Quality Words over Quantity Words: A Fallacy

In the book, Art & Fear: Observations On the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking, artists Ted Orland and David Waylon told about a ceramics teacher who conducted an experiment in class. They decided to grade 1/2 of the class only on the quantity of ceramics produced and 1/2 solely on the quality of their project.

The Quality group was told that if they produced a quality pot at the very beginning of the semester, then they'd get an A and wouldn't have to do anything else. The Quantity group was told that if they produced 50 lbs of pots, they'd get an A, 40 lbs, a B, and so on.

The end result?

The students in the Quantity group produced the best work, according to technical and artistic sophistication. As they kept busy, producing pot after pot, they grew adept at working with the medium, refining their process, learning from their mistakes, and producing better and better pots.

The students in the Quality group focused on planning out what they would make, producing flawless work, and only worked on a few pieces over the course of the semester. As a result, they showed little improvement.

You might already see where I'm going with this post, from the title of it.

I want to liken this process to the plotting v. pantsing debate that I discussed in last week's post here. (I know some of your plotters are gearing up to filet me alive, but hear me out.)

The above story about the ceramics teacher can be found in the book Fail Fast, Fail Often: How Losing Can Help You Win, by Ryan Babineaux, PhD., and John Krumboltz, PhD. I found this post on The Daily Beast which discusses this book in further detail, and I have to tell you, I'm on board with what they are saying.

In essence, failing quickly in order to learn fast (also called failing forward) is the chant of successful businesses, concepts, and yes, books. (Click to tweet!)

Anne Lamott, in her book Bird by Bird, said that authors need to actually write to know what they are doing. We're to expect a "shitty first draft," a better second draft, and so on. In Fail Fast, the authors use the examples of Pixar films, Starbucks, and even comedians to bring home the point that you need to fail FAST to get on to performing well.

So pantsers, who sit down, stringing words together, revising, and then creating again, are actually depicting a great concept from Fail Fast:

You can’t know what writing is like, how you will feel about it, or what will result from it until you actually are doing it.

(Click to tweet!)

Let's Analyze

What do you have to think about the Fail Fast, Fail Often approach to writing?

Plotting v. Pantsing: Is One Superior Over the Other?

Lisa Cron wrote a controversial post over at Writers Unboxed last week that has given this age-old discussion a recent boost. She's the author of Wired for Story: The Writer's Guide to Using Brain Science to Hook Readers from the Very First Sentence.

Hop over there and read it. Don't forget to check out the comments, because great authors like James Scott Bell and even agent Donald Maass chimed in under the comments section.

This is obviously a subject that pushes buttons. One commenter called writing by the seat of your pants a form of "literary masturbation." No joke.

Maass made this point:

I’m not at all against writing that get us to “see” things and “apprehend” moments with arresting clarity. That’s beautiful writing. But neither can I elevate plot over process. Both approaches create something fiction needs to be great. Greatness, though, comes from a synthesis of strong story events and deft use of the vast pallet of literary technique.

James Scott Bell, author of Plot and Structure, so a proponent of some aspect of structure to "set your story free," wrote a post on The Kill Zone about the Perils of Pure Pantsing. He makes the following statement about balancing of creation within a structure:

There is an art, of course, to all this. A time to play and risk and explore. It should be done strategically, though, for the greatest benefit.

Risking and exploring, yet done strategically. I love this concept, as it's a good place for writers who eschew plotting altogether to understand what it can do for them.

What's missing from the discussion in general, in my estimation, is the allowance for personality. Yes, pantsers can shove themselves into the outlining box. It does happen. 

But at what cost? 

The love of writing, for some, is found in the process. They accept the rewriting, or as Anne Lamott said in Bird by Bird, a "really shitty first draft."

Cron's purpose in the post wasn't exactly clear to me. She says she wasn't trying to "bash pantsing" with her article, but in the same paragraph where she says that maybe plotting isn't a person's "inherent, hardwired process," (a statement I heartily approve of!) she said, "Maybe it's a bad habit you picked up along the way."

That sounds like bashing to me.

