Frankly, I’m a “plantser.” I know my beats, and where I want the story to finish up (sometimes I write the end first). But I’ve also learned that characters may go to unexpected — and sometimes better — places than I’d anticipated, and I’m good with that. Here’s a brief look at a different method from my own.
One of our special guests at the HNS North America 2021 conference was Libbie Hawker. Libbie is a prolific and excellent writer with many novels to her credit. A recent favourite for me is The Ragged Edge of Night under the pen name Olivia Hawker. But I digress. Libbie put on two master classes, one called Take Off Your Pantsand the other called Making It In Historical Fiction. Both were very well attended and received.
Libbie’s master class, Take Off Your Pants, was based on the advice packed into her book by the same name. The subtitle is “Outline Your Books for Faster, Better Writing”. After writing my first novel by the seat of my pants – what folks call a pantser – I adopted an outlining technique cobbled together from a few sources such as Elizabeth George’s Write Away. But Libbie’s advice has added another…
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Sharon E. Cathcart 