Confessions Of A ‘Pantser.’ An Amateur Writer Explains His Spontaneous Muse.

My wife, Brenda Hiatt, is a professional novelist who has published over 30 books. One, a collaboration with other romance novelists, made the New York Times list. She explains that in the writers’ world there are two types of writers.

• Plotters, meticulously outline their story in advance. For plotters the real writing is in the planning and their story goes where they plan for it to go.
• Pantsers, write by the seat of their pants. With perhaps a vague idea, but certainly no detailed plan, pantsers just start writing and go where the story, and its characters, take them. In the words of E.L. Doctorow: “Writing is like driving a car at night. You can only see as far as the headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.”

In reality plotters vs. pantsers is more of a continuum than opposite absolute points and I think both plotters and pantsers often envy the other. My own efforts fall extremely towards the pantser end. This shall be evident as I explain my own first effort at a story, from inspiration to conclusion. A warning, this explanation will have some spoilers for The Great Trashcan Caper, available for 99 cents HERE.

The initial inspiration for The Great Trashcan Caper came from a mostly fictional dog. The later books in my wife’s about a dozen books (and still growing) Starstruck series include a small dog, named “Aggie,” who in this dog lover’s view, was a far too minor character. “Aggie” was the name of our first dog in the 80s and 90s. However, in appearance and personality, Aggie is basically our current dog, a schnoodle named “Oodle.”

I wanted Aggie to have a bigger part. My wife would finish book after book with hardly any mention of Aggie. Frustrated, I resolved to write a story, set in my wife’s Starstruck universe, giving the character of Aggie the emphasis I felt she deserved. This shallow and petty thought process was the initial spark to write what would become The Great Trashcan Caper.

I had just finished reading all of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories. I decided a light hearted mystery in that style would be fun. I needed a story that would not impact Brenda’s universe, or its principle characters, so I tried to think of the most trivial basis for a mystery possible. Burning trashcans was it. From that sprang the title, The Great Trashcan Caper, which I loved. I literally had that title before any ideas for the story beyond that, but once I had that title I wanted a story for it.

With little more than that, I started writing. In Chapter 1, Aggie’s owner (a freshman in high school named Adina) takes Aggie out early in the morning for Aggie to do her business. They discover a trashcan burning at the apartment next door, that Adina puts out, and return to their apartment. With that I exhausted everything I had thought of in advance.

So what happens next? “What could happen next?” I wondered. I decided the neighbor boy, living in that other apartment, would knock on the door and accuse Adina of lighting the fire. So I wrote in the knock. I realized I needed a name for the boy.

I turned to my bookshelf resolving to pick some author’s name randomly. My eyes fell on the Complete Works of Arthur Conan Doyle I had recently finished. That would do. The boy’s name was Arthur.

As Arthur and Adina interacted I realized I needed a last name for Arthur. I decided to just use “Doyle” as a placeholder for the moment, planning to come up with a better last name later. About a sentence of writing later, it hit me in a flash. In part because of his name, Arthur Doyle is fixated on the Sherlock Holmes character and fancies himself as a Sherlock Holmes style detective. The Arthur character was thus spontaneously born. You can see how that all played out in the final version, in a teaser I posted earlier HERE.

As I continued writing, about halfway into the story, I fleshed out the motives for Arthur’s obsession and surprised myself by making that somewhat dark. It started when I realized I needed some explanation for Arthur’s parents. I didn’t want them meddling in the story, I wanted Arthur to be acting rather independent of them.

To accomplish that end I first decided Arthur’s father is dead. I considered lots of ways for him to have died, as a soldier in war, in a car accident, the usual stuff. Then I realized having Arthur’s father murdered five years before was best. It would explain everything. Arthur adopted his Sherlock Holmes persona because he is obsessed with finding his father’s killer. That this could set up a sequel also occurred to me, but only after I wrote it. As for Arthur’s Mom, she’s mostly out of the story because since her husband’s tragic death she has become a drunk. Arthur is a weird, precocious, and lonely, 8th grade boy mostly on his own. Without prior planning all this just poured onto the page halfway through the book.

Even well into the story I had no idea how my protagonists would eventually solve the mystery, or for that matter, who was setting the fires. They just kept chasing leads until they got there, and (of course) Aggie helps. The pun that concludes the story was thought of just the line before it appears in the story. That is the panster’s way.

The Arthur character has now been featured in four short novellas that Brenda will likely edit, polish and release this Spring/Summer. In addition to the currently available Great Trashcan Caper, coming soon:

• “A Cold Jewel Case.” The principle characters in Brenda’s Starstruck universe use their super powers to help Arthur solve the mystery of who murdered his father five years before.
• “The Case of the Missing King.” Gwyneth, the prettiest girl in 8th grade, is falsely accused of stealing a chess trophy, but Arthur is on the case and discovers a lot more is at stake than just a trophy.
• “The Sadie Hawkins Ghost.” Arthur’s very first date, at the school’s Sadie Hawkins Day Dance, is interrupted by the appearance of a ghost. The game’s afoot as Arthur, Gwyneth and the school’s principal are on the the trail of the ghost. Sherlock Holmes meets Scoobey-Doo. The shocking conclusion will change Arthur’s life forever.

We will likely release The Great Trashcan Caper and A Cold Jewel Case as a single story duo and do the same for the last two featuring Gwyneth.

All were written in the pantser style. In A Cold Jewel Case, over two-thirds of the way through the story, Arthur considers a list of three potential suspects. When I wrote that list I had no idea which was the killer, or even whether the story would take me to someone else.

I write this to inspire other potential pantsers out there. If you have an idea for a story, just start writing it. Don’t let not knowing where it will end be an excuse to not write it. Eventually you will come to the ending and it will be better than anything you could have thought of in advance. Your readers won’t see it coming, because neither did you. At least that’s my story.