How to write a story by the seat of your pants

Have I planned this post? Barely. Do I plan anything? Kind of. Is any of this advice universally applicable? Nope! But it's how I do things, so maybe it'll help you loosen up too.

Some people will spend years and years developing their story, writing out and planning all the details, fitting all the pieces together, finessing every character's history, building the whole world from top to bottom...but that's not really a story. That's a lot of stuff and a lot of effort, but there's not an actual story there. You'd be trying to finagle a plot into something pre-existing, molding what happens around all the precious worldbuilding you've spent so much painstaking time crafting!

So I take the opposite approach! Planning goes out the window, let's build this thing organically!

You're going to need:

1) A bunch of characters with a variety of backgrounds, issues, wants, and needs

2) A good place to start your story

3) A few scenes you think would be really cool

4) A generally good understanding of human nature

5) Not too many ideas that you're massively dedicated to never getting rid of

The main idea here is that you want your characters to determine your story, not your story to direct your characters. You can set up basic building blocks that make it easy to write your story on the fly (and change as needed) without shooting yourself in the foot too often. (I haven't really had to retcon anything since this story started, other than adjusting a few things about Charlene's magic here and there and ironing out Connie's situation.)

When I started HTBAW, the only characters I knew were Malaya, Aubrey, Vincent, Charlene, and Elias. I knew Connie kind of existed, but I hadn't figured out who she would be yet or what she looked like. I didn't pile too much world building onto things initially, or try to push too much of the plot, and I based what happened on what I NEEDED to happen in this chapter. So here are my building blocks for chapter one:

-Malaya needs to meet Elias

-Charlene is there? Introduce her just for use later on in the story

-Elias needs to find out Malaya is a werewolf

-Something bad has happened?

-Aubrey is there, she's a bad guy? But for what reason?

-What does everyone want? What does everyone need?

So, that was my planning for the first chapter. As I wrote, I just tried to keep those questions in mind and put the pieces together like a big puzzle. I didn't need to reveal too much in the first chapter, so I kept things simple and let more details come around as I worked. 

You can ask and answer questions for yourself as you move through the story. I decided dead bodies would be a good reason for Elias to come to town, because that could be connected to werewolves, but then that obviously begs the question: who killed these people? So that becomes a mystery I need to work backwards from. If Aubrey is my "bad guy", then she's connected to the dead bodies. Do I want her to be the one who killed them?? Not really, so she has to be working for someone. 

Elias needed to NOT know Aubrey was there, but WHY would he not know Aubrey was there, let alone Malaya? Well, let's introduce some spells! Spells kept them hidden. Okay, why were they hidden, and who was casting this spell? A witch would have cast the spell, so what reason would she have for wanting to hide all the werewolves in town? (Somewhere in there, I figured out Charlene was a witch and that I wanted her to have a big reveal down the line, because I didn't want only bad witches.) 

If you keep your ideas very loose initially, just let questions build up and keep answering them with your story. Try to think through everything as logically as possible, and decide where the story goes based on who your characters are as people. "What would this person do in this situation?" When Aubrey initially confronts Malaya in Chapter 3, I thought oh! This will be a big fight scene! But as I was writing it, I realized that Aubrey isn't a very intimidating character. She didn't feel like she was really, truly angry. She was frustrated that Malaya had been hiding under her nose for so many years, but I didn't feel like there was enough motivation for a long, drawn out throw down. I realized that Aubrey would ultimately run away. Having the fight scene keep going didn't help resolve anything in the chapter, but ending it with Aubrey running away and a giant werewolf version of Malaya going off to find help gave the story somewhere to go and a resolution to aim for...and both of those actions flowed naturally from the characters' personalities! 

By Chapter 3, I mostly knew the people I was working with. Malaya goes back and forth from being sweet and mostly content to being temperamental and anxious. Elias reacts on instinct, always, and tries his best to do what's right even if it gets him in trouble. Aubrey has someone she REALLY wants to please or she wouldn't be going through all this trouble (thus, Connie came into existence at the end of chapter 3). Vincent was always going to put his sister's welfare first and be distrustful of big changes. I didn't know much about Marisa and Marin except that by the end of chapter 3 I realized I had fucked up by giving them really similar names. Oops. And Charlene was largely a mystery.

But, I had building blocks! I asked myself a lot of questions, I tried to find ways that the story could answer those questions. I tried to develop traits for the characters that suited either answering those questions, or causing further conflict that would prevent answering things. (Because sometimes, you don't want to know what's going to happen too quickly! You want characters who will throw a wrench into your plans occasionally!)

