Discovery Writing Resources
At the end of my book By the Seat of Your Pants: Secrets of Discovery Writing, I included a modest list of resources for readers to explore. I reproduce it here for those who bought the print version and may not have access to “live” links, or for anyone who wants to bookmark it, whether they have read my book or not! Enjoy!
Books - Discovery Writing
Survival Kit for Writers Who Don’t Write Right
Patricia McLinn
The Pocket Guide to Pantsing [Full Audiobook]
M.L. Ronn
(This is a very recent release that I did not find until after I had written this book! YouTube reading is by the author, but links to purchase the book are in the shownotes.)
Write Into the Dark: How to Write a Novel without an Outline
Dean Wesley Smith
Books - Related
Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
(Csikszentmihalyi was the pioneer in the study of “flow state” as discussed here, so it is worth looking at some of his work to understand it better.)
Romancing the Beat
Gwen Hayes
The Magic of Sleep Thinking: How to Solve Problems, Reduce Stress, and Increase Creativity While You Sleep
Eric Maisel and Natalya Maisel
Intuitive Editing: A Creative & Practical Guide to Revising Your Writing
Tiffany Yates Martin
Writing on the Intuitive Side of the Brain
Lauren Sapala
Dear Writer: Are You Intuitive?
Becca Syme and Susan Bischoff
Articles
How to Embrace Being a Discovery Writer by Mallika Kamat
Kendra Patterson’s blog category for “Discovery Writing”
Writing Tips: Outlining/Plotting Vs Discovery Writing/Pantsing at Joanna Penn’s blog
Interview with John Swartzwelder in the New Yorker (included here for his reference to the “Crappy Little Elf” version of discovery writing he did while working on The Simpsons.)
Miscellaneous
Joanna Penn’s interview with Patricia McLinn
Brandon Sanderson’s BYU class on Fantasy Writing
Becca Syme’s Quit Cast Playlist: Intuitive Writers
Prompts Resources
There are many lists of prompts online if you go searching for them! Most of the online prompt generators, though, tend to offer very complex suggestions. Every resource listed here provides mostly bare-bones prompts, which are the best to use for developing discovery writing skills.
Writing Prompts Community on Reddit
A Year of Prompts from ThinkWritten.com
500 Prompts from WrittenWordMedia.com
400+ Writing Prompts from SelfPublishingSchool.com
Writing Prompts on tumblr
Storymatic (the original story card deck system)
The Story Engine Deck (a card deck with endless variations of prompts, including genre-specific ones)
Writing Down the Bones Deck by Natalie Goldberg
Digital Prompt Deck (similar principle to the StoryEngine Deck but less complicated, and entirely online)
Writing Apps
As mentioned in the Non-fiction section. I recommend Scrivener to everyone, but it suffers from a steep learning curve, so YMMV on whether it is worth your time and energy. There are far more apps out there than listed here, but these are the ones I have direct experience with and/or have been recommended by authors I know and respect. (No, I did not “forget” MS Word or OpenOffice or Pages; I do not recommend any of them as full-featured apps for serious writers. If you love them, that’s fine, no offense meant! But I don’t recommend them.)
Other Links from the Text
Links used in the body of the text which are not included in the “Resources” section itself.
Annie Wilkes character overview at Wikipedia
Blorbos at Fanlore
Chekhov’s Gun at Wikipedia
Demotivational poster “To serve as a warning to others!“
Fandom Wank at Fanlore
Flow State at Wikipedia
Gina Hogan Edwards website
Michelangelo never said that at Quote Investigator
Polonsky Exhibition at the New York Public Library
Remember TripTiks? at Pearls of Travel Wisdom blog
Unschooling at Wikipedia
“Fourth Time’s the Charm” blog post at the Scriptorium