Historical Outliner or Pantster?

gothicangel said:

I think I'm about half-and-half. Before I start writing I research the history, culture and geography, before I start. I have a very loose idea of my plot. I do not sit down and write an outline. I'm just starting my new WIP, I know how it starts, the structure/arc, characters and how it will end.

What's others process?

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Half and Halfer here too. I do just the same thing...reading everything I can get my hands on about the setting and time period. By doing that I find that the smaller plot details just begin to naturally emerge.
In my current WIP, I didn't know how it would end, at least not specifically, until I actually got to that point. It's like I wanted the characters to decide that for themselves. Writing is a strange, otherworldly process sometimes.

Well, on my first draft, I had a basic setting, characters, and I knew enough about the time period (and read enough on it) to get me started. So I guess it was sort-of pantsed. On the second draft, I realized that I needed some more research, but it was just a cleaner version of draft one. Draft three, I added a new setting toward the beginning and I had to read up on it because I hadn't bothered to research it before.

Draft four is by far the most outlined. Outlining anything never really worked for me before, but going into this draft, I summarized the entire plot in a notebook and I'm going by that. I had structural issues in the other drafts and my beta pointed out some plot-issues that I wanted to have pinned down before I started writing again.

So...I guess I'm a half-and-halfer, but these days, leaning more towards outliner.

Half-and-half here too. The historical events form an outline for the events, but all the human stuff involving character interactions and relationships are pretty much organic.

Pure panster. On a word for word basis, I don't think it takes any longer to write an historical novel than it does to write any other kind of novel. It's just that historical novels are usually longer. But writing a thousand words is writing a thousand words, whatever the genre, and I can write a thousand words of an historical just as fast as I can write a thousand words of a mystery or a fantasy.

I also don't think many pure pansters are going to start outlining just because they're writing an historical novel. I don't think we could outline, even if we tried. And there's simply no need. There's nothing about an historical novel to mean writing it as a panster won't work as well there as in any other genre.

Jamesaritchie said:

There's nothing about an historical novel to mean writing it as a panster won't work as well there as in any other genre.

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Agree. Writing is writing, and research is research, no matter what genre one is writing.

I pantstered my last historical with only ideas for specific scenes and the ending vaguely in mind. For my current WIP I needed to outline a bit because it's focused around a very specific timeline and I had to keep it tight. I still didn't outline in the usual sense though. I built a loose framework for a few key scenes in the through plot and subplots mapping their intersection on the timeline, and that's it.

I'm an outliner. Not sure if that's specific to historical fiction because I don't write anything else. After writing several MSs either not involving major recorded historical events or else based on events which weren't well-recorded, my WIP finally is based on a pretty decent written record. I wrote out all the events that relate to my two POV characters and thought I'd be fine from there. But I'm not. I had to outline. Even though the events are recorded, I need to understand why these things are happening in my story before I can write the lead up. I have to identify all the antagonists and conflicts first. So, with or without a solid historical record to follow, I have to outline. But I really hate doing massive rewrites in revisions, so that's just my process.

I snowflake, but I don't see it as a plan as much as suggestions. But I write better when I know where I'm going and exactly what this scene (and last scene and the next one) is meant to accomplish.

I pants no matter what I write. I get a notion to write and start writing.

If it turns out to be historical, I might hit a few sticking points for facts and data, so I research that, but mostly, the research comes in after the first draft as I error check my facts.

Only a few times have I sat down, knowing I was thinking say a Viking saga, where I'd read several books on Vikings or medieval life prior to writing.

But general, as has been said, writing is writing and this genre doesn't take me any longer than anything else.

I used to be a pantser but on my current WIP i'm a bit of a hybrid. I pantsed the first draft, but now I'm doing a substantial rewrite (as in, creating a new main plot and turning the old main plot into a sub plot), so I have some idea of where i'm going and what parts of the original draft I'm going to use. But there are still huge moments of pantsness. I don't quite know what plot twists I'm going to throw in until the scene veers off in some unplanned direction and then the rest of it has to be reworked to accommodate the new plot development.

Like, I never expected to give my MC a niece, much less have his brother-in-law try to pair them off (don't worry, that was totally legal and commonplace in ancient Egypt). Or have her follow him back home when his visit is over. Or have her come into contact with the big bad and throw a whole spanner in the works when big bad mistakes her for a slave and gropes her at a dinner party... none of that was supposed to happen! But it kinda works, so I have to adjust accordingly.

