Serendipity – or I love it when a plot comes together.

[Voboy]

My summer lovin' story was one nice summer day where friends are camping in the woods, fishing and swimming in the pond, sitting by the campfire and sipping some fine whiskey, puffing on a good cigar, and enjoying their friendship. How do you plot that? It's just friends and lovers enjoying the summer. It's not Raymond Chandler by any means, but some readers like it, it's barely holding an H and getting some feedback and DAMN did I love writing it.

My summer lovin story actually required a bit more planning than I normally do. I didn't feel great about it when I posted, but I still think it deserves a bit better than it's getting. But? It's not my call. It's the readers'.

 

[TheRedChamber]

It's going to be very difficult to explain this to you, and probably even fruitless, but I'll give it a go:

Yes. For me? It's almost entirely deterministic. I begin most of my stories with a whisper of a hint of inspiration. Hell, I routinely begin what you would probably consider no plot at all. Most of the time, my stories begin with just a single "what if?" sentence in my head, often suggested by things I see around me.

I'll sketch it briefly. I saw a news story a month or so ago about puffin researchers off the Maine coast. Being a naturally curious fellow, I fired up the ol' laptop and did some research, because the news story left many, many things undiscussed. I came to find out that for nearly fifty years, there's a nonprofit that has placed volunteers on these tiny, treeless, waterless islands for weeks on end, obsessively cataloguing puffin numbers and behaviors during the summer months. Google maps gives a vey good impression of what their setting is like, as does their website (which also includes a rather formidable set of job descriptions).

So, being a pervert, I just automatically assumed a lot of these volunteers masturbate the time away in their tents.

But the problems would be legion: privacy is nonexistent. Everyone is tired of being there. Nobody showers. Your tents are all literally inches apart. But I couldn't shake the idea of this little puffin-filled corner of the world as a whack-off den, so I asked myself how anyone there could get privacy. The website gave me hints, and my imagination filled in the rest. Meanwhile, I began thinking of characters I've written about, with an eye toward deliberately mismatching the character for the setting: I ended up choosing one of my most avowedly sexual women. I thought it would be amusing to strand her out at sea and withhold sex from her.

From there? It was a simple matter of putting her on the island, asking myself how she could go about meeting a new man, and then just stepping back and letting her work. Literally, that's what I did. It was fast and fun, and once I post it I'm confident it'll find an audience. It's not a contest-winner, but it's a fine story. The plan was literally two sentences long, plus a short paragraph of character description and the knowledge of how this character behaved in two other prior stories. From that, I just started typing. Opened my mind, let my fingers fly, and went for it.

I often find inspiration in such minor things. My summer contest entry (which is, admittedly, not performing well!) was inspired by just one mid-sentence clause in a National Geographic. It was actually a mention of a job title. From such tiny seeds do trees often grow. And, FWIW, I've got about six uncompleted stories to date.

See, this doesn't bother me. From your starting point, you've got a unique premise and a setting that is probably easy to visualize from your research (plus you know your character even if I don't). There's also a fairly limited number of things that can happen on the island. They can meet, they can talk, they can hear each other jack off, they can fuck (sooner or later). It's also a scenario that lends itself to an easy 'and we continued to fuck the whole summer.' ending (or possibly a 'get me the fuck off this island right now' if things go south). From this, its the sort of thing I'd feel pretty comfortable starting to write fairly quickly after coming up with the idea (assuming it was my own). There's also an inherent tension of 'we're the only two (3/4/5...) people on the island so it's fuck each other or don't fuck' which a lot can be done with dramatically.

 

[Voboy]

See, this doesn't bother me. From your starting point, you've got a unique premise and a setting that is probably easy to visualize from your research (plus you know your character even if I don't). There's also a fairly limited number of things that can happen on the island. They can meet, they can talk, they can hear each other jack off, they can fuck (sooner or later). It's also a scenario that lends itself to an easy 'and we continued to fuck the whole summer.' ending (or possibly a 'get me the fuck off this island right now' if things go south). From this, its the sort of thing I'd feel pretty comfortable starting to write fairly quickly after coming up with the idea (assuming it was my own). There's also an inherent tension of 'we're the only two (3/4/5...) people on the island so it's fuck either other or don't fuck' which a lot can be done with dramatically.

Yeah, but none of that raft of possibilities came to my mind before I started writing.

From that menu of options, I take it you'd have selected the ones you wanted to have happen before you started? Like, you'd have figured out the steps, and the ending, yes?

I didn't. Because I didn't know what they were going to do. I trusted Kaylen, my main character, to figure it all out as she went.

 

[TheRedChamber]

Yeah, but none of that raft of possibilities came to my mind before I started writing.

