.

When I first started this current Work in Progress, I didn’t even recognize it as starting a new novel. I had a vague concept for a theme exploring the often-forgotten subtext of 1941’s The Wolf-Man that the werewolf could be a metaphor representing fascism. A scene occurred to me, and I sat at my keyboard and banged it out, without any real solid idea where in this possible story the scene might take place. I read to my writing group and got back very strong very favorable responses with several expressing that they wanted more of the story.

So, without outline and only a vague sense of where this might go, I just kept writing what happened after the Nazi biker had been chased from the local working man’s bar. Soon a couple of chapters had been written and a structure for an entire tale formed in my mind. I had a very loose idea of what key events might occur in the five acts, my preferred story structure, and I began keeping a document just listing the characters because inventing them on the fly made it far too easy to forget details of the minor ones. I figured that if I reached 20,000 to 25,000 words then there was a decent chance the project would not implode, and I might get a complete novel of 80,000 to 90,000 words out of the process.

I am about to close out the 4th act with nearly 64,000 words composed and the 5th act ready to rumble. The manuscript will be finished, and it had been quite the learning experience.

I have learned to trust my instincts.

Several major characters and plot developments have occurred on the fly. At the time these people or events appeared on the page their importance and the way that they illuminated the theme in my mind wasn’t obvious until much later. The ‘gut’ feeling about the characters has yet to fail me.

I have learned that all I need is the next waypoint.

This is not to disparage the outlines of my previous works. My published noir science-Fiction Vulcan’s Forge required a detailed outline because noir is twisty and mysterious and so while in any particular section the characters and the reader may be blind to the reasons things are unfolding as they are, I needed to know that and only an outline provided that clarity. But something not as twisty, like a horror novel about a pack of werewolves in Northern Idaho, all I required is knowing where I was going a few thousand words ahead.

I have learned that being lost is not the end.

Several times I have been writing the scene in front of me, knowing where I roughly wanted the act to end up, but at an utter lose what needed to happen between those points. Instead of stopping and outlining a clear path I have discovered that so far as I write solutions reveal themselves. Sometimes the answer came while writing and other times just before sleep, but they came, I just needed to trust the process.

I do not know how I will write my next novel, but I am richer for having ‘pantsed’ The Wolves of Wallace Point.