From the Backlist: "Writing the Story -- Just a Trip on the Open Road" by Pamela Palmer

 .
"Plotter or pantser" is one of the vital decisions all writers must make --- and also a question our Supernatural Underground authors get asked a lot. 

Here's Pamela Palmer's take in terms of her own writing. Enjoy!

Writing the Story -- Just a Trip on the Open Road

by Pamela Palmer

I used to think I was a plotter. Or maybe I just wanted to be a plotter since it appealed to my control freak side. The idea of sitting down to write with a thoroughly plotted outline at my fingertips enthralled me. I imagined that marvelous document, each chapter broken down into detailed scene-by-scene action, emotion, and descriptions, with character goals and conflicts spelled out in perfect clarity. Writing would be a snap, I thought. 

Then I tried it. And failed. Miserably.

I spent months creating that brilliant outline for one of my early books (a Scottish historical that will never see the light of day). But at the first critical turning point in the story, all that meticulous planning fell apart. The hero, who had come roaring to life in the first few chapters, simply refused to react to that pivotal moment the way I (and my beautiful outline) required him to. I could have forced him, of course. And he and anyone who read the book would have hated me for it. So I didn't. I let him react the way he needed to, which sent the story spinning in a direction I'd never foreseen. And all the meticulous planning I'd done from that point forward had to be scrapped.

So, I tried again, carefully plotting the rest of the story from that point on, convinced it would work now that I understood the hero better. Wrong. Within a few chapters, he was glaring at me, arms crossed, a mulish set to his chiseled jaw. No way in hell was he doing what I'd intended. Again.

I'd love to say that after two failures I'd learned my lesson. Nope. To paraphrase one of my favorite fictional characters (Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum), I try never to make the same mistake more than two or three times. Eventually, I figured it out. For me, traveling through a story is a lot like traveling by car along roads I've never visited before. Yes, I can grab a map and plan the route ahead of time, in detail, but all I'm doing is guessing the best way to go. We've all done it--chosen a route that appears to be quick, or short, or interesting, only to find the reality anything but. That 'straight shot' through the city has us caught in traffic so thick we haven't moved for an hour or that 'short cut' between two highways turns out to be little more than a track through the mountains where we can hardly tell the roads from the driveways.

Planning the trip ahead of time is all well and fine, but it's not until I get into the middle of it that I'm able to see where I really want to go.

I still plot, because my stories are too complicated to simply dive into without any plan. But my plotting these days looks more like a trip itinerary that reads: Atlanta to Cincinnati to Denver to Albuquerque. The highlights only. I refuse to plan the details of how I'll get from Cincinnati to Denver until I reach Cincinnati. At that point, I'll look at the situation (how much time I have, how much money, what the weather looks like, and how the traffic reports are stacking up), and make my decisions based on up-to-the-minute data. And even then, I'm okay with things changing. If a road looks good, I'll take it. If not, I won't. No commitments. No meticulous pre-planning. And if it starts to make more sense to switch Albuquerque with Denver, that's okay, too.

...

To read the full post, click here

Pamela's website is here

From the Backlist - What's In a Name?

 

Dragon Name Generator from TA Barron

Hello Everyone!

For us dragons and humans, it's time again to explore the #backlist at the Supernatural Underground! 

FIY my dragon name, according to the above, is Crimson Smoke the Young. LOL 

Today we are sharing a post made in March 2011 by the bestselling romance author Pamela Palmer. Here she talks about the ups and downs and ins and outs of choosing a character's name.

I promise, it's actually a lot harder than it sounds!

***

What's In a Name?

by Pamela Palmer

...I always thought that picking the names of my characters would be easy. Just thumb through a baby name book, find a few names I liked, and that would be it, right? Maybe it works like that for some authors. Not for me. I have to like the name, of course, but it's so much more complicated than that. The name has to, in some way, capture the essence of the character for me. It becomes an important vehicle for understanding that character.

In comparison, naming kids is easy. And I can say that because I've named two of them and it wasn't easy at all. My husband's and my tastes in names were poles apart. The thing with naming babies is, you don't know them. You're trying to give them a name they'll be happy with for a lifetime, but unlike naming characters, you're not trying to fit their name with their personality, because you don't know them yet.

Before I choose a name for a character, I have to understand her (or him). I knew that Kara (the heroine of Desire Untamed) was a sweet, spunky, girl-next-door type long before I knew her name. I knew Delaney (the heroine of Obsession Untamed) was a tough human FBI agent and Skye (Passion Untamed) was a sweet Mage witch with a pure heart. Their names came later, and not easily. I tried several names each before I found the one that clicked for me. In Kara's case, I went through at least six before finding the one that fit.

So how do I decide which name fits? Like so many things having to do with the writing process, I look inside myself for the answer. When I hit on the element, in this case the name, that feels right, I know it. I feel it in my gut. But I don't always feel it instantly. With names, in particular, I have to live with them a little while before I know, although this 'living with them' usually takes place during the plotting process, before I ever start writing the book. Rarely will I change a name after the book is underway any more, though that used to happen all the time.


As I plot and work out the key aspects of my story, I try out different names until I find the ones that feel right...

 

***

To read the full article and learn more about this wonderful author and her bestselling books, go to the original post and follow Pamela on FB and Twitter.

Let us know in the comments some of your favorite character names.