Episode 234 - The Pocket Guide to Pantsing with Michael La Ronn
April 16, 2024
"There is something about writing into the dark that really forces us to look inside of ourselves and understand who we really are. And a lot of the problems that people have when they're staring at the blinking cursor in a dark room is that they're afraid. It's fear. And understanding the nature of what fear really is, is something that can set you free." —Michael La Ronn
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Michael La Ronn discusses THE POCKET GUIDE TO PANTSING, including honoring what your brain is trying to do; retrospective outlining for pantsers; cycling through your story; meeting the characters where they are; surprising the reader (and yourself); the challenge of writing into the dark across a series; using AI to create a story bible (but how spreadsheets still work better than AI); differentiating fear from anxiety; and giving yourself permission to trust yourself. You can also listen to me talk myself into the viability of using pantsing for mysteries.
If one of those topics piques your interest, you can easily jump to that section on YouTube by clicking on the flagged timestamps in the description.
If one of those topics piques your interest, you can easily jump to that section on YouTube by clicking on the flagged timestamps in the description.
Listen to the full episode ...
Listen to and watch the interview ...
Michael La Ronn is the author of over forty science fiction & fantasy novels and self-help books for writers. He runs the popular YouTube channel Author Level Up and serves on the staff of the Alliance of Independent Authors as a US Ambassador, and he also co-hosts the AskALLi Member Q&A Podcast.
Links
Michael's Links:
www.authorlevelup.com
www.youtube.com/authorlevelup
www.facebook.com/authorlevelup
The audiobook of Michael's THE POCKET GUIDE TO PANTSING is on YouTube for free here!
Matty's Links:
Affiliate links
Events
www.authorlevelup.com
www.youtube.com/authorlevelup
www.facebook.com/authorlevelup
The audiobook of Michael's THE POCKET GUIDE TO PANTSING is on YouTube for free here!
Matty's Links:
Affiliate links
Events
I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Michael! Do you lean toward plotting or pantsing ... or, like me, percolating (thanks to Art Taylor for introducing me to that term) ... and how have you experimented with other approaches?
Please post your comments on YouTube--and I'd love it if you would subscribe while you're there!
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AI-generated Summary
This conversation between Matty Dalrymple and Michael La Ronn about the pros and cons of "pantsing", also known as writing a novel without an outline. Michael is an advocate of pantsing, while Matty takes a more structured approach to novel writing.
Michael explains his pantsing process, which involves starting with just a basic idea for the first scene, then continuously writing 500-2,000 word chunks before going back to revise what was just written to check consistency and resonance. He essentially writes the novel in multiple passes while moving forward. This helps honor where his brain naturally wants to take the story. When he gets to around 75% done, he usually has a "glimmer" where he clearly sees how the story will end.
They discuss how some genres like historical fiction or hard sci-fi are much harder to pants, since more research is required. Michael argues that pantsing helps him get deeper into his characters' heads and emotions. Matty counters that plotting lets you shape the character arc more. They agree both approaches are valid depending on personal preference and genre; sometimes a hybrid approach works too.
Michael emphasizes meeting the characters "where they are", while Matty focuses on shaping the arc from point A to B. Matty also uses a frame or outline to give a sense of the overarching plot across a whole series of books, while allowing room for exploration. She sees both strengths and weaknesses to each approach.
They explore Michael's strategy of creating a "retrospective outline" while pantsing, by writing down high level chapter summaries, descriptions, key details to remember later. This helps when referencing back, especially for consistency across a series. Matty also keeps notes but relies more on searchable PDFs of previous books.
They discuss using AI to create story bibles summarizing key facts across a series, but the technology does not work well yet due to hallucination issues and ingesting large amounts of text. Manual spreadsheets capture key details better for now.
Overall the discussion explores pantsing as a viable alternative to outlining for some authors, with its own pros and cons. Trusting oneself and overcoming fear/anxiety of the unknown are critical to succeed. It offers efficiency but requires continuously cycling back to keep consistency. The approach resonates most with authors who wish to follow their subconscious creative voice.
Michael explains his pantsing process, which involves starting with just a basic idea for the first scene, then continuously writing 500-2,000 word chunks before going back to revise what was just written to check consistency and resonance. He essentially writes the novel in multiple passes while moving forward. This helps honor where his brain naturally wants to take the story. When he gets to around 75% done, he usually has a "glimmer" where he clearly sees how the story will end.
They discuss how some genres like historical fiction or hard sci-fi are much harder to pants, since more research is required. Michael argues that pantsing helps him get deeper into his characters' heads and emotions. Matty counters that plotting lets you shape the character arc more. They agree both approaches are valid depending on personal preference and genre; sometimes a hybrid approach works too.
Michael emphasizes meeting the characters "where they are", while Matty focuses on shaping the arc from point A to B. Matty also uses a frame or outline to give a sense of the overarching plot across a whole series of books, while allowing room for exploration. She sees both strengths and weaknesses to each approach.
They explore Michael's strategy of creating a "retrospective outline" while pantsing, by writing down high level chapter summaries, descriptions, key details to remember later. This helps when referencing back, especially for consistency across a series. Matty also keeps notes but relies more on searchable PDFs of previous books.
They discuss using AI to create story bibles summarizing key facts across a series, but the technology does not work well yet due to hallucination issues and ingesting large amounts of text. Manual spreadsheets capture key details better for now.
Overall the discussion explores pantsing as a viable alternative to outlining for some authors, with its own pros and cons. Trusting oneself and overcoming fear/anxiety of the unknown are critical to succeed. It offers efficiency but requires continuously cycling back to keep consistency. The approach resonates most with authors who wish to follow their subconscious creative voice.
Transcript
[00:00:00] Matty: Hello and welcome to "The Indie Author Podcast." Today my guest is Michael La Ronn. Hey Michael, how are you doing?
[00:00:06] Michael: I'm great, Matty. It's always good to be back.
[00:00:08] Matty: Always lovely to have you here as, I believe, one of the most frequent guests on "The Indie Author Podcast." And since you've been on the podcast so many times, I can't imagine that I need to provide an introduction, but I'm just going to say that if our viewers or listeners haven't yet delved into all the resources you offer to your fellow indie authors, I highly recommend that they check out AuthorLevelUp.com and AuthorLevelUp on YouTube. And you can also look through all my past conversations with Michael to hear a more extensive intro if necessary. So I had invited Michael on the podcast to discuss "The Pocket Guide to Pantsing," because I saw his lovely article in "Writer's Digest" magazine, and I know Michael has written and spoken extensively on this topic.
And this could almost be one of our "two perspectives on" conversations because you and I have very different approaches to this, but I think that the listeners have heard me talk about the idea of framing up a story, which is a phrase that I like better than outlining, enough. But if they haven't, they can check out my article in "Writer's Digest" about creating a story frame, which is in the July-August 2022 issue, and I'll also mention that article is in the July-August 2023 issue of "Writers Digest" magazine. People can find my article, which is now available publicly, if they go to TheIndyAuthor.com — and that's Indy with a Y — and then click on creating your story frame. And so today, we are really just going to be exploring Michael's advice on pantsing.
[00:01:32] Matty: And so, I know that a lot of people sort of get up in arms a little bit about the term pantsing. How come you describe that as opposed to one of the other terms that people use for the approach you're describing?
