How I Stopped Pantsing, Started Plotting, and Wrote Four Novels in a Year

by Amy Patrick

I completed my first novel in 2010, pantsing my way from Chapter One through The End. When I sat down to write each night, I had no idea what was going to happen next. It was exciting and fun. It took me six months of writing three hours a night, five nights a week to finish that book, a YA fantasy that became a 2013 RWA Golden Heart finalist. That’s the good news.

The bad news? I had to rewrite that book several times over the course of two years before it was anywhere near good. Some of it was because it was my first book. Mostly it was because I knew nothing about story structure beyond what I’d gained through osmosis from voracious reading. And I didn’t know if I could ever repeat the process.

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