Day 7 of NaNoWriMo: in which I turned to the dark side

Ever since I can remember doing any form of writing, I have been a 'pantser'. Not through any specific desire to be one who flies by the seat of their pants, nor did I set out to abjectly avoid doing any plotting of any kind. More because, that was how I wrote.

A contemporary once pointed out to me that, in actual fact, the version of my story that they were reading actually felt like an incredibly well fleshed out plot. It was something that hit me in two ways. Firstly, I thought, oh crap!, realising that what I thought was a well fleshed out to novel needed serious amounts of work. Secondly, I saw that, actually, she was 100% correct.

The most recent novels I have been working on have all stated of really well, but tended to fade a bit after a few chapters. I realised that this was because I didn't really know where they were headed or how they would get there. My previous two novels, which were pantsed to completion, I had a very clear direction for them both. The recent ones, I had an idea, and that was all in truth. So, after much deep thought, deleted texts and false starts, I began plotting!

I now have a fifteen chapter outline plot, which I intend to flesh out and then begin rewriting. It's okay, though, I should still finish if I commit to NaNoWriMo! My target word count for the book is about 25,000 as it's a middle grade story. So it should be totally doable, once I know where I'm going.

So for the first time in my life, I'm going to find out what it's like to be a plotter from start to finish ;)