Taking shape....

Laura: Yes, as I admitted in the guest post intro, Jennie’s method scared the panster in me into a curled up mass of whimpering writer. I mean, this takes organizational skills (if you could see my desk, you’d understand that “organizational skills” is a foreign concept to me.). This takes more colored paper than I have on hand. This takes printer ink. (Guess what I managed to forget again today, on my trip to Wally World? G’wan. Guess. You’ll never get it. Heh.)

So, the other night, as we drove to watch a minor league baseball game (the home team was... well, in a word... trounced. The only reason we stayed ‘til the end was for the fireworks, but I digress...)...Where was I?

Oh, yeah, so there I am, without a computer, a laptop or even any caveman tools (notebook and pen), and I started thinking about my current WIP. I’m on chapter four, and it just wasn’t working for me the way I was trying to take it, and I KNEW it was wrong, but couldn’t quite see a way to fix it.

“Try thinking just about the hero’s arc,” said a little mutant voice in the back of my head.

So I did.

Wow.

Let me just say, when I focused in on what my hero wants and needs to do, I saw several things unfolding: the heroine’s BIG conflict, and how his actions will contribute to... get this... the BLACK MOMENT! Yes! (Panster does a li’l victory dance here, because the BM’s don’t usually unfold this early in the story for me.) I can *see* where this story needs to go, what needs to happen in order to fuel all the conflicts and growth necessary towards bringing this couple together.

I’ll admit, I didn’t use the color coding method when I finally got my hands on caveman tools, but I got my points written down, and will have them on hand as I finish writing this story. And Sherry’s fainted from the shock of my announcement via IM: “I’ll have you knows, that I used a portion of Jennie’s method... well, in my noggin, on the way to the b-ball game, and wound up PLOTTING some of my hero’s arc for the WIP.”

I’m excited about the direction I discovered this story would take, and I don’t feel like I’ve traded sides here, and gone to pitch for the Plotters, either. Nope.

I’m still firmly planted in the Panster’s dugout.



Sherry: Here I sit with my stash of colored paper and find myself also sans printer ink. (whimper). I will be rectifying that lil oversight posthaste.

Not that the need for the printing part of Jennie’s method is anytime near for me. I still have to do the identification portion. And I will. As I might have mentioned before, I have the perfect, most imperfect story just begging to be scrambled into pretty colored strips.

In the meantime, as I pondered the methodology involved, I also began to mentally focus on yet another story that I have brewing. Using Jennie’s method, I began to “think” the story into the appropriate colored sections. Being only in the beginning stages of the story, this was fairly easy to do.

Right away, I could tell where I needed to concentrate my efforts. How exciting!

Keep checking back as I begin using Jennie’s Big Breakdown method. The plotter in me is simply all-atwitter to begin. I’ve read Jennie’s books and I know how well plotted and executed her stories are.

Go find out for yourself if you haven’t already.

Now, off to get that ink!