[00:01:43] Michael: I purely use pantsing as a marketing ploy. So when you say pantsing, everybody knows what you mean. And so I wrote a book called "The Pocket Guide to Pantsing." It just alliteration; it just worked. But there are some people, particularly across the pond, that don't like that term because pants doesn't mean pants; it means underwear.
[00:02:03] Matty: That's true, I didn't actually think of that.
[00:02:06] Michael: Yeah. So, I've had a few people say that to me and, you know, what, I get it, I understand. It's just a term that everyone uses and everyone understands. You could also use the words discovery writing or exploratory writing. Dean Wesley Smith calls it writing into the dark. There are lots of different terms for it. But ultimately, it's the process of writing a novel without an outline, and with no or very little understanding of what is going to happen before you start writing and while you're writing.
Michael's experience with outlining
[00:02:39] Matty: And have you experimented with both approaches, the more writing-into-the-dark approach and a more structured approach? Have you experimented with a structured approach?
[00:02:49] Michael: Oh, I've done both. I started off as an outliner, so I wrote my first 10 novels with outlines, and I experimented with all sorts of different outlining methods. They're the plot point method, the hero's journey, the three-act structure, snowflake method. I mean, I was a student of all those methods, and I realized that, just me personally, there's nothing wrong with the methods, but I found myself in my mind wandering a lot when I started to write.
Honoring what your brain is trying to do
[00:03:18] Michael: So I started the question like, "If I'm spending all this time outlining, only for my brain to just completely throw it out the window when I start writing, why am I wasting all my time outlining?" And so for me, it became kind of an efficiency play, like, I'm not being efficient with my time or my resources.
And so that's when I started to explore writing into the dark and pantsing out, writing without an outline, as a way to help me become more efficient and also honor what my brain was trying to do when I was writing.
[00:03:48] Matty: I think it would be useful to have you just talk through the creation of a novel from the moment you get the idea, right through, so we can have some context for further conversation about pantsing.
Like, do you do multiple passes when you're done with your writing? How close are you to a final draft? Do you have to step away from it to come back to it later with a fresh perspective? Those kinds of things.
Michael's writing process
[00:04:12] Michael: Yeah, I'll hit it at a high level and then we can go deeper into the different elements if that works. So essentially, it begins with an idea. Every novel I write, I at least know what the first scene is going to be. And that's generally a hero in a setting with some sort of problem.
That's usually all I know. I might see a few scenes throughout the novel, but they're kind of hazy. So I'll sit down, and I'll start writing, and it's kind of like moving a boulder. You just have to start, and I just start writing. I write whatever's on my heart, whatever my subconscious tells me to, and I listen very much to the little voice in my head.
Now, practically, what that looks like is I will write a chapter, go for about 500 to 1,000 words, stop, and then I'll go back, and I'll reread what I wrote, and I'll fill in little details, and then I'll continue. And I'll go another 500 to 2,000 words, stop, go back. That's a process called cycling or looping, where essentially you're writing the novel in multiple drafts, but you're doing it at the same time.
So as I go through the novel, I'm constantly cycling and looping back and rereading what I wrote to make sure that one, it makes sense; two, it's consistent; and three, it's emotionally resonant and engaging. So as I'm writing the novel, I'm constantly going back. And so when I get to the end, I'm done.
Like I'm just finished. And that works because, essentially, energy-wise, it's probably the same as writing multiple drafts, but I'm doing it as I go.
Another thing that I do as I go is I outline my novel as I go. So outliners will outline their novel before they start as a way to help them stay structured.
[00:07:29] Matty:
I outline my novel as I go to help me remember what has happened previously. And then, when I write future books in a series, I can refer to the outline instead of having to reread the book. So my outlines are always 100 percent up to date. Writing without an outline is about just following wherever your brain leads you and sometimes that can take you to some crazy places. You just simply trust the process and trust that you can get the words down, revising as you go and doing it essentially in one draft, but it's not quite one draft. Then, outlining your story as you go as well.
And it is a masterclass in learning how to tame your fear because it is an intensely emotional and intensely intimate process. You're really trusting yourself and trusting yourself to understand the story. It's not for everyone. But for those people for whom it works, when they do it, they can never go back.
And so I've just been trying to be a proponent of that and try to help as many people who have the eyes and the ears to see the method, try it, and unlock their best selves.
[00:07:29] Matty: And I would say, and I invite you to share a different perspective on this if you think, that if someone is using a more structured approach and it's working for them, they should not feel required, as like an exercise, to necessarily try pantsing. Just as someone who's pantsing and having success should not feel morally obligated to try outlining. Do you agree with that or disagree?
Finding the writing approach that fits you like a glove
[00:07:52] Michael: Oh, I agree 100%. I have strong feelings about writing into the dark and outlining because it has done wonders in my life in terms of my own self-confidence, improving my craft, and it has had immeasurable benefits in every area of my writing life, but it's not for everybody. And even though I have strong opinions, I don't think that if you feel comfort in outlining and there's something about that which resonates with your personality, by all means, don't give it up. But there are a lot of people who have bought my book and who have subscribed to my YouTube channel who have felt over the years that they have to outline just because that is kind of the predominant way, and understanding that there is another way to do it has kind of set them free.
It has liberated them. It's helped them step into the truest, best versions of their writing selves. So I just want people to find the version of writing that fits them like a glove. Whether it's outlining, pantsing, or a hybrid, it doesn't matter. I've got a lot of people who reach out to me that do a hybrid of both. Some people switch between both methods when they write novels. It doesn't matter to me. I just want to help people become practitioners if they want to pursue this method.
[00:09:11] Matty: It's interesting that of all the people I've explicitly asked about the pantsing versus plotting question on the podcast, I think all of them have been pantsers. I'm thinking specifically of Hank Phillippi Ryan, Robert Dugoni; those are the only two that are popping into my head, but I just remember because many of them are in the suspense, thriller, mystery genre, and it always surprises me when someone who's writing a mystery doesn't have at least an inkling of who the bad guy is when they start. Now, that might change, but they have an idea.
Cycling through your story
[00:09:47] Matty: But I did want to circle back to cycling to make sure I understand that. So, if you write a thousand-word chapter, let's say, and then the next day, are you reading through the thousand-word chapter, and then you're writing the second thousand-word chapter? I'm making up the numbers, so the numbers aren't important. And then the third day, you're reading through the first two. Am I understanding that correctly?
[00:10:08] Michael: Well, let's just take it in chunks. So you write Chapter One, right? At the end of Chapter One, you go back, and you reread what you wrote and you make simple edits here and there. You might change some things more substantially, and then you move on to Chapter Two. And when you're done with Chapter Two, you go back to the beginning of Chapter Two and reread and revise it.
Now, there could be times when you come across a problem. Let's just say, for example, you introduce a character, and their eyes are blue in Chapter One, and you realize, "Oh, crap, I made them purple in Chapter Three." Well, you could be way further into the novel at that point. Fix problems as they come up. So, when you're done with Chapter One, I guarantee you that is not going to be the last time you go through Chapter One because there are going to be things that come up later in the novel that require you to jump back. And so, another thing that I do as well is when I'm almost done with the novel, I will loop the entire novel.
