Seat-of-the-pants or outline writer?

[Ronald T.]

I'm wondering about the ratio of pantsers to outliners. Which do you belong to, and why?

I'm definitely a pantser. And here's why:

I'm such a visual person that I can't write a word without fist seeing the scene in my mind. That's particularly true when I'm writing an emotional scene. I have to see the facial expressions and body language of the characters , as well as feel the depth of their various emotions. Otherwise, without immersing myself in the various elements of the scene -- the environment, the motivation of the characters, the dangers they face, and their emotional state -- it's very likely that what I produce will be far too shallow and two-dimensional. It would be like seeing something in black and white instead of in full color. In other words, my writing would be less than it could be.

However, being a pantser doesn't mean I start writing without a plan. It's just that my plan is basic and contained entirely in my head.

There are three important elements I must establish in my mind before I start writing:

1)-- I must know the genre. Without that, I might as well write non-didactic poetry.

2)-- I must know and understand my characters and their motivations. It's difficult to write
about a character I don't know.

3)-- I must have at least a rough idea of the ending. Without that, how do I know if I'm
heading in the right direction. That's the quickest way to start meandering and
floundering about. When a writer has no idea of their final destination, they become
lost. And the odds are they will never finish that project, or any other. So, from the
start, I have to have a general idea of the ending. For me, that's an essential step
to starting a work.

Pantser or outliner -- both techniques are effective.

So, which one are you?

 

[tinkerdan]

This discussion has show up before.

I'm mostly pantser with a few caveats and qualifications.

I usually have a what if- that then has to be fitted to a character. Then I might write a few scenes just to get to know the character and how they interact with the world. Then I might spend some time on the world and the scenes so in a small way that might be part of an outline. But much of this goes on in my head so If someone wanted to see my outline I'd be at a loss.

Sometimes, by that time, I realize I might have the wrong character or the story is beginning in the wrong place for that character. I usually have a fair idea of the beginning and the end, but I'm also pretty fluid in defining some of the elements that compose those.

I really do have this huge story board in my head; so I'm a bit of an outliner that will forever look like a pantser if someone is watching over my shoulder.

I'll see if I can find the last discussion we had about this.

https://www.sffchronicles.com/threads/548047/

https://www.sffchronicles.com/threads/549199/#post-1835158

In the following look for the post by @Teresa Edgerton: I wish there were a way to bookmark a single post in a disscussion.
https://www.sffchronicles.com/threads/530743/

This one look for @The Judge .
https://www.sffchronicles.com/threads/550044/#post-1855881

 

[Tim Murray]

I'm wondering about the ratio of pantsers to outliners. Which do you belong to, and why?

I'm definitely a pantser. And here's why:

I'm such a visual person that I can't write a word without fist seeing the scene in my mind. That's particularly true when I'm writing an emotional scene. I have to see the facial expressions and body language of the characters , as well as feel the depth of their various emotions. Otherwise, without immersing myself in the various elements of the scene -- the environment, the motivation of the characters, the dangers they face, and their emotional state -- it's very likely that what I produce will be far too shallow and two-dimensional. It would be like seeing something in black and white instead of in full color. In other words, my writing would be less than it could be.

However, being a pantser doesn't mean I start writing without a plan. It's just that my plan is basic and contained entirely in my head.

There are three important elements I must establish in my mind before I start writing:

1)-- I must know the genre. Without that, I might as well write non-didactic poetry.

2)-- I must know and understand my characters and their motivations. It's difficult to write
about a character I don't know.

3)-- I must have at least a rough idea of the ending. Without that, how do I know if I'm
heading in the right direction. That's the quickest way to start meandering and
floundering about. When a writer has no idea of their final destination, they become
lost. And the odds are they will never finish that project, or any other. So, from the
start, I have to have a general idea of the ending. For me, that's an essential step
to starting a work.

Pantser or outliner -- both techniques are effective.

So, which one are you?

Done both and each has it's merits. I've combined both on the third of my series. My second in first draft form was outlined and my first, I was a panster. At the least, you should have a general outline to work from. IMO

 

[Hex]

My outline develops as I write the story -- and even then it tends to be a couple of scenes (not necessarily pivotal) and a vague idea of where I'm going to end up, though that always changes because I need to work hard on endings.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

Panster.

 

[Jeremy M. Gottwig]

I find that a rough outline is good for coming up with a general direction for the story, but I consider it a very general direction. I love it when something big happens that throws the story off the rails and sends me down a different path. If I didn't outline, I probably wouldn't be as surprised.

 

[StuartBurchell]

Pantser for my first proper book, which I am rewriting/editing/whatever.

However, I have a 3 page outline for the sequel and storylines for another half-dozen stories in the (hopefully) series.

 

[Tim Murray]

Pantser for my first proper book, which I am rewriting/editing/whatever.

However, I have a 3 page outline for the sequel and storylines for another half-dozen stories in the (hopefully) series.

I had ten plus page outline for my second.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

I'm a bit of both, and it's not the same balance between the two for every story I write. I like to surprise myself that way. (That's just me being flippant. I surprise myself that way whether I want to or not.) Mostly I start out with a plan, rough in places, detailed in others, and then follow it or ignore it as I go along, and as the spirit moves me. Usually, it comes around to pretty much what I planned for the ending, but everything else up to that point may develop very differently from what I had planned. Or thought I planned, since even those things I didn't think I planned tend to lead up very neatly to that expected ending.