Of course, the only reason I took exception to the post is b/c I'm a semi-pantser...I just didn't see the need to leave a comment with my disgruntlement (only b/c I chose to write an entire post instead).

What made me laugh was the long-winded commenters, most of whom were proponents of some sort of creative freedom. I'm sure their personalities drove them to write what they did, and I'm sure they wrote stream of consciousness to defend their pantsing ways. And likely, they hit "Submit" and knew an extreme self-satisfaction. It's in their personalities!

Bell's post resonated with me, so check it out as well at the link provided above. He values the process as well as the structure, and believes having a little bit of both can really aid a writer.

Maass requested that Cron write a post pushing plot-driven authors "off their high hill," as she so effectively did with writers "trapped in the loop of their 'process.'"

I'll be waiting for that post.

Let's Analyze

What are your thoughts? Is it fair to elevate either into a place of superiority?

What Gives You Writing Hives?

I've never suffered from actual red, splotchy hives. I had a roommate who got hives when she was too cold, and a friend who got hives when she was flustered/embarrassed.

But I've gotten a case of emotional hives when it came to trying to plot a story.

NO LIE.

Since so many writers I respected recommended reading books like Story by Robert McKee, Save the Cat! by Blake Snyder, and Story Engineering by Larry Brooks, I bought them all, including a few others, like Plot and Structure by James Scott Bell, Outlining Your Novel by K.M Weiland, and The Story Template by Amy Deardon.

Each of these books broke me out in emotional hives.

Literally stifled all creativity within my little pantster soul. The keyboard was eternally dry, save for blog posts, which must go on. [It should be noted that all of the above books are very well written. I had no beef with style, just content.]

What makes me even more aggravated with myself is that I'd taken a workshop at a conference on the beauties of being created to write as a pantster (see notes from the workshop here) and yet I still felt I needed to try to break this mold I'd been created in.

Well, I haven't thrown the books away, though I did lend them out to a friend getting started with the writing process.

But I've let this baggage GO.

As a result, I'm about 2/3 (just shy of 60k) of the way done with my current WIP, and the words are flowing from my fingers onto the page. It's SO freeing and amazing to write how I was engineered to write!

Let's Analyze

What gives you emotional writing hives (or actual ones, if you're willing to cop to it)?

Pantsters Exposed

First of all, wish this Pantster a happy birthday! I'm celebrating by going to work as usual, so your comments will certainly brighten my day.

If you missed my post yesterday on Plotters, click here. I think you'll be surprised at how similar writing habits actually are between the two. Below is the breakdown for Pantsters:

Once again, I got very close percentages to 100 for each dichotomy presented in questions 1-4.

1a. You are not a list maker (groceries, to-do, etc)			21%
1b. You ARE a list maker			76%
2a. You do not have a set/defined writing time and/or stick to it			77%
2b. You DO have a set/defined writing time and/or stick to it			16%
3a. You do not keep a calendar/schedule for work or home			34%
3b. You DO keep a calendar/schedule for work or home			61%
4a. You pant through your entire story; to do else wise would give you hives.			37%
4b. You do NOT pant through your entire story; that's for crazy people.			50%

Interesting to note how similar the lifestyle patterns are for Pantsters and Plotters. 88% of Plotters kept lists and 76% of Pantsters do the same. 19% of Plotters had a set time to write, and 16% of Pantsters do. For whatever reason, my stereotype of Plotters was that much more of them would have a set time to write since they are so much more rigorous in plotting out their story. (Does that even make sense?) Almost the exact same percentage of Pantsters keeps a calendar, just like Plotters.

So my overall conclusions are that writers are just a conscientious bunch of people in general. I believe this has something to do with how much of our life is consumed with writing, so we have to be very careful to budget our time, regardless of whether we plot or pant. At least, this is my educated guess.

Question 4 was interesting. Only 87% answered it one way or the other, so I don't know about the other 13%, but 37% go for broke and pant the entire way through their story. Only 45% of Plotters plot their way through the entire story...not that far from each other. So these are the folks that make up the far right and far left of the writing bell curve.