So, say the novel is going to be 35 chapters. When I'm getting to like Chapter 32, right around the end of the final battle, and I know that I'm about to write the resolution, what I'll do is I'll jump back and I'll reread the whole thing as a final master loop, so that when I get to the end, I really am at the end.
So, cycling, looping, whatever you want to call it, it's just basically you continuously going back into the novel to stay in touch with what you wrote. And you know, that's the thing about writing into the dark: when you start, you have no idea what's going to happen most of the time. Maybe you have a little bit, but it's not very much. As you progress through the novel, you slowly start to see more. It's kind of like shining a flashlight in the dark. Eventually, you can see the whole room, and once you're near the end of the novel, you generally kind of know how it's going to end.
There's usually a moment where, you know, I call it the glimmer. It usually happens sometime around the 75 percent mark where all the lights come on and you just know exactly what's going to happen. And that's a really cool moment because it lets you race toward the end, and it gives you a lot of energy.
[00:12:30] Matty: I think it would be interesting to poll people in different genres about the plotting versus pantsing question because, well, I'll precede this by saying I think everybody at some point does both. Like, I don't think anybody writes an outline and then marches through it and never deviates from it.
A challenge of writing into the dark across a series
[00:12:49] Matty: I don't think most people go into a free writing mindset and finish it, then say, "Oh, okay, I'm going to publish that." Those are too far off the end of the spectrum on either side. An experience I just had: I'm working on the fifth "Lizzie Ballard Thriller." I've had this happen before, and I'm actually not sure whether this is a pro or con on either the plotting or pantsing side, but there was a secondary character who I was concerned would not be appealing to the reader because this character could be seen as competing for the affections of another character against the protagonist. She had a strike against her to begin with, and she was a rule follower. In thrillers, rule followers are intrinsically unappealing because that's not what you go to a thriller for.
I had finished my frame, which was probably 15-20,000 words, and I knew this was a problem. I wasn't going to be able to get through the book with her as two-dimensional and unappealing as she was in the first draft. It was only as I started fleshing things out—after I had finished my frame and was adding more description, dialogue, and other elements—that I realized something she could do that would elevate her in the eyes of the audience and make her a more empathetic and sympathetic character.
I'm glad I didn't stick with the frame until I had answered that question because I don't think I could have without doing the writing, without writing into the dark about that one character. But I also think that with a book that has an overarching plot arc, not only within the book but across the series, I would never feel comfortable not knowing how things work out. To me, it's important that I can look at the arc across all the books and say, at the end of each book, the protagonist has achieved something, and everything in the book has to lead up to that achievement.
The achievement isn't necessarily going to change, but how they get there might. Again, this is not a pro or con; I'm not arguing one way or the other, I'm just describing my process. I do think that there are some things that are helpful to have at least a high-level sense of where you're going with, for me.
And then some things I'm never going to be able to figure out until I start writing into the dark. And I think that is a strength of outlining, is that you can plan out certain things like where you want your character to begin and where you want them to end. I've always thought about characters, and I really don't think about character arcs that much when I write.
Meeting the characters where they are
[00:15:27] Michael: And again, this is just me sharing my perspectives in response to what you said. I'm far more interested in what the character is doing at any given moment because I think that readers react to that more than they react to an arc. It's a different philosophy. Writing into the dark and pantsing is really about meeting the characters where they are, while outlining is about helping characters get from point A to point B. Both schools are valid, and you could mix and match from both to get better results.
That's one of the things I learned about pantsing when I switched because I've done both. I found that my characters went from point A to point B when I was outlining, but I didn't always do a good job of conveying their emotions or how they responded to things.
When I started writing without an outline, I felt like I got much better at getting into the character's head because it was me in the moment meeting the character where they are, and I think that worked really well. Now, there are some downsides to that because you don't have an arc, necessarily, or an arc that happens is just kind of spontaneous, not really planned out, but that's all I have to say about that.
I think it's an interesting philosophy, and there's no right or wrong way. It's just what works for you.
[00:17:03] Matty: Yeah. Well, I think if people are listening to our conversation and they're resonating with one or the other more, then that's a hint at how their mind works.
[00:17:14] Michael: You did mention the genres. It would be interesting. It's a lot harder to write into the dark with historical fiction or hard science fiction that requires more research. Those are the genres that would be a lot harder to write into the dark. But there are really very few genres where this doesn't work.
Matty talks herself into the viability of using pantsing for mysteries
[00:17:43] Matty: I think one nuance of mystery that makes multiple passes, or at least the second pass, important is that if you're writing into the dark to explore who the bad guy is, I can't imagine how people do this. I've interviewed some very successful mystery authors who pants and don't go back. But I can't imagine not doing it because when I'm writing a mystery, then I go back, once I've confirmed that the person I thought did it really did it, which hasn't always been the case. I've had one book where the bad guy turned out to be someone different than I thought. Then I have to go back and plant those clues for the reader that point them at least equally to the bad guy.
I have a theory about mystery that if you implicate everyone except the person who did it, then astute readers will know who did it because they'll just say, well, they haven't planted any clues about this person, so that must be the person who did it. I think you have to implicate everyone equally, so everyone is equally likely to be the bad guy.
And I think, I mean, I suppose on that theory, you just make sure you're planting clues equally and then you decide which switch you're going to hit at the end. Maybe that's how they go about that.
Surprising yourself ... and the reader
[00:19:03] Michael: Well, that's another core tenet of writing without an outline. Dean Wesley Smith talks a lot about this: if you don't know what's going to happen in your story, then the reader won't either. If you're entertaining yourself, that will be more entertaining and engaging for the readers.
There is a level of misdirection you have to employ when writing a mystery, particularly concerning who killed someone. There are many different techniques you can use without necessarily knowing who did it. I'm not sure whether David Baldacci outlines, but he's adept at incorporating more twists than pretzels in his books. He's a great person to study for techniques to keep you guessing about the killer, which I think could also apply to pantsing.
[00:20:04] Matty: So, it doesn't surprise me that there are mystery writers out there who can do it.
[00:20:09] Michael: Maybe they have an inkling as the story progresses, but perhaps they truly don't know who the killer is when they begin. And, then you can go back and plant the seeds if you need to.
[00:20:20] Matty: I sort of talked myself out of that because, following my theory, which I still believe is true, you have to implicate everyone equally. Then you're implicating everyone equally, and you don't need to know until the end which trail of implications is true and which are false.
[00:20:39] Matty: We'd have to ponder that now.
Retrospective outlining for pantsers
[00:20:41] Matty: I wanted to go back to what you were saying about outlining retrospectively, and could you describe some ways you implement that outline, either while you're writing or perhaps after you've written the book?
[00:20:54] Michael: Yeah, it's helpful at all stages of the process. It helps me concretize my thoughts when I'm writing. You're never going to remember your novel as much as when you're writing it. If you're writing in the moment, you'll know all the details of that chapter intimately, and the further you get from that moment, the harder it becomes to remember.
So, I think of it as an insurance policy. I write down what happens in the chapter at a high level, descriptions of the setting, any character descriptions, and other details I might need to remember later, like an artifact or a particular phrase the character uses.
I do that at the end of every chapter, so later in the book, when I need to refer back, I can just look at the outline and remember, "Okay, the barn was full of hay, there were horses, and there was a lantern on the wall," for whatever reason I need to know that.
