Writing Advice: Plotting vs Pantsing

There are many writers in this world. Most of them have, at some point, been asked how they write. Many of them have gone on to get so frustrated with this question that they post advice in many random places on the internet.

I started looking at writing advice after a post on Fangs Fur & Fey on LJ back in April. The topic? Plotting vs Pantsing. Many authors fell on both sides of the spectrum, and this was the first experiment I tried.

Since then, most of the advice I've read have been hardcore in the plotting frame of mind. I'm thinking this works better for me, after trying both on my 2 novels. While Dragonmage wasn't all that great, it was significantly better than the sequel. So let's take a look at some of the different Plotting advice that I've stumbled across.

Jim Butcher (of Dresden Files fame) has a series of posts about writing on his LiveJournal. His advice on plotting might be the piece that speaks to me the most. Funny thing is, I suspect that by the time I get done writing this entry, they'll all be the same. His process is to do beginning, middle, end and then start filling in. Pretty standard. The interesting thing was how he approached filling out scenes. There are two types of chunks: Scenes and Sequels. Scenes are where conflict happens, Sequels are the emotional reactions to Scenes or Sequels. So he has a bulleted list of stuff you fill out for each scene / sequel.

Another alternate is the Snowflake method, which is a fractal-based method around progressive refinement. It's an interesting theory, and I think it dovetails into Butchers' suggestion fairly well, but I don't have as good a handle on it.

Third main one is Holly Lisle. She has this whole site with a free e-mail course (revising is like 80 bucks, but the plotting course is free). She started the plot by listing a few conflicts and then making scenes / ordering them.

Last one I'll talk about tonight, is Chuck Wendig.  Chuck is a character. His approach is basically outline. And outline some more. Not as detailed as the other ones. But he presents a very solid argument as to WHY you should outline.