Pantsing (I will explain)

I’m at a bit of my story where one of the characters is about to reveal something big, something important, something that will change everything.

Problem: I don’t know what it is yet.

I keep writing, and hoping the character will tell me (no, I do not have multiple personality disorder), but he hasn’t come up with much yet. At the same time, in another part of the story, another of my characters needs to enter an extremely high-security building and retrieve something, but I’m not sure how. It’s made harder by the fact that he’s also a fugitive.

This, to those in writing (I know some of you aren’t :D), is colloquially known as pantsing, as in by-the-seat-of-your. I know eventually I’ll figure something out, but in the meantime I’m hopping around trying to find bits that I’ve given up on at other times, or editing other things.

Every so often I try to plan things out. I come up with an outline I’m happy with, but then I start to fit it together with what I’ve already written and I realise what I’ve got already could be almost as good or better. Mostly I’ve made some good discoveries through the process, but thrown out the vast majority of the plan. Even when I’ve managed to fit it together with what’s already written, I veer off into the unknown and leave the plan behind.

But I do enjoy planning.

A bit like the One Who Speaks Russian (lol).

Oh no! I’ve just realised I have a total of one major female character in the fugitive/character-knows-something story. Almost as bad as Star Wars (at least I have some minor female characters). This will have to be fixed.

(goes back to re-plan)