Well, I can remember that when I'm in Chapter 35 because I can go back to the outline. What's more important, though, if you're writing a series, is how much you forget from book to book. It's astounding how much I forget, even when I write books back to back.
For instance, I'll finish a novel and then jump into the next one, and suddenly I have a character doing something completely different. Wait a minute, no, that's not right. It's really easy to do. And, you know, the more time that passes between your books, the more of a problem this becomes.
So to me, the outline is really an insurance policy for when you're writing future books. It's just not efficient to have to go back and reread your entire novels every time you need to remember something. It becomes a story bible in a way.
[00:23:18] Matty: Yes, the story Bible idea is one that I'm very interested in. I recently talked with Cara Malone about using AI to help create a story bible. I'll get back to the AI aspect in a moment. I'm trying to offer two perspectives, even though I said I wouldn't. When I finish a draft, the last thing I do is have my computer read the story to me. At that point, I'm picking up on things like duplicated words or errors that a spellchecker or a writing aid might miss. And I'm trying to be more diligent about making those notes then because I know I won't be tweaking any further. God help us.
But I usually have a file on my computer with word files, actually PDFs, of all my books. So 90 percent of the time, if I'm wondering, "Did that tertiary character have a beard or mustache?" I can usually find that with some searching within the document.
Using AI to create a story bible
[00:24:16] Matty: But I had a question come up the other day, and I'm hoping that AI will soon be able to help me with it, if it can't already. I'd like to load all my books into it, then ask the AI, "Did this character ever meet this character in person?" Because there are two very important characters, and I can't remember if in the first four books they ever actually met each other in person. It makes a difference to this one plot point in book five. Are you experimenting at all with AI for story bibles, or does the story bible approach you're describing address that question?
[00:24:54] Michael: Okay, so yes, I have experimented with this. I have experimented with it in ChatGPT. ChatGPT Plus has a feature that allows you to create custom GPTs, and the benefit of custom GPTs is it's like a customized mini version of ChatGPT that you can train by uploading knowledge documents.
So in theory, what you should be able to do is upload manuscripts of all your novels in a series, have that become the training document for ChatGPT, and then you would be able to ask it questions, just like you said. In practice, it does not work right now, and the reason for it is because it hallucinates.
It also has some difficulty ingesting large amounts of text. I mean, it can ingest a PDF, but the longer the text, the more challenging it becomes. It often gives a lot of false positives. I tested this about a month ago, quite extensively with a series I've got that has about seven books right now.
And it didn't give me any results that I liked. There were things that were wrong, things that were not quite right. It made up characters. So, I do think that the architecture is there, and at some point, whether it's GPT-5 or a future version, I do think it will be able to help us create story bibles in exactly the way that you mentioned.
[00:26:28] Michael: In the meantime, I just use a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, and that works because I can filter it by character, I can filter it by scene, and I can find what I'm looking for quickly. The goal is to find something on your outline faster than you can find it in your book, and that just takes practice.
It's ultimately about figuring out what sorts of questions you find yourself asking and making sure that you capture those questions as you're writing.
[00:27:03] Matty: The benefit of that spreadsheet approach, rather than searching within a PDF book by book, is that if you're keeping one big spreadsheet of all your notes about a series, you could say, "Show me all the ways I've described this character's house."
And then you could say, "Oh, yeah, well, in book one, they only ever went into the living room. But then in book two, they had the opportunity to go upstairs." And then I have to remember this part of it; it would be nice to see the development of that over a series as well as within a book, which is what I'm limited to when I'm using the search approach.
[00:27:39] Michael: Yeah, and what I do is write down the key details. So if there's a detail that I think is going to be repeated or that I would like to repeat, those are the ones I write down. And that helps me. You mentioned the house; it's funny because I do the exact same thing. I've got a character in the series I'm writing right now, "The Good Necromancer," where his house is a really important part of the series.
And in every book, he goes into a different area of the house. So I have to remember what rooms he's in, what's in there, and also what he's said about them. You know, because he gives some history and some details about it, because it's a historic home. So things like that are really helpful to keep in your outline.
[00:28:24] Matty: Yeah, I realized that across all my books and short stories, there are a couple of go-to home decor styles that I use, and I try to keep that varied. But I was thinking, when you were talking about the danger of an AI hallucinating when trying to give you story Bible information, I wonder if, at the point where the AI is better at ingesting large quantities of data but is still hallucinating, you could address that by saying, "Let me know if Character A has ever met Character B in person, and show me the text where that happens." And then if you still didn't trust it, you could actually search your master documents for that text to make sure that it hadn't made up the reference text it was giving you.
[00:29:11] Michael: You could, but you know, if you have to still go back into the reference text, then I think you've kind of defeated the purpose.
[00:29:17] Matty: Yeah. Just switching over to a quite different topic, do you pair a word count goal with your pantsing approach?
[00:29:26] Michael: Not really. I tend to write a lot of words. So, most of the time, you know, I don't really care. I'm going to write a couple thousand words a day, most of the time. Usually, at the beginning of a novel, I usually will write less because I'm still exploring, and I like to take my time to establish the setting, the characters, and the stakes and everything like that.
And so, I give myself permission to write fewer words. Usually, it's the first week, I will write fewer words and then, once I feel comfortable and things really start to take off, then I'll start swinging for the fences.
[00:30:08] Matty: Or running for the hills, depending.
[00:30:11] Michael: I love torturing analogies. It's one of my favorite things to do.
[00:30:14] Matty: Well, one of the things I wanted to ask is, if someone is using or experimenting with the pantsing approach, the writing into the dark approach, and now they're in a dark room and they don't know where they're going, and they've panicked, you know, when you get stuck in a pantsing scenario, do you have any recommendations for how people get past that?
[00:30:30] Michael: Yes, I do. And the biggest recommendation is that it is psychological. There is something about writing into the dark that really forces us to look inside ourselves and understand who we really are. And a lot of the problems that people have when they're staring at the blinking cursor in a dark room is that they're afraid. It's fear. And understanding the nature of what fear really is, is something that can set you free.
Differentiating fear from anxiety
[00:31:03] Michael: So, if you don't mind, I'll tell a story. So, have you heard of Gavin De Becker? He's a security consultant who has built his career protecting valuable people.
He wrote a book called "The Gift of Fear." In it, he talks about how fear is actually a biological response that is engineered to save your life.
There's a story he tells about a guy who's surfing and gets attacked by a great white shark. The shark is eating him, and he starts fighting the shark. They say to blind the shark, you know, jam your thumbs in the shark's eyes. He does that and the shark lets him go. But the guy doesn't let go of the shark. The shark starts swimming down into the ocean and he's holding on. Why would you do that, right? He gets to the ocean floor, and something tells him to let go of the shark, and he swims up and lives to tell about it. That is fear. Fear makes you do things that you would not normally do as a way to save your life.
[00:33:26] Michael: Now, there's also anxiety, which presents in much the same way as fear when you're staring at the blinking cursor: your heart rate's going to go up, your blood pressure is going to go up a little bit, your pupils are going to dilate, and you're going to have shallow breathing. But you're not in any danger of being eaten. Fear and anxiety may seem like the same thing, but they are not. He says that anxiety is a response to something that you imagine or that you remember.
