In the real of writing authors can be divided into two major camps, plotters and pantsers. Plotters outline their works before starting a project while ‘pantsers’ start writing and follow the impulses of their muses. Neither approach is inherently right or wrong; writers need to utilize the technique that works for them. Even the broad categories themselves are somewhat misleading as often pantsers have some idea where their story is ultimately going and plotters often discover twists and turns not revealed by the outlining process. My novels tend to be highly plotted and outlined, the last project had an 87 pages outline but when it come to short fiction I am much more of a hybrid author. I know where the story starts and I know the ending, I cannot begin without that ending for me it contains the point of the story, but I will often discover my middle like a pantser.

My most recent short fiction was following this pattern but stalled when I discovered that while I knew what critical information had to be revealed to both the first person protagonist and the readers I was utterly stuck on how to do it. I have work-shopped the opening of this story and it’s gotten good feedback, I know not just how it ends but the final line of the piece and I would say that about 80 percent of the plotting is taken care of, but this one element, this vital element, had stalled the project for months. Every time I think I have found the solution when I consider it more closely it falls apart.  I have set this story aside and drafted complete shorts in the interim but still this tale remains uncompleted.

Until last night.

While I stood at the sink and did the dishes, (we do not use the dishwasher, saving the energy it consumes.) my mind explored the blank areas of this story. Suddenly as I imagine scenes between characters, exploring their motivations, some of which were to be entirely subtext, the answer appeared. I had been coming at it from the wrong character, insisting that my protagonist go out and seek the information that would torment her when I had an already existing character that would revel in supplying the information and torment her with it.

My weeks of being stuck have ended and the story should be finished in first draft soon. As a bonus I even, finally, found the title, ‘Savior Complex.’