From that menu of options, I take it you'd have selected the ones you wanted to have happen before you started? Like, you'd have figured out the steps, and the ending, yes?

I didn't. Because I didn't know what they were going to do. I trusted Kaylen, my main character, to figure it all out as she went.

Well this is a good example of why it's impossible [edit] for me not to plan. I stepped out for about fifteen minutes to queue for a COVID test and spent that time cogitating on what I would do with this plot. As suggested I dropped one of my characters the thirty-year-old (until recently) virgin Susan, on the island and then had to decide who my male characters was going to be. While there's an infinite number of variations, the basic choices at the moment seemed to be 'Phoar' or 'non-Phoar'. I recently had a five-minute converstation with an Zoologist PhD student/volunteer at a safari who would serve as a good model for 'Phoar', about 5 years younger than my MC, fit and muscular and confident and interesting, so lets slot him into the vague cloud of ideas and see what happens...

Susan is going to be a bundle of nerves, she's going to have the best sex of her life (not hard given her current experience level) and most critically she's going to be a tangled web of conflicted emotions because she's going to 'know' that the only reason he's sleeping with her is because she's the only woman on the island. So then I had to look at the other side and decide to what extent the guy has genuine feelings for her. And lets assume he does, because that seems the more interesting story and because I like Susan and want to cut her some slack. So now, as well as an interesting setting, the story has a point - 'how do you know you're the only one when you're literally the only one' and that moves the story from something I could write into something I'd be excited to write. Seeing the point of a story is usually the moment when I decide this is a story I can write, I still continue planning but everything else is just details.

But now the question becomes, how do I, as the God-author, tease the most drama out of Susan's journey. Firstly, our stud has regular video calls with a highly attractive female fellow-PhD student who he assures Susan, quite truthfully, is just a friend. Secondly, inherent in the point of the story is the idea that Susan has to realize towards the end that the guy is genuinely in love with her. How to achieve this? Either another beautiful woman (the PhD student?) arrives on the island, and, despite her worst fears, he doesn't even look at her. Or alternatively they head home and there's a party full of beautiful women that they blow off to be together. Either could work.

But immediately I can see other issues on the horizon. This is looking suddently looking like a much longer story than - arrive, wank, fuck, bye - and I'd need to think about exactly how to stage it if I'm describing a six month relationship in one limited setting.

The important point is that this all took about a minute to think of, but it's taken me a good fifteen minutes even to write this forum post and writing actual prose would take me hours to even write the first chapter. The thing that's hard to believe is that a pantser, away from thier keyboard for the same length of time, isn't doing exactly the same kind of mental calcutations and planning at least some of this out.

 

[Duleigh]

The thing that's hard to believe is that a pantser, away from thier keyboard for the same length of time, isn't doing exactly the same kind of mental calcutations and planning at least some of this out.

So what? Why does it matter that much to you? You enjoy plotting out your stories. Go plot out your stories. Go get your graph paper, your compass, your protractors, your rulers, your calculator and have a grand old time. Knock yourself out.

In the end it reminds me of the decades long argument between fans of Canadian Rules Football and the fans of American Rules Football. To hockey fans it's a waste of time

 

[TheRedChamber]

So what? Why does it matter that much to you? You enjoy plotting out your stories. Go plot out your stories. Go get your graph paper, your compass, your protractors, your rulers, your calculator and have a grand old time. Knock yourself out.

In the end it reminds me of the decades long argument between fans of Canadian Rules Football and the fans of American Rules Football. To hockey fans it's a waste of time

Generally, I find it good to discuss the art of writing with other writers and exchange ideas, even if people have wildly different writing styles. I wasn't intending this thread to go down the planner/pantser discussion route - I was hoping for more examples of how plots came together in unexpected and beautiful ways, and while I got some of that, it also headed in this direction.

I have noticed, however, that whenever a topic that involves some kind of planning/structural element, firstly, a lot of people come on to say they don't do any planning, but in some cases pantsers also seem to get defensive - some at least don't like the idea of imposing any kind of plot on the emerging narative and like to focus on how their characters have their own independent life and start to disparige planned writer. In some cases this comes across as them seeming to want to push this as a better or truer way of writing - as if the less planning that is done the better the story will inevitably be. And many of those writers are very accomplished and are worth listening to and maybe learning something from and I'm happy to discuss it. But I'm also fascinated by how their mental process actually works.

 

[ElectricBlue]

The thing that's hard to believe is that a pantser, away from thier keyboard for the same length of time, isn't doing exactly the same kind of mental calcutations and planning at least some of this out.

I suspect you have a sense of incredulity when we pantsers say we write the way we do, because it's so utterly foreign to your thought process.

I might on occasion ponder the next scene of a story in progress, but not when I'm doing something else - because I'm doing the something else. Like driving, for instance - it's not a good idea to ponder erotica when you're coming up to the next set of lights, or there's a fucking big truck on your tail.