So when you're staring at the blinking cursor, you're probably imagining that the story's not going to work, that readers won't like it, imagining all sorts of things that can go wrong that really have no basis in reality. It's just your brain playing tricks on you. And when you understand that, you can make a decision.
[00:33:26] Michael: To stop being afraid of things that you imagine or remember, and it will set you free. Now, I know it's not any consolation because you still don't know what's going to happen in your story, but it's giving yourself permission to trust yourself. That is absolutely critical because we writers are really sensitive and emotional people, and that's why we're able to do what we do. But the downside is that because we're sensitive and emotional, we live inside our heads a lot.
Learning how to stop doing that is, I think, the first key to learning how to write into the dark successfully.
[00:34:04] Matty: So, I'm going to belabor the shark story just a bit to explore a question. That is, I can imagine that somebody does the equivalent of continuing to hold onto the shark even after it dives. They're staring at the blinking cursor, their blood pressure is going up, and they decide to grab the shark by the eyeballs. They start writing whatever pops into their head to get past the block. Then the shark dives, and they hang on. In the sense of continuing to write whatever they've chosen to get past that hump, it carries them through the entire rest of the book. For some, what would be a mind-clearing exercise turns into a path that pulls them into the depths, taking them into more danger.
Do you have any thoughts on how people can identify when they've taken a wrong turn? Are there red flags they should watch out for that suggest they're sticking with an idea too long?
[00:35:38] Michael: Okay, so, you're making an assumption, if I may. You're assuming that the words you write to get out of a corner are bad or are just a writing prompt. That's not always the case. In fact, most of the time, when people have writer's block, they think the words they're writing are really bad.
You know, how do you back up from that? And I think you ultimately, what I think is when you get to a chapter and you're staring at the blinking cursor, often the reason, one of the reasons that can happen is because you went astray somewhere just before where you are. So what I encourage people to do is to look back.
You know, it's sometimes the, on a plane, they say the nearest exit may be behind you. It could be that something you wrote 500 words ago, that's what went off the rails. And maybe you just need to backtrack a little bit, figure out what that is, and then you can go down another path. And I think that's, that's a far more productive way to think about it than thinking about, well, am I completely going down a rabbit hole?
Do I need to blow up the whole novel or that sort of thing? Usually the problems are right there in front of you. You just got to figure out what they are.
[00:37:50] Matty: So cool. Well, Michael, thank you so much for the conversation. It was always super fun to talk to you about almost anything. And you always have such practical advice to offer. So please let the listeners and viewers know where they can go to find out more about you and everything you do online.
[00:38:05] Michael: Yeah, you can find all the things I'm doing at AuthorLevelUp.com. I've got a book called "The Pocket Guide to Pantsing" that covers everything we talked about today. And it's also got their links to my fiction on that website as well.
[00:38:18] Matty: So great. Thank you so much.
[00:38:21] Michael: Thanks, Matty. Always my pleasure.
[00:00:06] Michael: I'm great, Matty. It's always good to be back.
[00:00:08] Matty: Always lovely to have you here as, I believe, one of the most frequent guests on "The Indie Author Podcast." And since you've been on the podcast so many times, I can't imagine that I need to provide an introduction, but I'm just going to say that if our viewers or listeners haven't yet delved into all the resources you offer to your fellow indie authors, I highly recommend that they check out AuthorLevelUp.com and AuthorLevelUp on YouTube. And you can also look through all my past conversations with Michael to hear a more extensive intro if necessary. So I had invited Michael on the podcast to discuss "The Pocket Guide to Pantsing," because I saw his lovely article in "Writer's Digest" magazine, and I know Michael has written and spoken extensively on this topic.
And this could almost be one of our "two perspectives on" conversations because you and I have very different approaches to this, but I think that the listeners have heard me talk about the idea of framing up a story, which is a phrase that I like better than outlining, enough. But if they haven't, they can check out my article in "Writer's Digest" about creating a story frame, which is in the July-August 2022 issue, and I'll also mention that article is in the July-August 2023 issue of "Writers Digest" magazine. People can find my article, which is now available publicly, if they go to TheIndyAuthor.com — and that's Indy with a Y — and then click on creating your story frame. And so today, we are really just going to be exploring Michael's advice on pantsing.
[00:01:32] Matty: And so, I know that a lot of people sort of get up in arms a little bit about the term pantsing. How come you describe that as opposed to one of the other terms that people use for the approach you're describing?
[00:01:43] Michael: I purely use pantsing as a marketing ploy. So when you say pantsing, everybody knows what you mean. And so I wrote a book called "The Pocket Guide to Pantsing." It just alliteration; it just worked. But there are some people, particularly across the pond, that don't like that term because pants doesn't mean pants; it means underwear.
[00:02:03] Matty: That's true, I didn't actually think of that.
[00:02:06] Michael: Yeah. So, I've had a few people say that to me and, you know, what, I get it, I understand. It's just a term that everyone uses and everyone understands. You could also use the words discovery writing or exploratory writing. Dean Wesley Smith calls it writing into the dark. There are lots of different terms for it. But ultimately, it's the process of writing a novel without an outline, and with no or very little understanding of what is going to happen before you start writing and while you're writing.
Michael's experience with outlining
[00:02:39] Matty: And have you experimented with both approaches, the more writing-into-the-dark approach and a more structured approach? Have you experimented with a structured approach?
[00:02:49] Michael: Oh, I've done both. I started off as an outliner, so I wrote my first 10 novels with outlines, and I experimented with all sorts of different outlining methods. They're the plot point method, the hero's journey, the three-act structure, snowflake method. I mean, I was a student of all those methods, and I realized that, just me personally, there's nothing wrong with the methods, but I found myself in my mind wandering a lot when I started to write.
Honoring what your brain is trying to do
[00:03:18] Michael: So I started the question like, "If I'm spending all this time outlining, only for my brain to just completely throw it out the window when I start writing, why am I wasting all my time outlining?" And so for me, it became kind of an efficiency play, like, I'm not being efficient with my time or my resources.
And so that's when I started to explore writing into the dark and pantsing out, writing without an outline, as a way to help me become more efficient and also honor what my brain was trying to do when I was writing.
[00:03:48] Matty: I think it would be useful to have you just talk through the creation of a novel from the moment you get the idea, right through, so we can have some context for further conversation about pantsing.
Like, do you do multiple passes when you're done with your writing? How close are you to a final draft? Do you have to step away from it to come back to it later with a fresh perspective? Those kinds of things.
Michael's writing process
[00:04:12] Michael: Yeah, I'll hit it at a high level and then we can go deeper into the different elements if that works. So essentially, it begins with an idea. Every novel I write, I at least know what the first scene is going to be. And that's generally a hero in a setting with some sort of problem.
That's usually all I know. I might see a few scenes throughout the novel, but they're kind of hazy. So I'll sit down, and I'll start writing, and it's kind of like moving a boulder. You just have to start, and I just start writing. I write whatever's on my heart, whatever my subconscious tells me to, and I listen very much to the little voice in my head.
Now, practically, what that looks like is I will write a chapter, go for about 500 to 1,000 words, stop, and then I'll go back, and I'll reread what I wrote, and I'll fill in little details, and then I'll continue. And I'll go another 500 to 2,000 words, stop, go back. That's a process called cycling or looping, where essentially you're writing the novel in multiple drafts, but you're doing it at the same time.
