Sometimes life (and death) gets in the way. Don’t lose your great idea just because you didn’t capture it somehow. Even pantsers love my Planning Blueprint because it makes it super simple to plan out as much or as little as you like while leaving room to grow your story organically. Or use it AFTER you’ve written to work out any revision issues.  Need help?  Make planning (and writing) your novel easy. Grab The Novel Approach Planning Worksheet for just $9 (AU).  Or join my free Facebook group The Novel Approach for Aspiring Authors . I’m also running a Novel Planning Intensive every Wednesday in May. You’ll work on your plan before and/or during the session. Every participant will get a chance to ask for advice on any part of their story where they are feeling stuck, or ask questions in general. Observer tickets are also available. Observers will get to see an overview of the Blueprint and how it works, but will leave the call before participants begin sharing. ...

When I decided to follow my second frontier fiction (historical) novel with a cozy mystery, I had a sleuth, a sidekick, and a town in mind. And humor. My sleuth is funny. I started the novel during NaNoWriMo 2020, using the main character I’d tested in a short story. My critique group liked him, so, I thought, how hard could this be? My 50,000 words flowed as I jumped into a story, using my best pantser techniques. I went off track so many times, I can’t keep count. Here’s why I find the process hard: 1. Three people die in my novel, but only one of them is a resident of the town. Most cozies I’ve read keep the characters local. It’s too easy to have the villain be an outsider who shows up to knock off the victims. 2. When a character is killed by violence, it’s hard to avoid any graphic description of the body, especially when that body is lying out on the ground where everyone can see. “Oh, he’s dead,” seems like such an understatement. 3. Every single time I try to write a mystery...

In September, I decided I didn’t like the book I was working on. I had written almost 30,000 unimaginative and dull words. Depression hit me like a body slam. World events had me reeling, breaking my concentration, but I couldn’t blame that for a crappy story. I put the book aside, hoping I’d find the trigger to motivate me with fresh ideas at a later date. I’ve covered a lot of ground in my books, from a prisoner wrongly accused, rape, stalking, Nazis, crooked televangelists, baby kidnapping, and vigilantes to name a few. Coming up with a fresh idea was straining my overloaded brain. And there it was: 34,000 words sitting in my computer, minding its own business. I had started the book way back in 2015, and it has one of the best opening chapters I’d ever written. Suspenseful and twisty. Intriguing enough to make a reader turn the page. My opinion, of course. The book was my first and only foray into a political novel, and international politics at that. I touch on political t...

Image by Karen Woodward , via Flickr Okay, I have a confession to make. I’m in the process of going against everything I believed about my writing style. As long as I can remember, I’ve started the writing process with nothing but my characters and a situation in mind. It’s the way things have always been. I, Merry Farmer, was a pantser. As comfortable as pantsing has been, though, I’ve had this sense that there might be a more efficient way to do this novel-writing thing. Over the years my pure pantsing style has evolved to having a clear idea of the end of the book and a few major plot points along the way, then writing notes about what I’m writing as I write it to make sure I’m still on track. It’s served me well…and caused a lot of editing and revision. This summer, a light bulb of sorts went off for me. I started talking to several authors who write super fast. The common thread between them is that they outline their stories extensively before they start writing. So I t...

This post first ran on Thursday, May 16, 2013 In previous posts, we discussed choosing a central question and a story skeleton, also known as genre. We have bent and twisted a premise many different ways. What happens next? That depends on whether you are a pantser or a planner. Developing a conflict outline can keep you from getting mired in the middle. If you are allergic to outlining, you can wait until the end of the rough draft to examine each scene and identify the type of conflict it addresses. The four layer method I use is simply a new way of looking at conflict in the story. It ensures that every scene is earning its page time and is placed in an order that has logical “cause and effect.” First chapters are easy for most writers. The inciting event occurs. The protagonist makes an important decision or takes an irrevocable action. The antagonist knows of this decision/action and is prepared to oppose him. Then the writer loses momentum or doesn't know wher...

To plot or not to plot, ah, that is a thorny question. There is no right or wrong answer. If you prefer to sit down and wait for the muses to visit, what you end up with as a first draft may need some reverse engineering. If you plot first then write, the story may change and your first draft is dramatically different than the plan you started with. Both are perfectly acceptable, as is any method in between. The important part is to keep writing, growing your craft, and enjoying it. Over the years, our contributors have weighed in on the debate: Pantsing Versus Plotting Types of Writers Layering Conflict For more information about the layering method, check out Story Building Blocks I: The Four Layers of Conflic t, which is available in print and e-book versions. It would make a terrific addition to your Christmas wish list or a gift for other writers in your life. Diana Hurwitz  is the author of  Story Building Blocks: The Four Layers of Con...