Ask An Author

Dear Author,

I can’t write a plot, but can I start the story now?

Answered by Hermia

Yes!

If you are eager to start writing, then you definitely have some kind of story knocking around inside your brain, so sit down and start tapping it out on your keyboard, or notepad or whatever works for you. It’s always a good idea to get your inspiration down, so you have something that you can start working with.

Also, not everyone is a plotter- you might turn out to be someone who writes a book by the seat of their pants (a pantser). A pantser is someone who writes their story scene by scene, letting the characters and their story drive them.

It’s also okay to decide to work on plotting a little later on, after you know more about your characters.

Once you’ve written something down, read it over and see what you’ve got. Chances are, you’ve written something that includes at least one character, and some kind of actions, and setting. There may or may not be some insight into personality and emotions.

Read it over again, and try to figure out what genre it is, because knowing your genre is going to help a lot with figuring out the course of your story.

If you are writing romance, for example, your story is going to need to progress towards a happy ever after ending. If you are writing in a different genre, the ending doesn’t have to be a happy one, and can even be tragic.

Knowing your genre is really important for plotting, because different genres have different archetypes and tropes driving the plot. Even literary fiction has certain standard drivers, where themes basically take on the same role as tropes, and themes like “human versus nature” or “Id versus Ego” might be the driving force behind your book.

Joining Dirty Discourse will give you access to a lot more helpful advice on writing as a pantser, as well as a lot of helpful advice on how to plot, if that’s something you’d like to learn about!

Hermia writes historical and contemporary romance and erotica

Ask the author is your chance to ask all those writing questions you’ve got stored up inside and our wonderful Dirty Discoursers will answer them for you! Got any burning questions? Drop them in the comments box below.