On to the more random questions...

5. You have always been a pantster.			62%
6. You bought plotting books, but had nervous breakdowns before finishing them.			43%
7. Your first draft is your outline. You then do extensive editing/cutting/starting over.			50%
8. Your efforts to plot fall flat and stifle your creativity.			49%
9a. You have several stories that you work on at once.			62%
9b. You only work on one story at a time.			36%

Seriously? 43% of us have suffered trying to read Story Engineering or Story or Save the Cat or The Story Within or How to Find your Story...and nearly had nervous breakdowns? If that's not a call for a support group, I don't know what is! Well, that, and the fact that one-half of us take our story when it's finished and basically rewrite it. Whew.

49% agreed that plotting stifled their creativity, and it seems that Pantsters are more open-minded in general about how many projects we take on. The statistics were almost exactly opposite for Pantsters and Plotters with this last question. While 36% of Pantsters only work on one story at a time, 39% of Plotters work on more than one story at a time. That's fascinating, writer friends!

Q4U: Pantsters, how does this float your boat? Should we rally for a support group? I think the ACFW conference workshop got us off to a great start....

Do You Fit the Plotter/Personality "Stereotype"?

As promised, I want to delve a little deeper into each Myers-Briggs type and see what the survey revealed about plotting tendencies. I took each individual answer, separated them by type, and broke down how many from that type had answered as being a plotter, plotter with pantster tendencies, pantster with plotter tendencies, or pantster.

Before I go too far, though, for those who don't know what I'm talking about, check out my post here on my initial overall survey results.

So here's the breakdown, by type, of which responders are Plotters (which encompasses Plotters with Pantster Tendencies) and Pantsters (which encompasses Pantster with Plotter Tendencies). 

ENFJ: 82% PANTSTERS

          18% PLOTTERS

ENFP: 86% PANTSTERS

          14% PLOTTERS

ENTJ*: 100% PLOTTERS

ESFJ: 83% PANTSTERS

         17% PLOTTERS

ESFP*: 50% PLOTTERS

                50% PANTSTERS

ESTJ*: 100% PLOTTERS

ESTP*:100% PANTSTERS

INFJ: 54% PLOTTERS

              46% PANTSTERS

INFP: 68% PANTSTERS

         32% PLOTTERS

INTJ: 65% PLOTTERS

             35% PANTSTERS

INTP: 80% PANTSTERS

         20% PLOTTERS

ISFJ: 50% PANTSTERS

        50% PLOTTERS

ISFP*: 75% PANTSTERS

        25% PLOTTERS

ISTJ: 61% PANTSTERS

        39% PLOTTERS

ISTP*: 100% PLOTTERS

*Very few responders in these categories.

The seven types that have a highlighted percentage are likely the types that have the strongest statistical leaning to one type of writing method, Plotting or Pantsting. In the categories with asterisks, the results are likely inconclusive and definitely not statistically significant. In some cases, only one responder indicated they were that particular type.

Additional surveys would need to be done on a much larger sample to reach more conclusive results for that particular type. At the time this data was collected, 166 writers had taken the survey. At the same time, I think it is statistically significant that most of our writers fall into the other categories (based on the results from my previous post).It just could be that there are very few writers out there with certain Myers-Briggs types.

Q4U: What do you think about these results? Did some of the higher percentages surprise you? How does that make you feel if you fit the "stereotype"? What about if you don't?

The Results Are In!!!

I will be expounding on these basic results next week, but for now, here's some basic results of the plotting and personality survey (161 responders to date) from last week. By far, the intuiting introverts rule the writing scene!

I wanted to break down the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator to see which of the dichotomies (E/I, N/S, T/F, P/J) were greatest.  

82% Introverts

19% Extroverts. 

If you've been to a writer's conference, you might question the validity of this, but writing is generally a solitary occupation/hobby.  

70% Intuitive

31% Sensing

Tells me that most of the writers favor a more abstract or theoretical way of perceiving and gathering information instead of a concrete, tangible way. Intuitive writers who are more likely to trust the flashes of insight percolating in their mind. 