So as I go through the novel, I'm constantly cycling and looping back and rereading what I wrote to make sure that one, it makes sense; two, it's consistent; and three, it's emotionally resonant and engaging. So as I'm writing the novel, I'm constantly going back. And so when I get to the end, I'm done.
Like I'm just finished. And that works because, essentially, energy-wise, it's probably the same as writing multiple drafts, but I'm doing it as I go.
Another thing that I do as I go is I outline my novel as I go. So outliners will outline their novel before they start as a way to help them stay structured.
[00:07:29] Matty:
I outline my novel as I go to help me remember what has happened previously. And then, when I write future books in a series, I can refer to the outline instead of having to reread the book. So my outlines are always 100 percent up to date. Writing without an outline is about just following wherever your brain leads you and sometimes that can take you to some crazy places. You just simply trust the process and trust that you can get the words down, revising as you go and doing it essentially in one draft, but it's not quite one draft. Then, outlining your story as you go as well.
And it is a masterclass in learning how to tame your fear because it is an intensely emotional and intensely intimate process. You're really trusting yourself and trusting yourself to understand the story. It's not for everyone. But for those people for whom it works, when they do it, they can never go back.
And so I've just been trying to be a proponent of that and try to help as many people who have the eyes and the ears to see the method, try it, and unlock their best selves.
[00:07:29] Matty: And I would say, and I invite you to share a different perspective on this if you think, that if someone is using a more structured approach and it's working for them, they should not feel required, as like an exercise, to necessarily try pantsing. Just as someone who's pantsing and having success should not feel morally obligated to try outlining. Do you agree with that or disagree?
Finding the writing approach that fits you like a glove
[00:07:52] Michael: Oh, I agree 100%. I have strong feelings about writing into the dark and outlining because it has done wonders in my life in terms of my own self-confidence, improving my craft, and it has had immeasurable benefits in every area of my writing life, but it's not for everybody. And even though I have strong opinions, I don't think that if you feel comfort in outlining and there's something about that which resonates with your personality, by all means, don't give it up. But there are a lot of people who have bought my book and who have subscribed to my YouTube channel who have felt over the years that they have to outline just because that is kind of the predominant way, and understanding that there is another way to do it has kind of set them free.
It has liberated them. It's helped them step into the truest, best versions of their writing selves. So I just want people to find the version of writing that fits them like a glove. Whether it's outlining, pantsing, or a hybrid, it doesn't matter. I've got a lot of people who reach out to me that do a hybrid of both. Some people switch between both methods when they write novels. It doesn't matter to me. I just want to help people become practitioners if they want to pursue this method.
[00:09:11] Matty: It's interesting that of all the people I've explicitly asked about the pantsing versus plotting question on the podcast, I think all of them have been pantsers. I'm thinking specifically of Hank Phillippi Ryan, Robert Dugoni; those are the only two that are popping into my head, but I just remember because many of them are in the suspense, thriller, mystery genre, and it always surprises me when someone who's writing a mystery doesn't have at least an inkling of who the bad guy is when they start. Now, that might change, but they have an idea.
Cycling through your story
[00:09:47] Matty: But I did want to circle back to cycling to make sure I understand that. So, if you write a thousand-word chapter, let's say, and then the next day, are you reading through the thousand-word chapter, and then you're writing the second thousand-word chapter? I'm making up the numbers, so the numbers aren't important. And then the third day, you're reading through the first two. Am I understanding that correctly?
[00:10:08] Michael: Well, let's just take it in chunks. So you write Chapter One, right? At the end of Chapter One, you go back, and you reread what you wrote and you make simple edits here and there. You might change some things more substantially, and then you move on to Chapter Two. And when you're done with Chapter Two, you go back to the beginning of Chapter Two and reread and revise it.
Now, there could be times when you come across a problem. Let's just say, for example, you introduce a character, and their eyes are blue in Chapter One, and you realize, "Oh, crap, I made them purple in Chapter Three." Well, you could be way further into the novel at that point. Fix problems as they come up. So, when you're done with Chapter One, I guarantee you that is not going to be the last time you go through Chapter One because there are going to be things that come up later in the novel that require you to jump back. And so, another thing that I do as well is when I'm almost done with the novel, I will loop the entire novel.
So, say the novel is going to be 35 chapters. When I'm getting to like Chapter 32, right around the end of the final battle, and I know that I'm about to write the resolution, what I'll do is I'll jump back and I'll reread the whole thing as a final master loop, so that when I get to the end, I really am at the end.
So, cycling, looping, whatever you want to call it, it's just basically you continuously going back into the novel to stay in touch with what you wrote. And you know, that's the thing about writing into the dark: when you start, you have no idea what's going to happen most of the time. Maybe you have a little bit, but it's not very much. As you progress through the novel, you slowly start to see more. It's kind of like shining a flashlight in the dark. Eventually, you can see the whole room, and once you're near the end of the novel, you generally kind of know how it's going to end.
There's usually a moment where, you know, I call it the glimmer. It usually happens sometime around the 75 percent mark where all the lights come on and you just know exactly what's going to happen. And that's a really cool moment because it lets you race toward the end, and it gives you a lot of energy.
[00:12:30] Matty: I think it would be interesting to poll people in different genres about the plotting versus pantsing question because, well, I'll precede this by saying I think everybody at some point does both. Like, I don't think anybody writes an outline and then marches through it and never deviates from it.
A challenge of writing into the dark across a series
[00:12:49] Matty: I don't think most people go into a free writing mindset and finish it, then say, "Oh, okay, I'm going to publish that." Those are too far off the end of the spectrum on either side. An experience I just had: I'm working on the fifth "Lizzie Ballard Thriller." I've had this happen before, and I'm actually not sure whether this is a pro or con on either the plotting or pantsing side, but there was a secondary character who I was concerned would not be appealing to the reader because this character could be seen as competing for the affections of another character against the protagonist. She had a strike against her to begin with, and she was a rule follower. In thrillers, rule followers are intrinsically unappealing because that's not what you go to a thriller for.
I had finished my frame, which was probably 15-20,000 words, and I knew this was a problem. I wasn't going to be able to get through the book with her as two-dimensional and unappealing as she was in the first draft. It was only as I started fleshing things out—after I had finished my frame and was adding more description, dialogue, and other elements—that I realized something she could do that would elevate her in the eyes of the audience and make her a more empathetic and sympathetic character.
I'm glad I didn't stick with the frame until I had answered that question because I don't think I could have without doing the writing, without writing into the dark about that one character. But I also think that with a book that has an overarching plot arc, not only within the book but across the series, I would never feel comfortable not knowing how things work out. To me, it's important that I can look at the arc across all the books and say, at the end of each book, the protagonist has achieved something, and everything in the book has to lead up to that achievement.
The achievement isn't necessarily going to change, but how they get there might. Again, this is not a pro or con; I'm not arguing one way or the other, I'm just describing my process. I do think that there are some things that are helpful to have at least a high-level sense of where you're going with, for me.
And then some things I'm never going to be able to figure out until I start writing into the dark. And I think that is a strength of outlining, is that you can plan out certain things like where you want your character to begin and where you want them to end. I've always thought about characters, and I really don't think about character arcs that much when I write.