People's brains work differently, it's as simple as that. It's left brain right brain stuff. Sure, you might be able to cross brain train yourself, but why bother, if the way you think works for you? There's no need to rewire your house if the plumbing doesn't work.

 

[Voboy]

Well this is a good example of why it's impossible [edit] for me not to plan. I stepped out for about fifteen minutes to queue for a COVID test and spent that time cogitating on what I would do with this plot. As suggested I dropped one of my characters the thirty-year-old (until recently) virgin Susan, on the island and then had to decide who my male characters was going to be. While there's an infinite number of variations, the basic choices at the moment seemed to be 'Phoar' or 'non-Phoar'. I recently had a five-minute converstation with an Zoologist PhD student/volunteer at a safari who would serve as a good model for 'Phoar', about 5 years younger than my MC, fit and muscular and confident and interesting, so lets slot him into the vague cloud of ideas and see what happens...

Susan is going to be a bundle of nerves, she's going to have the best sex of her life (not hard given her current experience level) and most critically she's going to be a tangled web of conflicted emotions because she's going to 'know' that the only reason he's sleeping with her is because she's the only woman on the island. So then I had to look at the other side and decide to what extent the guy has genuine feelings for her. And lets assume he does, because that seems the more interesting story and because I like Susan and want to cut her some slack. So now, as well as an interesting setting, the story has a point - 'how do you know you're the only one when you're literally the only one' and that moves the story from something I could write into something I'd be excited to write. Seeing the point of a story is usually the moment when I decide this is a story I can write, I still continue planning but everything else is just details.

But now the question becomes, how do I, as the God-author, tease the most drama out of Susan's journey. Firstly, our stud has regular video calls with a highly attractive female fellow-PhD student who he assures Susan, quite truthfully, is just a friend. Secondly, inherent in the point of the story is the idea that Susan has to realize towards the end that the guy is genuinely in love with her. How to achieve this? Either another beautiful woman (the PhD student?) arrives on the island, and, despite her worst fears, he doesn't even look at her. Or alternatively they head home and there's a party full of beautiful women that they blow off to be together. Either could work.

But immediately I can see other issues on the horizon. This is looking suddently looking like a much longer story than - arrive, wank, fuck, bye - and I'd need to think about exactly how to stage it if I'm describing a six month relationship in one limited setting.

The important point is that this all took about a minute to think of, but it's taken me a good fifteen minutes even to write this forum post and writing actual prose would take me hours to even write the first chapter. The thing that's hard to believe is that a pantser, away from thier keyboard for the same length of time, isn't doing exactly the same kind of mental calcutations and planning at least some of this out.

Honestly?

The actual story, as written, has about three or four moving parts, and I think it flows nicely together. It is compact, tight, and (I hope) well-told, and the simplicity of where it went is a reflection of the simplicity of the setting.

No offense, but what you came up with has far, far too much "stuff" for my taste. It's fine; we're all different people. But I prefer to write, not to cogitate. If I ruminate too much, my stories might acquire more "fluff" than I'm after.

Thanks! It's a good reply, just nowhere near where I went. Mostly because the characters I selected would never have done most of what you came up with.

 

[TheRedChamber]

Honestly?

The actual story, as written, has about three or four moving parts, and I think it flows nicely together. It is compact, tight, and (I hope) well-told, and the simplicity of where it went is a reflection of the simplicity of the setting.

No offense, but what you came up with has far, far too much "stuff" for my taste. It's fine; we're all different people. But I prefer to write, not to cogitate. If I ruminate too much, my stories might acquire more "fluff" than I'm after.

Thanks! It's a good reply, just nowhere near where I went. Mostly because the characters I selected would never have done most of what you came up with.

Indeed, and if I'd chosen Brenda, my middle-aged dogging enthusiast, she'd have enjoyed the sex and then gotten throw off the island for frying a puffin egg for breakfast.

But in terms of 'stuff', yes I like filling stories with stuff, sometimes to the detriment of the actual sex. But for this one I could see doing it as a simple enough one scener, starting and finishing with the sex. She's been a bundle of nerves waiting for the other girl to arrive and to get dumped, he has snubbed the girl and now she's having the best 'victory sex' ever, emtionally having been able to move the relationship onto another level. (Although this version doesn't actually include any puffins, so...)

 

[Djmac1031]

I very rarely see a story in it's entirety. I tend to start with the germ of an idea and see where it goes.

Which has, more than once, bit me in the ass when I couldn't figure out how to end it.

I'm working on at least having a finish line in mind now if not entirely plotted out before I start.

But yeah, stories, and characters, can take on a life of their own and steer you in a totally direction sometimes.