65% Feeling 

36% Thinking 

Indicates more writers prefer to make decisions based on empathy or achieving balance versus making decisions by what seems logical and reasonable.  

27% Perceiving 

74% Judging 

Most writers tend to use their judging functions of thinking/feeling when relating to the outside world.

This graph totally blew my mind. Over 50% of writers are PANTSTERS!! Only 43% identified as Plotters. Far more interesting, though, was that 75% of writers didn't identify as either Pantster or Plotter, but as some mixture of the two. I actually thought this number would be higher, but not that much higher. Only a mere 11% identified as hardcore Plotters, and I thought that number would be much higher. (At least it feels that way!)

I'm going to crunch a few more numbers, hopefully over the weekend, and get to the the interesting figures from the rest of the survey. The above results are absolute, meaning there was no way to mess them up. Some Plotters went and took both the Plotter and Pantster pages of the survey, which skewed the results. (My fault...couldn't figure out how to let Plotters finish the survey after Page 2 instead of it automatically sending them to the Pantster Page 3.) However, it'll still be a fun look into the preferences of Plotters and Pantsters...just take it for what it was intended: a fun diversion.

Q4U: Are these results surprising to you? In what way?

Personality and Plotting Survey: Does One Influence the Other?

I've created a brief survey to determine if personality influences writing methods in any kind of statistically significant way.

Please RETWEET this post and get the word out! The more writers who can take the survey, the better the results will be. The first two questions are required, and will open up the rest of the survey depending on which you selected, Plotter or Pantster. Plotters, don't answer the Pantster questions on page 3...just click submit.



Thanks everyone!

Seat of the Pants Writers: Tips and Tricks to Overcoming Challenges

Today, I decided that I would finish off this little mini-rant on how it's okay to be a Seat-of-the-Pants (SOTP) writer. Clearly, I'm feeling defensive about being one myself...but that's another story for another day. I'm working on it. :)
There are some significant disadvantages to being either a plotter or a pantster, but this post will focus on a few techniques, garnered from a SOTP workshop at the ACFW conference, that will offset the SOTP challenges.

1) Writing a synopsis - It's sometimes not good enough to a publisher or agent to give "broad brushstrokes," so when it's not you should tape record yourself talking about your book. You'll be surprised at how much you actually already have thought out about the plot but haven't solidified and written it down anywhere.

2) To offset panic - Remind yourself that you're not writing the entire book today. Instead, write one brief bullet point of what to accomplish the next day, focus on dialogue to keep the scene moving along, research until inspiration strikes, reread what you've written so far to come full circle and get your creative juices flowing. Also, schedule in time to be a SOTP. If you think you can write a book in a year, double it to two. 

3) Look at your first draft as your outline. Anne Lamotte says to write the first drat and expect it to be crummy. Chain your internal editor while writing. You can edit later. Also, don't be too attached to anything you've written, as it'll likely be heavily edited (read: cut) later. Also, don't get hung up on creating chapter ending hooks. This is better as part of the editing process.

4) Rabbit trails and tangents have use! The portions of your story that you had fun writing, that kept the whole project interesting to you, but don't serve to drive the plot forward or keep tension on the page can be "Added Value" to your readers. Put these scenes or chapters on your website to give you readers extra enjoyment as they read the chapter that got cut, or find out the story behind the story.

5) When you're stuck - think about the original conflict. What did you want to write this book in the first place? Whether you know the opening scene and ending scene, or just have an idea for a fantastic climax, revisit the one or two blurps or snatches of plot that first attracted you to the story. 

6) To preserve ideas - WRITE THEM DOWN. Don't let ideas slip by, thinking you'll capture it the following day or even be able to remember it by then.

Ultimately, the way any writer writes a story is to get their rear end in the seat, fingers on the keyboard, and just do the work, but hopefully these tips will help the SOTPer.

Q4U: Do you have any other tricks you'd like me to add to the list? Things that have helped you overcome SOTP challenges?