Meeting the characters where they are
[00:15:27] Michael: And again, this is just me sharing my perspectives in response to what you said. I'm far more interested in what the character is doing at any given moment because I think that readers react to that more than they react to an arc. It's a different philosophy. Writing into the dark and pantsing is really about meeting the characters where they are, while outlining is about helping characters get from point A to point B. Both schools are valid, and you could mix and match from both to get better results.
That's one of the things I learned about pantsing when I switched because I've done both. I found that my characters went from point A to point B when I was outlining, but I didn't always do a good job of conveying their emotions or how they responded to things.
When I started writing without an outline, I felt like I got much better at getting into the character's head because it was me in the moment meeting the character where they are, and I think that worked really well. Now, there are some downsides to that because you don't have an arc, necessarily, or an arc that happens is just kind of spontaneous, not really planned out, but that's all I have to say about that.
I think it's an interesting philosophy, and there's no right or wrong way. It's just what works for you.
[00:17:03] Matty: Yeah. Well, I think if people are listening to our conversation and they're resonating with one or the other more, then that's a hint at how their mind works.
[00:17:14] Michael: You did mention the genres. It would be interesting. It's a lot harder to write into the dark with historical fiction or hard science fiction that requires more research. Those are the genres that would be a lot harder to write into the dark. But there are really very few genres where this doesn't work.
Matty talks herself into the viability of using pantsing for mysteries
[00:17:43] Matty: I think one nuance of mystery that makes multiple passes, or at least the second pass, important is that if you're writing into the dark to explore who the bad guy is, I can't imagine how people do this. I've interviewed some very successful mystery authors who pants and don't go back. But I can't imagine not doing it because when I'm writing a mystery, then I go back, once I've confirmed that the person I thought did it really did it, which hasn't always been the case. I've had one book where the bad guy turned out to be someone different than I thought. Then I have to go back and plant those clues for the reader that point them at least equally to the bad guy.
I have a theory about mystery that if you implicate everyone except the person who did it, then astute readers will know who did it because they'll just say, well, they haven't planted any clues about this person, so that must be the person who did it. I think you have to implicate everyone equally, so everyone is equally likely to be the bad guy.
And I think, I mean, I suppose on that theory, you just make sure you're planting clues equally and then you decide which switch you're going to hit at the end. Maybe that's how they go about that.
Surprising yourself ... and the reader
[00:19:03] Michael: Well, that's another core tenet of writing without an outline. Dean Wesley Smith talks a lot about this: if you don't know what's going to happen in your story, then the reader won't either. If you're entertaining yourself, that will be more entertaining and engaging for the readers.
There is a level of misdirection you have to employ when writing a mystery, particularly concerning who killed someone. There are many different techniques you can use without necessarily knowing who did it. I'm not sure whether David Baldacci outlines, but he's adept at incorporating more twists than pretzels in his books. He's a great person to study for techniques to keep you guessing about the killer, which I think could also apply to pantsing.
[00:20:04] Matty: So, it doesn't surprise me that there are mystery writers out there who can do it.
[00:20:09] Michael: Maybe they have an inkling as the story progresses, but perhaps they truly don't know who the killer is when they begin. And, then you can go back and plant the seeds if you need to.
[00:20:20] Matty: I sort of talked myself out of that because, following my theory, which I still believe is true, you have to implicate everyone equally. Then you're implicating everyone equally, and you don't need to know until the end which trail of implications is true and which are false.
[00:20:39] Matty: We'd have to ponder that now.
Retrospective outlining for pantsers
[00:20:41] Matty: I wanted to go back to what you were saying about outlining retrospectively, and could you describe some ways you implement that outline, either while you're writing or perhaps after you've written the book?
[00:20:54] Michael: Yeah, it's helpful at all stages of the process. It helps me concretize my thoughts when I'm writing. You're never going to remember your novel as much as when you're writing it. If you're writing in the moment, you'll know all the details of that chapter intimately, and the further you get from that moment, the harder it becomes to remember.
So, I think of it as an insurance policy. I write down what happens in the chapter at a high level, descriptions of the setting, any character descriptions, and other details I might need to remember later, like an artifact or a particular phrase the character uses.
I do that at the end of every chapter, so later in the book, when I need to refer back, I can just look at the outline and remember, "Okay, the barn was full of hay, there were horses, and there was a lantern on the wall," for whatever reason I need to know that.
Well, I can remember that when I'm in Chapter 35 because I can go back to the outline. What's more important, though, if you're writing a series, is how much you forget from book to book. It's astounding how much I forget, even when I write books back to back.
For instance, I'll finish a novel and then jump into the next one, and suddenly I have a character doing something completely different. Wait a minute, no, that's not right. It's really easy to do. And, you know, the more time that passes between your books, the more of a problem this becomes.
So to me, the outline is really an insurance policy for when you're writing future books. It's just not efficient to have to go back and reread your entire novels every time you need to remember something. It becomes a story bible in a way.
[00:23:18] Matty: Yes, the story Bible idea is one that I'm very interested in. I recently talked with Cara Malone about using AI to help create a story bible. I'll get back to the AI aspect in a moment. I'm trying to offer two perspectives, even though I said I wouldn't. When I finish a draft, the last thing I do is have my computer read the story to me. At that point, I'm picking up on things like duplicated words or errors that a spellchecker or a writing aid might miss. And I'm trying to be more diligent about making those notes then because I know I won't be tweaking any further. God help us.
But I usually have a file on my computer with word files, actually PDFs, of all my books. So 90 percent of the time, if I'm wondering, "Did that tertiary character have a beard or mustache?" I can usually find that with some searching within the document.
Using AI to create a story bible
[00:24:16] Matty: But I had a question come up the other day, and I'm hoping that AI will soon be able to help me with it, if it can't already. I'd like to load all my books into it, then ask the AI, "Did this character ever meet this character in person?" Because there are two very important characters, and I can't remember if in the first four books they ever actually met each other in person. It makes a difference to this one plot point in book five. Are you experimenting at all with AI for story bibles, or does the story bible approach you're describing address that question?
[00:24:54] Michael: Okay, so yes, I have experimented with this. I have experimented with it in ChatGPT. ChatGPT Plus has a feature that allows you to create custom GPTs, and the benefit of custom GPTs is it's like a customized mini version of ChatGPT that you can train by uploading knowledge documents.
So in theory, what you should be able to do is upload manuscripts of all your novels in a series, have that become the training document for ChatGPT, and then you would be able to ask it questions, just like you said. In practice, it does not work right now, and the reason for it is because it hallucinates.
It also has some difficulty ingesting large amounts of text. I mean, it can ingest a PDF, but the longer the text, the more challenging it becomes. It often gives a lot of false positives. I tested this about a month ago, quite extensively with a series I've got that has about seven books right now.
And it didn't give me any results that I liked. There were things that were wrong, things that were not quite right. It made up characters. So, I do think that the architecture is there, and at some point, whether it's GPT-5 or a future version, I do think it will be able to help us create story bibles in exactly the way that you mentioned.
[00:26:28] Michael: In the meantime, I just use a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, and that works because I can filter it by character, I can filter it by scene, and I can find what I'm looking for quickly. The goal is to find something on your outline faster than you can find it in your book, and that just takes practice.
