Outliner vs. Organic Writer and a great new source for writers!

I went to a Larry Brooks seminar at the Willamette Writers Conference. He was really good at explaining "pantsers", those of us who sit down to write without an outline and just go for it (Organic Writing)- as oppossed to the mega planners that have every plot point outlined before they write a thing. I was a panstser. My characters came to me in a dream, I began to write the scene I imagined then went back to write the beginning and middle. Problem was, I had eye color changes for my main character by mid-book, then I had to figure out what color I really really wanted, and go do a "Find" for every color and word 'eye' - which wasted too much of my valueable writing time. Then of course, as a pantser - if I have a better idea - I change as I go and then have to sift through 300 pages to make sure everything else still flows. Much harder to do all of this 'editing' as a pantser.

Larry helped me move to be a pantser in the draft, or a synopsis - then an outliner before diving in and writing each of my 'planned' scenes organically. It was a relatively easy transition to make. I even went back and outlined all the organic stuff I had written before and wouldn't you know - I was able to look at the entire book more easily and it's better because of it.

So... inspired by what he's taught me already, I went to his website and also found he had posts that were very helpful. As a writer, I suggest other writers at least give it a look -

http://storyfix.com/

With inspiration,
Writer Crews

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