Seat of the Pants: Pros and Cons

I'm continuing my post from yesterday on being a Seat of the Pants (SOTP) writer...and being PROUD of it! Karen Ball called us the "pinballs of publishing," because we don't see things in a linear way. We bounce around, seeing things in possibilities...kinda like we have attention deficit disorder.

Typically, SOTP writers engage in more than one writing project at a time. For me, I usually am writing my monthly article for CFOM, I write blog posts galore, I write on my WIP (or two or three), pound out a prologue for yet another book that I can't get out of me mind.....you get the idea. We get caught up in the next shiny thing.

However, Karen was quick to point out that our ADD doesn't mean that we're not intelligent or that we can't focus or stick to something or aren't able to finish something. Having one to many irons in the fire is just the way we stay interested.

There is a cost, of course, to this creativity and freedom. It's called REWRITING. Many times, we'll be writing along and then have this excellent idea that we need to incorporate. This requires extensive rewriting. Or while we're writing, our secondary character all of a sudden decides to take the stage by storm, and we go with it, saying, "Hmm...wonder what he's going to do?" only later to delete it because it added nothing to the story.

Another drawback to not plotting is that we will paint ourselves into a corner and have no idea why we are there, how we got there, or where we are planning on going. (In other words, STUCK.) This is really bad when you're 200 pages into the novel and your deadline is upon you, but that's another drawback. Deadlines have a tendency to whoosh right on by, since SOTPers don't really think or write on a schedule, per se.

Writing a synopsis is darn well near impossible. Many publishers want to know up front what the books are going to be about, yet the SOTP writer only knows what the book will be about in broad brushstrokes, not specifics. This can be even more difficult when they want to know your synopses for a series!

Why, you might ask, should we want to have anything with being a SOTP? Oh, there are too many reasons to name (but I'll try):

Creativity - you never know what you're getting into. It's "new every morning." Characters unfold and surprise you - and you take them deeper with each unveiling.  We brainstorm and think on our feet and we've got good instincts...that we should trust! We're flexible - not stuck on any one trajectory. Don't have writer's block quite as often. We're excited about what we're writing, and that excitement translates to the page. We have more texture oftentimes to your writing, as we take characters deeper and deeper with each rewrite.

There are things we can do ahead of time (best practices) to offset the downsides to being a SOTP, and I'll go into that tomorrow. See you then!

Q4U: What are some other positives or possible downsides to being an SOTP?

Seat of the Pants Writers: The "Pinballs of Publishing"

One of the biggest revelations I had at the 2012 ACFW conference was a workshop I took under author and editor Karen Ball. It was titled, "There's Nothing Wrong With You."

Seat of the Pants (SOTP) describes the writing process for some folk (this therapist included), as opposed to those who plot every scene and write outlines. Writers fall somewhere along this SOTP-Plotter continuum, and I'm convinced it has a lot to do with personality in general. (So convinced, in fact, that I'm going to try to put together a survey to do some research on the matter further. Stay tuned.)

But for now, I want to ease the anxiety that other SOTPs out there might have. For a while now, I've felt that being an SOTPer was somewhat "less" of a writer, not as preferred, not as good...inferior. Translated: NOT OKAY.

So I promptly bought all these plotting books, among them: Story Engineering, Plot v. Character, Story, Save the Cat, and How to Find Your Story. As I began reading them, my anxiety shot through the roof. No joke. It was overwhelming, trying to figure out which story event would finish out Act I and usher in Act II.

Attending this workshop was like letting the scales fall from my eyes! After going through the pros and cons of being an SOTPer, Karen had several other authors on a panel to answer questions from the audience. Mary DeMuth, Lenora Worth, Jenny B. Jones, Jill Eileen Smith, and Maureen Lang were on the panel, all confirmed SOTPers. They got hives trying to shove their stories into three-act structures too! Synopses are difficult if not impossible for them, since they honestly don't know what's coming next.

And while being an SOTP has its own inherent challenges, it has some great benefits. More important, it is OKAY to be an SOTP.

Q4U: Are you an SOTPer or a Plotter? What are some pros and cons of either one?