The Black Hole Of Pantser

Biskit

Biskit

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I don't do this planning thing - it just never works for me, so I've been a pantser since... forever.

Today I got sucked into the Black Hole Of Pantser. I know how the story starts, I'm 40k in, and I know how it ends. I've just written a crazy scene that ties my MC in more knots than a troop of boy scouts could ever undo in one lifetime. And there are dragons. It's wonderful, it's crazy, I can see that ending in the distance... just one more step... who turned my lights out?

So, now I am in the black hole, the chasm between where I am and where I'm going. I have no idea what comes next. I don't even have a spare box of matches to set fire to my fingers.

Anyone else down here? Hello?
 
I was but I can throw ya a torch lol I was beginning to feel I would never find the story for this one (unlike yours it doesn't have an ending). But after a read of Wikkipedia I worked out why my hurdy-gurdy man had been taken.
 
Biskit said:
So, now I am in the black hole, the chasm between where I am and where I'm going. I have no idea what comes next. I don't even have a spare box of matches to set fire to my fingers.

Anyone else down here? Hello?
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  • All stories are about the protag dealing with injustice (external conflict).
  • All stories are about the protag questioning his self-image (internal conflict).
So, is your protag angry enough at injustice to do anything? Is your protag angry enough at himself to change his ways?

Now your protag has to step out of his comfort zone, for both the external conflict and the internal one. And he doesn't get it right in his first attempt. Where to go next? Where your protag is scared. Where he's scared of failing the external conflict. Where he's scared of failing his internal conflict. But he still tries.
 
Haha, too bad. That never happens to me. *Pinocchio nose grows 10 feet long* Right...

I know how you feel, actually, because I am in the exact same spot. I know what my ending should do, I have my beginning, and the last scene I just wrote, just like you, ties everything in a royally huge knot. Now, for me, I might just delete the scene and start over again, using pertinent details, because my problem was caused by having not reread my story in a while, sitting down, and just taking off. I wound up renaming several towns. Hmm... so right now I'm rereading the story - while making literally hundreds of edits and the last two day, deleted well over 20 pages.

Whew. Not exactly just rereading, I guess.

Anyways, I would suggest deleting the scene and starting over? I'm really a terrible motivational couch. I mean coach. (Couches tend to be de-motivational, unless sleeping is an Olympic sport.) Can you give us some more insight?
DA
 
Biskit said:
So, now I am in the black hole, the chasm between where I am and where I'm going. I have no idea what comes next. I don't even have a spare box of matches to set fire to my fingers.
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And that's one of the things I love most about pantsing. Sometimes as the writer you find yourself on an adventure with the characters, not quite knowing what the heck's going to happen next or who's going to survive. And it's great... until it isn't and you can't see past where you've just written. When I get stuck like that I usually take a break away from the computer - sometimes for a day or two - and just mull things over in odd moments (going for a walk often works for me). Eventually (so far!) a way out of the darkness presents itself.
 
Biskit said:
I have no idea what comes next.
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I've found it helps to just push ahead and write *something*, even if you know you're going to have to come back and rewrite.

But if you really can't think of anything, just write [ADD TEXT HERE] and jump forward to the next section you know you can write - then come back and fill this space after you've finished the rest of your first draft.
 
I know it well, which is weird, because I always think of myself as a planner. I guess that doesn't say much for the quality of my planning.
 
It's still dark down here, but now I hear voices...(y)

DelActivisto said:
Anyways, I would suggest deleting the scene and starting over?
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I will if I have to, but even though it backs me into a corner, I've now got my MC exactly where no-one would want to be - the police are after him, the local hooligans are after him, he's just done something terminal to a demon who has called its kin down on him in retribution... in fact everyone and everything is on his case and no-one who likes the way their skin wraps around their body is going to help. I really don't want to give that up:).

Gonk the Insane said:
When I get stuck like that I usually take a break away from the computer - sometimes for a day or two - and just mull things over in odd moments (going for a walk often works for me). Eventually (so far!) a way out of the darkness presents itself.
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Yup, that's where cleaning out the chickens or loading the washing machine comes in.

Brian G Turner said:
I've found it helps to just push ahead and write *something*, even if you know you're going to have to come back and rewrite.
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That's the plan for today, until or unless I get that moment of inspiration whilst shovelling chicken poo. Last time I hit a point like this I did something akin to a minute-by-minute account of what my MC did next until I found a way out, then went back and wrote it properly. I think all of these techniques are just ways of exploring the story and getting all the options straight.
 
Lo! I bring light to the Black Hole! Though thinking about it, opening a door and letting in some fresh air might be a better metaphor.

I'm a great believer in switching back and forth between left-brained logical planning and right-brained intuitive leaps. I have oft visited the pantser hell-hole, and if letting my subconscious doesn't throw up any answers while I'm doing something mindless like going for a walk or washing up, then my path out of the darkness is to make lists of all possible ways for the characters to proceed, which morph into a kind of flow-chart with lots of arrows pointing all over the place. eg MC has fallen down a cliff so the possible options are climbing back up, climbing down, finding a convenient cave a few yards away which leads though the cliff to somewhere else, having someone rescue him etc. Then I take each one and weigh up consequences both for the character and the plot eg I need him to be a the nearby village in two days, so climbing down would mean he'd be late so isn't feasible, unless I change the date of the meeting -- is that possible, if not why not? -- or he can get transport to take him there.

Allied to that, I also re-read all previous chapters as DA does and look for things that my subconscious mind had planted there which might help, plus I go back and re-read all the previous notes I've made about problems which need to be solved, and tie them all in together. And at that point the right brain invariably jumps in and starts things moving again, the left brain having done all the heavy lifting.
 
I am somewhere between planner and pantser and I'm currently still stuck with the dreaded Soggy Middle Syndrome (there are, of course, witnesses to my floundering).

So I took a small detour and started writing a short story which feels more manageable while continuing to ferret out the plot holes etc that are causing the soggy middle.

It's helping. Somewhere.
 
AnyaKimlin said:
unlike yours it doesn't have an ending
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Endings are for wimps.
No. Wait. Endings are for WIPS.
My bad.:whistle:


And my rubbish internet connection sent it twice. I suppose it's fair. The email I tried to send out didn't go at all.:mad:
 
Well I'm not going into that deep dark cave of yours. The idea of pantsing fills me with dread; I cannot write without some sort of predefined structure, because I am prolix by nature, and I know I'd simply lose control of the narrative. For some reason I'm particularly afraid that the subplots will escape my clutches should I not keep an eye on them. In my experience subplots are easily dropped in but resolved with difficulty, especially if there's more than one. I'd be adrift without my trusty plan.

I've written outlines for the first 28 chapters of my WIP, which will take me (roughly) up to the halfway point, a signposted haven in the wilderness. Past that there is only unexplored forest, which is overshadowed by the mountain in the distance; my endpoint. I know what it is, but don't know how I'm going to get there. Unless chapter 29 is blindingly obvious, I will at that point put away my manuscript and pick up my compass and sat-phone instead; time to plan a path through the forest before undertaking the trek itself.
 
If you feel around a bit in the dark, you'll probably find something soft (possibly not. As well as dark it's BIG down there. That'll be some of my furniture - probably the bed, but there are well-stuffed chairs for characters, and shelves and a table for copy - or tea. I've spent enough time there that I've installed all necessary comforts. I'm likely to leave a gap, and go from a point after that particular crisis is resolved, give the boy scouts a bit more knotty time, or divert onto a separate project for a while - everything looks different when you get back to it.

This nearly always requires some rewriting of paths leading into the darkness - but what writing doesn't?
 
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