Tag: plot

Characters for Company

Bernice Connell 1 Comment

I miss people. I miss spontaneous get togethers, unannounced summer visitors and the fun of planning birthday celebrations. Inevitable, I suppose, as a result of months-long, pandemic-induced, relative isolation. At least that’s what I’m telling myself.  

Letting housework slide and lounging for too many hours in front of the television have lost their appeal. Puzzling to me is why even reading is less pleasurable lately. I’ve chalked it up to the fact that it is such a solitary activity and what I want these days is more connection with live people.

Amid my somewhat limiting day-to-day routines, something promising has happened that has me excited about writing again. 

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My Life As A Plantster!

Tracey Richardson Leave a comment

For most of my novel writing career, I’ve been a Plotter. I would write pages and pages of notes before I started writing a novel—mostly to do with plot, but also to do with character development. It was my safety net, and I would not start my novel until I was sure I’d thought out every twist and turn (nuanced or obvious) and knew everything there was to know about my characters.

I’m happy to report that, more than a dozen published novels later, I’ve evolved into a Plantster. Which, for those of you who aren’t familiar with these terms, a Pantster is someone who writes by the seat of their pants without a detailed plan. A Plantster is a hybrid between a Plotter and a Pantster.

Now when I start a novel I only have a couple of pages of notes, and they’re more of a guideline rather than rules. I leave myself lots of room to play around, and I’m loving it. Read more