And I did most of this writing on the fly. 

Occasionally, I'd build up enough questions that needed answering that I would call up my other writer friend and just pose all the questions I couldn't find answers to, and by the end I'd mostly end up answering them and then some.

Even now, for Chapter 9, I have a general idea of what will happen in chapter 10 and a VERY general idea of where I want to take the story after chapter 10. I started writing this chapter trying to answer the following questions (and a few of these questions, I tried to pose to myself early enough so I could lead into them from chapter 8):

-There are a bunch of werewolves trapped in a house in the woods with no food. If Malaya brings them food, that resolves the needs of Aubrey's pack, and also helps show that Malaya is developing into being a natural leader. What conflicts can arise from Malaya bringing them food?

-Does Malaya want to be a leader? (No, not really, she'd be very reluctant to take up that role.)

-WTF is Charlene doing in this chapter? IDK, why doesn't she go with Malaya for company! What new issues arise from Charlene coming along? What new character insight can be built from these two interacting?

-Elias wants Vincent, Vincent doesn't know what he wants. What can I throw at them that would help develop this plot point? What could get in their way? (Lol Ginger.)

-What's Connie doing? What helps maintain her as a looming threat? (Lol don't worry about this yet, but I know the answer!)

-What main conflict do I want to introduce to help wrap up this chapter? Do I want it to be Connie or something else? (I know the answer to this too!)

-What can help solidify these different plot lines together by the end in a dynamic way? (I know the answer to this too lol)

As I write the story from week to week, I just try to make sure I've asked myself enough questions and answered enough as well. Now that I'm far enough along, I can come up with scenes for future chapters that are informed by and connected to whatever chapter I'm working on currently. Chapter 8 was basically one big set up for Chapter 9: Vincent needed to question his sexuality in a meaningful way, and Ginger needed to be separated from the rest of the pack so that the chapter would have a climactic moment. Ginger joining with Elias's group would help throw a new variable into the equation after so much of the exposition was finally done, and also help engender some positive, trustful feelings between Aubrey's group and Mal's/Elias's groups. I knew I needed to cover my confused Vincent/freed Ginger bases in Chapter 8 so I could build on these things in Chapter 9, but I didn't need all the details ironed out yet. Keeping my plans vague gave me a jumping off point for the next chapter without boxing me in too much if I needed to change something.

That Ginger could be thrown into the situation with Elias and Vincent was just a bonus that occurred to me while walking the dog one day. THEN, it was just a matter of 1) what would Elias and Vincent be doing, 2) what would be the excuse to bring Ginger, and 3) what story purpose could this outing serve? Well, Vincent is a big ass nerd, so he likes wandering in the woods doing biology stuff. What biology stuff could they be doing in Michigan? Some Googling gave me a list of endangered species...but most were bugs or frogs, so a bird would be interesting to look for in a forest! Why would he be looking for a bird? Research project! There, nerdy purpose achieved! It wasn't until a few weeks ago that I hammered out the details of what the Kirtland's Warbler's situation actually was, but it really helped show off Vincent's biology knowledge while also giving space for Elias to hate himself for a few extra pages and try to make up for it. (He always wants to do the right thing!)

Was any of this helpful? I have no idea. I hope you get the general idea, which is that most of this story is built on me asking myself a lot of questions about literally EVERYTHING, trying to answer those questions as best as I can, and making a point of letting the characters' personalities dictate most of the answers along the way. What does each character want? What prevents them from getting what they want? (Usually, they're just too fucking awkward lol.) When you throw a conflict at this character (Malaya is suddenly a giant werebeast??), what do they do? (Run the fuck away.)

If you don't know who your characters are...let them develop more before throwing major conflict at them! Or do writing exercises on the side until you get comfortable with how you think they'd react to things. OR start off by basing them loosely on people you know, or a character from a tv show, or a popular archetype. They'll gain more personality the longer you write them, and you'll become more comfortable with their choices, but you shouldn't force them to make choices your characters wouldn't naturally make (unless them making an unnatural choice is the POINT). 

At this point, writing HTBAW is almost automatic. When I need to write, all I have to do is figure out what's the next question I need to answer? And every time I answer a question, another one pops up. I don't force things. There's a big new conflict at the end of this chapter, and I'm looking forward to all the new questions it raises as I keep trying to answer all the questions I still have left to go :)