I've always been a panster, but I'm finding out that it's pretty much impossible to write HF without at least some outlining.

Flicka said:

I snowflake, but I don't see it as a plan as much as suggestions. But I write better when I know where I'm going and exactly what this scene (and last scene and the next one) is meant to accomplish.

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Flicka would you please explain snowflake-ing to this newbie?

I'm a pantser for the most part, but with that being said, I generally already know the period I'm working in. My "specialties" are the 18th century up to early 20th century, England and America. If I get outside of those periods, I start to get a bit nervous. I started writing a book set during the English Civil War, but lost interest in it because I'm not as grounded in that time period as I am with other periods. I find it easier to write in my home periods because I can thoroughly immerse myself into the details because I know them by heart.

Definitely outliner. If I don't plan, if I don't know what I want to do, I'll never finish it.

Madame de Plume said:

Flicka would you please explain snowflake-ing to this newbie?

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Sorry, missed this! I was referring to the snowflake method of plotting.

http://www.advancedfictionwriting.com/articles/snowflake-method/

I can't write without a general idea of what I'm writing (tried that, and it definitely doesn't work for me). But that's not to say I stick with the plan 100%, or that I know everything. I just need a general plan.

Pantser but the one I'm writing now won't work that way, because nearly all the characters are real people and too much is known about where most of them were and what they were doing at particular times.
My mc is nice and flexible, because as a young girl at the Tudor court not much is recorded about her, but the moment she starts interacting with anyone else I have to check things out, because if I pantsed I'd end up down too many blind alleys.
I'm finding it very, very difficult.

My work is mostly mixed. I have a thorough outline, and it can get very detailed when it needs to be. In my last book for example, I needed my characters to cross the forty mile desert on the California Trail at a very specific time, because they needed a full moon. So each day had its own mini-outline. Normally, I don't get quite that focused. But it was a story of a journey, and I needed miles racked up and landmarks to be believable, because there are a lot of people out there who know them.

But in stories without that kind of pressure, I write with a more general outline. My last story was shorter, though, (250k in two volumes), so maybe it's a better approach for me. I've got three multi-volume fairy tale-HF hybrids under my belt, and I'm still very much at the figuring it out stage.

Flicka said:

I snowflake, but I don't see it as a plan as much as suggestions. But I write better when I know where I'm going and exactly what this scene (and last scene and the next one) is meant to accomplish.

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This is how I write. I'm methodical, and LOVED coming across the snowflake method. But I write out my scene list and character paragraphs, and then revise as necessary. I stop often to do research - and then write more, research, write, research, write. Sometimes I write, and then find out if there's anything out there to forbid what I wrote

I'm more of a plotter, but I leave myself enough room for spontaneous ideas. My outline is not set in stone. I write in Scrivener, so I plot using the index cards, and it's easy to add new cards or change existing ones.

I outline, though not in great detail, and I'm always aware that better ideas may occur to me along the way that will make the outline change. (I had one manuscript almost finished before I realized that a different villain would make a much better story.)

I'm totally seat of the pants; which is why I try very hard to set my historical novels in eras I know a lot about (as in, having read everything I could get my hands on in that era since I was 12). If I have research to do that interferes with my pursuit of the story, I change the font color, do the required research once I have time, and change it back.

You'd be shocked at how much red shows up in some of my WIPs.

I'm an outliner, only because I tend to get SO distracted by the cool, absorbing, didn't-know-that details of the historical research.

Outliner. But it's mostly hitting plot ploints (first act, mid-point, black moment, conclusion). And since I write in the same time period, I have the basics nailed; I research the small bits as I go.

Deb Kinnard said:

I'm totally seat of the pants; which is why I try very hard to set my historical novels in eras I know a lot about (as in, having read everything I could get my hands on in that era since I was 12). If I have research to do that interferes with my pursuit of the story, I change the font color, do the required research once I have time, and change it back.

You'd be shocked at how much red shows up in some of my WIPs.

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That's a really good idea. Too often I have stopped in the middle of writing when I get stuck on some little detail I feel like I have to resolve...