Thread by @mara_fitzgerald

i'm a pantser to the extreme. i have no idea what the plot is gonna be until i write it. this can make drafting efficiently frustrating, and it's something i want to work on. lately i've found some success with what i'm calling the "save point" method:

i started with a few baseline observations about how I write best:
-outlining does nothing for me. i never know if a plot point is "right" until I let it unfold on the page and see how it feels
-i have to try out a lot of wrong plot points before i find the right one

so instead of either a) forcing myself to write a whole outline before i write the book or b) forcing myself to write entire bad drafts, over and over and over, until it's finally all right, i've started writing toward "save points"

basically, i write until i get a plot point that feels wrong. then i stop and go back to the last "save point"--the last point that felt right. and i continue from there, anew, until I finally get it right and create a new "save point." but here's the thing!

i don't delete anything that was wrong. i leave it in the document, because even if it wasn't exactly right, there was probably some good stuff in there, and progress is progress. it's really important to keep up my morale. i need to see my progress!

so my actual progression through the story's plot might look more like this than a straight line, but the end result (I hope) will be that i've created a story that hangs together. doing that is the thing that always causes me the most grief!

i've also found that this makes drafting quite fun for me! as soon as I don't like something, I stop wasting my time on it. and even if i have to go back 20,000 words (like i just did lmao), I don't really feel like I'm "starting over."

i want to be efficient and meet my deadlines. but in order to create work that I'm proud of, I also need a system that gels with my own creative process. i'm trying to embrace my pants-ing brain (but maybe make it a little less messy)!