.

Restricting myself is always hard. I have to abandon characters I love and let them evolve only in the background. I could use omniscient, of course, but I feel that requires a certain level of skill I've yet to attain. I prefer to stick with third limited, with one character for every scene.

How to choose, though?

I feel every PoV should count. It should be so essential to the story that if you remove it, the novel no longer makes sense. How do you determine that? What a PoV brings is not limited to its influence on the plot. When considering PoVs, I ask myself a few questions, and here they are for your enjoyment.

- Could every information a PoV bring be told in another scene?
- What is the purpose of this knowledge? Is it only to raise tension, to let the reader know something the character doesn't? I personally don't think that is always a good idea.
- How is this PoV's personality compared to the other PoVs? Does the character have an unique voice?
- Are there other things about the PoV that makes it unique? Is s/he from another country? Another social standing? Does he bring something fresh to the story? Is s/he the antagonist?

One of the main reasons I enjoy different PoV is those last questions. I'm a firm believer in approaching a conflict from multiple angles. A single PoV introduces a bias I don't like. On the other hand, I love to have a few characters with strong and contradicting bias. I like to think it adds a depth to my story.

I'm Glad this is not November

Ironic how after two posts about inspiration I am a bit out of juice, and I'm not sure what to write here? There's this list of topic I jotted down, but none of them light me up. Aah. Good thing this is not NaNoWriMo, then, because the words I'd write would be crap!

Instead I want to share my NaNoWriMo blog schedule. So far I preferred not to have one, but the NaNo season is always a busy one, and I don't want to forget you wonderful people. So here's the plan!

Monday: Regular post.
Wednesday: The link gallore
Friday-Saturday: NaNoWriMo update

This is my planned minimum. Depending on how well the month is going and what goes through my mind, I might come and add some more.

Plus, because the above is hardly interesting and because I won't be posting for another two days, I'm leaving the blog open for any of your questions. Be wild and be silly. I'll answer everything the best I can.

Cheers, and have a nice weekend!