Tuesday, April 16, 2019

Brendan Reichs and a new metaphor for plotting vs. pantsing

The Los Angeles Times Festival of Books panel (left to right): Brendan Reichs, Ally Condie, Carlos Hernandez, Lee Wind (moderator), and Quinn Sosna-Spear


A great moment in the middle grade panel I moderated on the YA Stage this Saturday, Middle Grade Fiction: Magic and Mysteries with Quinn Sosna-Spear, Carlos Hernandez, Ally Condie and Brendan Reichs was a question from the audience about process that had everyone on the panel share whether they plotted things out in advance or they wrote by the seat of their pants, making it all up as they went along...

Turned out, Carlos, Quinn, and Ally all mix the approaches, and then Brendan shared that instead of "plotting" and "pantsing," he liked a different metaphor—architects and gardeners. He expanded on the idea, saying that gardeners work with what happens, while architects plan everything out.

And then, it occurred to me that for those of us who combine the two approaches, maybe we're landscape architects?

The idea got a spontaneous wave of applause from the 100+ folks in the audience.

So there you go, another way to describe process... I hope it's helpful.

Illustrate and Write On (no matter your method!),
Lee

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