For those who read my previous post about goals in general, over on ThePolyBlog.ca site (https://www.thepolyblog.ca/pace-goal-setting-and-burning-through-letters/), you’ll know that I’m talking about the military acronym:

• P (Primary)
• A (Alternate)
• C (Contingency)
• E (Emergency)

And as I’m obsessed with any tried, tested and true methodology for planning, I wanted to see how it would work for personal goals and writing in particular.

Stepping back for a moment, for the writers in the audience, you’ll likely recognize a form of PACE…. It is also a way of escalating tension in manuscripts for TV, movies, books, whatever. Sometimes it is something simple, like you have a big problem (goal) and a big solution (primary), but then you get to the implementation stage — and your primary solution fails. Like in Star Wars, when the hyperdrive doesn’t work. You have to move to an alternate option, even if it’s not your fault. In Jurassic Park, they tended to go the opposite way — the solution partially worked, but it either immediately resulted in the dinosaurs forcing them towards an alternate plan anyway OR creating another problem immediately requiring a new solution to THAT problem. The scripts using PACE approaches keep doubling down on the challenge of achieving the goal and burning through letters.

And so while that is a viable way to increase tension in thrillers, that’s not what I’m talking about in terms of writing. That’s using PACE as a plot device; I’m talking about using it to track and achieve writing goals.

I started playing with ways to apply it to my various writing goals and projects, and well, as I noted in the last post, it is not a one-sized-fits-all methodology (even though it is billed as such).

I went through several iterations, but none worked completely. I’d show the various steps of the analysis, but, well, it’s kind of boring. The outcome was that you can sort of use it, but you have to redefine your goal in certain ways, and you STILL don’t quite achieve the goal unless you twist it so far it isn’t recognizable. Let me show an equivalent table to the one in the previous chart, adapted for writing.

Typically, you’d talk about a writing goal like “Write a book” or, more pointedly, “Write 50K words”. Except when you then look at various ways to get to those goals, you start to see the flaws in PACE for this type of goal.

For writing stages, some people would really like a PACE-like set of alternatives. You can write today, that’s the primary goal. But if you can’t write — because of block or timing or other deadlines — then maybe you do some editing of previous material as your alternate approach; or researching as your contingency; or, in an emergency, some outlining. Except…that isn’t how PACE works. In the original COMMS example, you ONLY do one of the four. While they are hierarchical, or at least prioritized, you never do ACE if P works. In this case? You’re prioritizing writing, but you could do any of the four. Yet if you were really prioritizing, wouldn’t research or outlining come first? They would for your stages, but on any given day, perhaps writing is your real goal. Butt in seat, typing away. Great. But then your goal isn’t really which stage of writing you’re doing, maybe it’s more that you’re just producing volume against some metrics (row 2)…on a good day, you’ll do 5000 words. On an emergency day, you may only get 500 words. But, again, that’s not really a PACE approach — that’s “I’m typing, how much can I do today”. Not really about choosing them hierarchically where one fails before you try the others.

For row 3, it’s more about choices. Your primary goal might be working on a fiction book; the alternate might be non-fiction; the contingency might be blogging; and curating might be the emergency option. So, they are not stages, nor volume-based — they clearly represent clear and different options. You might accept that those are also the four priorities. But, like with stages, are they really something where you’re only doing non-fiction, blogging or journaling if you can’t write fiction? What if fiction works? Does that mean that you only write fiction forever? Under the true method of PACE, it would indeed mean you do your primary if you can and ONLY move on to the others if the primary fails. Not really PACE.

I thought some more about the originals. And one thing that the movie and the comms examples have in common is that they all represent different ways to achieve the identical goal aka the “how” it is achieved. So, if we say the goal is to write, it could be that you have your desktop as your primary tool. Then, perhaps, if your desktop is not available (down, someone else using it, or you’re not near it), your alternate could be a laptop. That’s similar to the comms technique, just a different how, with slightly lower efficacy. If you go towards a contingency plan where you can’t write on your desktop or laptop, maybe you write on your phone or a tablet. And if all else fails, in an emergency category, you could use a pen and piece of paper and write long-hand. If I go back and compare it to the original examples, it works. Great, done, right? Except, well, in the original comms examples or the movie, P and A, and even C, have a non-zero risk of failure hence needing a primary and three other ways to achieve your goal. Failure is not an option. Except, if I look at the above example, it is transforming the goal of “writing” into an “avoid a technical risk” goal.

Which is not nothing, honestly. In the original comms, the risk is that the three PAC options will fail technically and stop you from communicating. In the movie, it’s more robust, and Pierre has four different ways to get his cousin out of jail. With increasing risk. It is hidden in the background, i.e., that the PACE approach works best when the focus is on avoiding binary risks that will derail success.

And yet.

When I look at the example of a technical “block”, it looks great on paper. But it has NOTHING to do with the real risks for writing. On the list of ten things that will stop me from writing my book(s), which computer I use is barely a blip. If my desktop dies? I’ll replace it. If my laptop dies? I have other older models AND I’ll still replace it. Will I get down to writing by hand? Probably not. Maybe with some journaling, curating, or brainstorming, sure, but that is not a technical gap that I’m filling.

I took a crack at seeing what would happen if I thought of it more like “I can’t get it done”. That **I** am directly the failure. So perhaps I could consider working with a partner, or involving a writing group to keep me on track (I didn’t include that in the options). My contingency was to go more formulaic, relying heavily on tropes, or in an emergency, letting AI have a go at some of my research or summarizing my prose.

There is SOMETHING there, I can sense it

What if I view some of them as a mix-and-match? Or equivalencies?

In a lot of fitness examples, I see references to the equivalent of “one cardio” activity in each of the primary, alternate, contingency and essential categories. And so they rank their cardio activities as perhaps swimming, jogging, bicycling and walking. Except the swimming, jogging, and bicycling might be just variations on the primary — one “large” cardio activity. There would be no efficacy drop to jogging or bicycling, just to the last one.

I think, but am not 100% sure, that the primary might allow for multiple equivalent buckets. I’m going to try tackling that in my next post…seeing if I can translate my direct writing goals into a mix-and-match semi-hodgepodge.

Wish me luck.