WACKY WRITER WEDNESDAY

THE PANTSER VS THE PLOTTER

Happy Wacked Out Wednesday everyone! Today the plotter and the pantser face off in a writing smackdown! On my blog, I’m doing the “evil laugh” since Kay Springsteen is my “victim”—er uh I mean guest for the day. And I’m tickled to have her.  She's the author of the awesome Heartsight and, in my  opinion, the next Nicholas Sparks.

Over on Kay’s blog, dum dum dum, I’m her “prey”. We have challenged one another to a “plotting duel” of sorts. I’ll be posting three words in the comment section of my blog and Kay will come up with a plot revolving around those words. Kay will be doing the same for me on her blog. Posting three words for me and I’ll have to come up with a plot. This is going to be extremely interesting since Kay's is a plotter and I'm a pantser.  

Now, here’s where it get’s fun. We’d like everyone to leave a comment trying to stump us. You can post three of your own words that you’d like for us to use to come up with a creative plot. Or post a word for us to have to use along with the three we have!! We will then combine all the posts from mine and Kay’s blogs and use randomizer.org to pick one lucky winner of a beautiful heart choker necklace! There is one rule - your word/words can be edgy, but no cursing/cussing please. 

Let the fun begin. Welcome to my blog, Miss KayJ

I first learned I have the ability to tell a story when I was in the fifth grade. My parents had taken me on a trip to Des Moines, Iowa for my dad's Army Reunion. On the way home to Detroit, Michigan, my dad decided he didn't want to pay the toll through Chicago. You really had to be there during the several hours of being lost with my mom trying to read a map and my dad trying various side roads to get back to the Interstate to understand the hilarity. I wrote about the trip in such detail for my fifth grade What I Did Last Summer Essay on return to school in the fall, that my teacher moved me into the advanced English class. Later when my kids (four of them) were small, I told them a story off the top of my head one night when they couldn't settle for bed (and if you want to know what the story was about, pick up a copy of Heartsight because I used it in that book).

Later, we would tell stories around campfires and when we took vacations or long car rides. One day, we were exploring Maryland, after recently moving there, and in the little town of Mayo, on the Chesapeake Bay, we discovered a house, which we nicknamed Frankenhouse. Surrounded by black iron Gothic fences, the yard was filled with overgrown gardens, several large fountains in disrepair, and life-sized sculptures of people that looked like ancient marble but were likely just cement. The house itself looked like a combination of styles, with Victorian style turrets and towers, Greek pillars at the front door, and a widows walk on the roof. The house was interesting as it was...but there was a For Sale sign out front. One of my daughters asked, "Who would buy that ugly house?" I responded something about beauty being in the eye of the beholder, and the story was on. What if...the people buying the house saw ONLY WHAT THEY MOST LOVED ABOUT THE HOUSE? Say a family of four is going through, and the wife sees the perfect kitchen, the husband sees a wonderful lawn, the son sees the perfect media and game room, and the daughter sees a fabulous in-ground pool? Thus, they family is lured into buying the house and end up with this Beastly home....and they cannot leave. And maybe...the human sized statues in the yard....were the people who tried to leave and were turned to stone. Did I mention we listened to things like The Eagles Hotel California?

My debut novel, Heartsight, was the result of me deciding I wanted to write about a blind hero. I found my characters, the danger element of the story, and then I sat down and decided how they would all fit together from start to finish. As a plotter, I am not exactly traditional. I know the beginning and end and basically how I will get from start to finish, but I have been known to add and subtract things along the way. Still, my tendency to have that basic roadmap in place before I write has me falling on the side of the plotters.

I'm ready for my challenge!

Kim?

Oh, I'm ready! The gloves are off!