Tag: Writing Tips

If you are a pantser, here’s a useful tool for planning

There are two kinds of writers. One is a planner, also known as a plotter, while the other is a pantser.

To the uninitiated, planners or plotters don’t start writing until they got all the details about the story they want to tell down in a massive mind map or something. It is just as the terms meant. And there is nothing wrong with that as it’s just what they do. Pantser on the other hand doesn’t really plan and simply just write, allowing the story to take them anywhere. They are literally flying by the seat of their pants. Planning for pantsers is just not something they do.

For me, I’m a pantser and really hate planning. The very act feels very unnatural and boring.

But today, I was introduced to something that I thought could be useful as a tool to help pantser. It’s known as a Fishbone diagram or officially known as Ishikawa diagram. From the outset, it look like a really simple tool that doesn’t seem to boring when used.

Now, I know it is really a tool for product design or quality defect detection. It is also used in certain kind of investigative purpose like incident investigation and resolution. So you may wonder how it can be applied to planning out a piece of writing.

Here’s how I thought it could be used...

Fishbone Diagram

For the purpose of this discussion, we will be using the fishbone diagram above for illustration.

Let’s say you are going to write a piece of fiction that has some kind of conflict or problem to resolve. You can put that conflict or problem at the fish head.

Then draw the ribs out from the spine. The purpose of so call bones of the fish is to allow you to identify the causes that ultimately lead to that conflict. You can treat each rib as a category. The boxes at the end of each rib could be used to list the categories such as characters, location and/or incidents. It’s up to you to decide how you want to use it really.

Once you have the categories identified, you can draw horizontal lines out from ribs where you use them to create just enough detail for you to write your story.

And that’s all.

After that, you can refer to the diagram if you do happen to encounter some kind of writer’s block while writing. And since it isn’t so detailed, you get to have the freedom to change your story on the fly while it also ensure you stay somewhat grounded and have some kind of reference material.

Lastly, because it’s such a simple diagram, it doesn’t really bore you to death as a pantser.

I also didn’t forget about you planners. You guys can also use this as a complementary tool to whatever they are using now to write.

With that, I hope it’s helpful to you.

Updated 2020-May-22: Parts of the content was rewritten and fishbone diagram added.

Writing even when you don’t feel like it

Every writer at some point don’t feel like writing. It could be exhaustion. It could be that he or she has no idea what to write about. The creative well has ran dry. Or in some case, just not feeling well and want to rest.

For me, I really didn’t know what I want to write about today. And the flu has caught me. Sleepiness and lethargy is all I feel.

But it’s important not to stop writing because the alternative of finding excuse to stop writing is just the worse thing you can do.

So what do you do?

Well, you can write about not feeling like writing. That way you are writing about something. And it’s definitely better than not writing. Precisely because of that, this piece of writing is here.

And of course, different people has different process. Some could pick up writing and letting it stop for a while without issue. Some will find themselves struggling going from 0 to 100 in a second and the constant act of writing is what kept them going. Just like a shark. If it stop swimming it will asphyxiate.

So you have to be honest with yourself. Which camp do you fall into. If you are like me falling in the second camp, then you better don’t stop. Keep writing. Find something to write about. For example, it could be even about the new pen you just got from the stationary store. You’d be surprise at how much words you can churn out talking about a pen.

Now that I put that idea out, it’s probably important for me to take my own advice. Rather than me writing about not feeling like writing only to make me wonder why I’m even writing about that.

Weird brain.