It's ultimately about figuring out what sorts of questions you find yourself asking and making sure that you capture those questions as you're writing.
[00:27:03] Matty: The benefit of that spreadsheet approach, rather than searching within a PDF book by book, is that if you're keeping one big spreadsheet of all your notes about a series, you could say, "Show me all the ways I've described this character's house."
And then you could say, "Oh, yeah, well, in book one, they only ever went into the living room. But then in book two, they had the opportunity to go upstairs." And then I have to remember this part of it; it would be nice to see the development of that over a series as well as within a book, which is what I'm limited to when I'm using the search approach.
[00:27:39] Michael: Yeah, and what I do is write down the key details. So if there's a detail that I think is going to be repeated or that I would like to repeat, those are the ones I write down. And that helps me. You mentioned the house; it's funny because I do the exact same thing. I've got a character in the series I'm writing right now, "The Good Necromancer," where his house is a really important part of the series.
And in every book, he goes into a different area of the house. So I have to remember what rooms he's in, what's in there, and also what he's said about them. You know, because he gives some history and some details about it, because it's a historic home. So things like that are really helpful to keep in your outline.
[00:28:24] Matty: Yeah, I realized that across all my books and short stories, there are a couple of go-to home decor styles that I use, and I try to keep that varied. But I was thinking, when you were talking about the danger of an AI hallucinating when trying to give you story Bible information, I wonder if, at the point where the AI is better at ingesting large quantities of data but is still hallucinating, you could address that by saying, "Let me know if Character A has ever met Character B in person, and show me the text where that happens." And then if you still didn't trust it, you could actually search your master documents for that text to make sure that it hadn't made up the reference text it was giving you.
[00:29:11] Michael: You could, but you know, if you have to still go back into the reference text, then I think you've kind of defeated the purpose.
[00:29:17] Matty: Yeah. Just switching over to a quite different topic, do you pair a word count goal with your pantsing approach?
[00:29:26] Michael: Not really. I tend to write a lot of words. So, most of the time, you know, I don't really care. I'm going to write a couple thousand words a day, most of the time. Usually, at the beginning of a novel, I usually will write less because I'm still exploring, and I like to take my time to establish the setting, the characters, and the stakes and everything like that.
And so, I give myself permission to write fewer words. Usually, it's the first week, I will write fewer words and then, once I feel comfortable and things really start to take off, then I'll start swinging for the fences.
[00:30:08] Matty: Or running for the hills, depending.
[00:30:11] Michael: I love torturing analogies. It's one of my favorite things to do.
[00:30:14] Matty: Well, one of the things I wanted to ask is, if someone is using or experimenting with the pantsing approach, the writing into the dark approach, and now they're in a dark room and they don't know where they're going, and they've panicked, you know, when you get stuck in a pantsing scenario, do you have any recommendations for how people get past that?
[00:30:30] Michael: Yes, I do. And the biggest recommendation is that it is psychological. There is something about writing into the dark that really forces us to look inside ourselves and understand who we really are. And a lot of the problems that people have when they're staring at the blinking cursor in a dark room is that they're afraid. It's fear. And understanding the nature of what fear really is, is something that can set you free.
Differentiating fear from anxiety
[00:31:03] Michael: So, if you don't mind, I'll tell a story. So, have you heard of Gavin De Becker? He's a security consultant who has built his career protecting valuable people.
He wrote a book called "The Gift of Fear." In it, he talks about how fear is actually a biological response that is engineered to save your life.
There's a story he tells about a guy who's surfing and gets attacked by a great white shark. The shark is eating him, and he starts fighting the shark. They say to blind the shark, you know, jam your thumbs in the shark's eyes. He does that and the shark lets him go. But the guy doesn't let go of the shark. The shark starts swimming down into the ocean and he's holding on. Why would you do that, right? He gets to the ocean floor, and something tells him to let go of the shark, and he swims up and lives to tell about it. That is fear. Fear makes you do things that you would not normally do as a way to save your life.
[00:33:26] Michael: Now, there's also anxiety, which presents in much the same way as fear when you're staring at the blinking cursor: your heart rate's going to go up, your blood pressure is going to go up a little bit, your pupils are going to dilate, and you're going to have shallow breathing. But you're not in any danger of being eaten. Fear and anxiety may seem like the same thing, but they are not. He says that anxiety is a response to something that you imagine or that you remember.
So when you're staring at the blinking cursor, you're probably imagining that the story's not going to work, that readers won't like it, imagining all sorts of things that can go wrong that really have no basis in reality. It's just your brain playing tricks on you. And when you understand that, you can make a decision.
[00:33:26] Michael: To stop being afraid of things that you imagine or remember, and it will set you free. Now, I know it's not any consolation because you still don't know what's going to happen in your story, but it's giving yourself permission to trust yourself. That is absolutely critical because we writers are really sensitive and emotional people, and that's why we're able to do what we do. But the downside is that because we're sensitive and emotional, we live inside our heads a lot.
Learning how to stop doing that is, I think, the first key to learning how to write into the dark successfully.
[00:34:04] Matty: So, I'm going to belabor the shark story just a bit to explore a question. That is, I can imagine that somebody does the equivalent of continuing to hold onto the shark even after it dives. They're staring at the blinking cursor, their blood pressure is going up, and they decide to grab the shark by the eyeballs. They start writing whatever pops into their head to get past the block. Then the shark dives, and they hang on. In the sense of continuing to write whatever they've chosen to get past that hump, it carries them through the entire rest of the book. For some, what would be a mind-clearing exercise turns into a path that pulls them into the depths, taking them into more danger.
Do you have any thoughts on how people can identify when they've taken a wrong turn? Are there red flags they should watch out for that suggest they're sticking with an idea too long?
[00:35:38] Michael: Okay, so, you're making an assumption, if I may. You're assuming that the words you write to get out of a corner are bad or are just a writing prompt. That's not always the case. In fact, most of the time, when people have writer's block, they think the words they're writing are really bad.
You know, how do you back up from that? And I think you ultimately, what I think is when you get to a chapter and you're staring at the blinking cursor, often the reason, one of the reasons that can happen is because you went astray somewhere just before where you are. So what I encourage people to do is to look back.
You know, it's sometimes the, on a plane, they say the nearest exit may be behind you. It could be that something you wrote 500 words ago, that's what went off the rails. And maybe you just need to backtrack a little bit, figure out what that is, and then you can go down another path. And I think that's, that's a far more productive way to think about it than thinking about, well, am I completely going down a rabbit hole?
Do I need to blow up the whole novel or that sort of thing? Usually the problems are right there in front of you. You just got to figure out what they are.
[00:37:50] Matty: So cool. Well, Michael, thank you so much for the conversation. It was always super fun to talk to you about almost anything. And you always have such practical advice to offer. So please let the listeners and viewers know where they can go to find out more about you and everything you do online.
[00:38:05] Michael: Yeah, you can find all the things I'm doing at AuthorLevelUp.com. I've got a book called "The Pocket Guide to Pantsing" that covers everything we talked about today. And it's also got their links to my fiction on that website as well.
[00:38:18] Matty: So great. Thank you so much.
[00:38:21] Michael: Thanks, Matty. Always my pleasure.
