Don’t worry, the pants are those you wear if you write by the seat of your pants. If you prod your keyboard and hope your characters will develop in fascinating ways and have heaps of scintillating yet coherent adventures, you’re a pantser.
I was a pantser.
Lightmaker took five years to write. I had hair when I started. I’m happy with the final version, but I need to speed up. The sun will only last another 5 billion years.
My first draft took a year. I’d stuffed it with digressions and forced my characters through hoops to create what I thought was drama. Worse, my antagonist lacked depth, the novel’s theme needed sharpening, and my protagonist hardly changed during her journey.
I consulted editors and improved, but individual feedback was expensive. Self-sufficiency was my goal, but how could I develop book-doctor skills?
Books were one possibility. I saw plenty of ‘write ten bestsellers in your tea break’ volumes on Amazon, all promising systems for planning your masterpiece.
Like a drowning man, I grabbed these and started outlining Lightmaker’s sequel. I had a host of ideas and vague themes all lined up and waiting.
However, I soon hit the marshes and wallowed around thinking ‘what happens now, what happens next?’ The books might guide, but inspiration wouldn’t come, and my pages stayed blank. Was I wrong to try planning? Would I remain a pantser? Should I try another book?
Libby Hawker’s book ‘Take off Your Pants’ caught my eye. It’s a fine title for a fine read.
Hawker creates a template to help writers recognise the heart shared by virtually all tales. A character’s desires face opposition, and her struggles change her status. Hawker dips into works like Charlotte’s Web, The Cat in the Hat, Harry Potter and Lolita to clarify everything.
She goes further. A character needs a serious flaw which the drama seeks to heal. Readers must see characters try to improve, even if they’re ultimately unsuccessful.
Hawker says you can’t know your principal character until you’ve sorted your antagonist – the night to your protagonist’s day. There’s also space devoted to the hero’s allies, and how they guide the protagonist’s growth.
She mentions theme as a unifying concept, an outlook on life which your novel aims to explore. Aligning scenes and characters with a specific theme means you won’t have to prune ten thousand irrelevant words from your first draft.
Hawker relegates the plot to a vehicle hauling the characters and their flaws across a threatening landscape. However, she lays down several clever guidelines for constructing your plot and guide your journey. She breaks down one of her own novels into 26 separate blocks, such as ‘Inciting Event’, ‘Character Realises External Goal’, and ‘Display of Flaw’. Each describes a particular facet of the character’s journey.
It’s good stuff, and Hawker emphasises how there’s ‘wiggle room’ for those who can’t release their pants. Improvisation still has its place.
However, I ran into those stagnant marshes again. Hawker is clear on what might go into each part of the journey, but I found it difficult to decide what each block should contain. The inspiration I’d found while pantsing the novel wouldn’t come. Pantsing allows an author to converse with his characters, but planning means you treat them like chess pieces, and these pieces never talked.
Other issues emerged. Hawker mentions pacing as the key to writing novels readers can’t put down, but only cryptically mentions a set of ‘inverted triangles’, which channel the characters into an increasingly constrained path. The concept seemed sound but practical use was difficult. I could see what to do, but not how to do it. How could a scene look like an inverted triangle?
Progress required further analysis.
Hawker gushingly references John Truby’s book ‘22 Steps to Becoming a Master Storyteller’, so I unearthed a copy.
Truby reflects on his screenwriting experience in referencing classic films. ‘The Godfather, Tootsie, Casablanca, It’s a Wonderful Life, Sunset Boulevard’. A critical novelist might wail and say films aren’t books, but film structure often follows novel structure.
There’s another bonus: watching these films just takes a few hours. Refresh your memory with these classics and Truby’s lessons will become clear.
Truby provides a foundation for Hawker, and like the best foundations, it goes deep. Hawker’s description of pacing might work for many, but for me Truby’s explanation clarified everything. He forms those inverted triangles by squeezing characters into places with fewer and fewer options.
Studying one topic from different angles can help, and after reading both Hawker and Truby, I think I understand.
This is no casual read. Do Truby’s exercises with your work in progress. If your ideas are decent, they’ll pass Truby’s tests. If not, you won’t waste time building your house with straw.
Most usefully, these books contain checklists. Authors can check each scene to see how it develops the character, or solves problems, or illustrates strategies. Look at the desire driving the scene, and where your protagonist ends up. Who opposes the character? Will the scene end with a ‘cymbal-crash’ of impending peril? Truby and Hawker provide a compass, a gentle pointer towards the best direction, and a guide away from the marshes of digression.
I’m ready to write Lightmaker’s sequel. The events of each chapter are clear, and the vital elements of a story are all present. I know more about my character and her flaws, and her photo-negative opponent. I can describe the novel’s theme in one easy-to-read sentence to make sure every scene fits.
Both Truby and Hawker have strong points. Their templates aren’t sure-fire recipes, but they’ll warn me off the plot and character digressions that left me taking four years to polish Lightmaker’s first draft.
The sequel’s provisional title is ‘Cradle of the Mind’, and there’s a free cheesy grin to anyone getting the reference. Like the title? Let me know in the comments, or drop me an email.
Thanks, Kevin. Great review!