I often feel that my subconscious mind is racing on ahead of me and has reached the end while I am still trying to figure out the beginning. That's not always true; sometimes there is a struggle in the middle to make it all make sense. But when it all flows along naturally it eventually becomes clear that some part of my mind was making plans all along and nudging me where it wanted me to go. (My husband has a favorite quote from The Last Unicorn:"The witch knows more than she knows she knows." I think this is often true of writers.)

 

[Heir]

I must have at least a rough idea of the ending. Without that, how do I know if I'm
heading in the right direction. That's the quickest way to start meandering and
floundering about. When a writer has no idea of their final destination, they become
lost. And the odds are they will never finish that project, or any other. So, from the
start, I have to have a general idea of the ending. For me, that's an essential step
to starting a work.

That's the main reason why I'm an outliner. I like to have really good endings, the kind that re-frame the entire story (a plot twist essentially). That includes series-spanning arcs. To achieve that, I have to know what the ending is (of a book and series) and how I'm going to get there. So I have to know where every single piece of foreshadowing or red herring is going to be. Sometimes, I scale this back, or ramp it up, depending on reader reactions.

The thing about outlining though, is that few outliners are completely outliners. Because the time it takes to write a book tends to mean ideas change and develop. I've cut out entire chapters, scenes and characters because they don't fit my new vision for the story, or because I needed time to notice they were terrible ideas. And like Teresa, my ending tends to remain the same (maybe with a few minor changes to keep continuity), it's just that the route to reach it has changed.

Then again, you could strictly follow an outline, but I think (perhaps there are exceptional cases) that will probably make the story feel forced and inorganic. So I go pantser with my characters. I find it best for me to not know exactly who my characters are (scene by scene), because of all the things in my book, they need to feel the most authentic, I think. I just enjoy getting to know who my characters are, but sometimes, they need to be put in their place to ensure that they don't derail the book. I never let the characters 'take control' of the story.

 

[Loren]

I sit firmly in both camps.

 

[thaddeus6th]

A planner.

That said, I literally made Sir Edric's Temple up as I went along (with the exception of the final scene, which I had firmly in mind). It was lots of fun to write, but hugely inefficient and lumpy. I wrote almost all Ch3 in an afternoon, and spent about a month getting Ch4 done [which is helpful, as I can bring it to mind whenever I'm wrestling with a particularly difficult piece of writing and remember that doesn't mean the end product will be poor].

I plan in more detail for serious stuff as comedy benefits from flexibility, I think, but if you've got multiple perspectives and you need to keep the timing consistent it's helpful to have a more rigid framework. As my comedy is all from Sir Edric's perspective, it's much easier to axe a chapter/scene or slot an extra one in.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

I've cut out entire chapters, scenes and characters because they don't fit my new vision for the story, or because I needed time to notice they were terrible ideas.

Yes, exactly. Some things that look great in outline turn out to be weak when it comes time to write about them (and weak may be putting it charitably) but it may take a while, and several attempts to fix it, before we are willing to admit that there is no way to make that shining idea work, unless we are willing for the rest of the book to suffer. The good news is that learning to be ruthless in dealing with such things becomes easier with time.

 

[Dan Jones]

Bit of both. I need a broad outline, something to anchor myself to, but with my current WIP I've plotted it to roughly halfway, and then it's open water. I won't see what happens until it happens. It's quite an unnerving but exciting way of working, and I'm interested to see what how my characters act when we get there.

 

[ratsy]

I'm a pantser, but I do know what I'm doing with the story. For the book I'm working on I have a general outline in my head, and boxes I need to tick to get me to the ending, so I follow those as much as the characters let me.

I was talking to my brother, who does screenwriting, about my book last week and I said. "I just had my first death in my book. It was surprising." He laughed and said I was talking like I hadn't written it, rather read it. So sometimes we do things even we don't expect and I'm sure that happens a bit with heavy outliners, but more so with pantsers I bet. I love surprising myself, or writing something and thinking 'that was really cool'.

I can see myself maybe doing a little more outlining in the future because I am starting to do it more in my head as I go with the book. God forbid I have one too many glasses of wine some night and wipe all my planning clean!

 

[Susan Boulton]

A pantser, who ends up having to do research as I go and outline when I need to. (as in getting the story to fit together, then altering the outline when my characters decide they don't like the outline.)

I am currrently re-reading a stalled WIP. I have nearly 50,000 words of book one and about 20,000 of book two done. Book one is ok up to the point where it goes all blaaaaaa... I need to sort out the blaaaa and get it to the ending I have in mind. The 20,000 words of book two is all over the place, but many scenes are solid. They just need hammering into shape to match what is written and will be written in book one. Then I will have a nice duology ready in first draft ready for some poor soul to beta read.....

 

[Zoe Mackay]

Neither (really). I'm a lilypadder. I usually have some idea of the general shape, and key ideas for a few scenes or even paragraphs (not necessarily the start and the end). I then work to get from one lilypad to the next, and occasionally I miss and have to move the pads about a bit, but mostly I get there and the whole thing more or less hangs together.

I suspect that the method I've used to construct it is more visible than I like to believe. I think this is true of most pieces of work, though - you can sometimes see where the scaffold went when the tower was built.

 

[Dan Jones]

Neither (really). I'm a lilypadder.

So instead of a planster, or a pantster, you're a padster?

 

[Tim Murray]

So instead of a planster, or a pantster, you're a padster?

Sometimes I outline a paragraph after it is outlined. Especially if it deals with complicated issues. It helps me keep everything straight. Other times I switch paragraphs around in a general outline.

 

[MemoryTale]

I'm a little of both. I plan the beginning and end, plus any important milestones, and I do a bit of background planning for my characters, then it's pants all the way.

I find if I try to plan too much, the planning takes over. And with not enough planning I can only get so far before my pants fail me.