Are you a panster or a plotter? This common question often pops up in conversations when a group of writers gets together. Some declare their way is the best way, the right way, the only way to write a good story, but then there are others who just do what works best for them, ignoring the adamant proclamations from others. As for me, I’m a pantser at heart, but I have found benefits from doing a little plotting every now and then. And especially as of lately, I am noticing the benefits of stepping back from the story to look at the big picture, and then brainstorming ideas of where I see the story going, and feeling where the story is trying to lead me, where it’s tugging at me and directing me. And that often incorporates a little plotting.
Quite a few years ago I took a writing seminar taught by a well-respected and very successful author. I admired her enthusiasm, her work ethic, and her organized way of approaching the task of writing a novel. I am a very organized person by nature, so I thought I might want to adopt her approach to writing. Maybe it would help me produce better work. I took her seminar because I wanted to know her secret to success, and I must admit—I also wanted to learn how she was able to produce her plethora of successfully published novels as quickly as she had.
Though I am an adamant believer in quality over quantity, I can’t deny the fact that I am always trying to figure out how other authors are able to produce a lot of work—good work—in a short amount of time. I see so many authors producing a novel a year and more, and many of them have spouses and children and day jobs. Some of them even double as visual artists or performing musicians on top of all that. And many of them are also very active online on social media, drumming up hype around their work and connecting with their readers, fellow authors, and many others in the publishing industry. How do they fit it all in? I often think—they must be plotters? (I don’t want to think they stay locked away, ignoring their spouse and children and responsibilities, doing nothing but writing because that is not a work ethic I feel right to adopt. I do not want to miss out on my child growing up.) I ask this plotter question because the author who taught that seminar followed a very specific formula for writing a novel, mapping out everything ahead of time, right down to what needs to happen in each section of the book and by what page number it needs to happen. She even knows how the story ends before she writes the first chapter or even the first page. Knowing all that ahead of time must make the writing process that much quicker, right?
I don’t know.
Before that seminar ended, I remember looking at my friend beside me and saying, “How the hell is anyone supposed to know the whole story before they ever start writing? I cannot work that way. It feels too forced, too formulaic.” And my friend agreed. I came out of that seminar feeling more frustrated than before I had gone in, and I thought, If I need to adopt that way of writing to find success, I will lose my head.
For a long time, I was adamant that plotting out the whole novel in the way the author taught us in that seminar was an unnatural way to write stories. It felt too inorganic, like taking a book/story template and filling in all the sections with scenes of the story, then tying them all together with transitional sections. The whole idea left a bad taste in my mouth. And, to be completely honest, I still feel that way today. But…
Now that I am writing the third book in The Bone Cutters Series, I only made it halfway through chapter two before realizing I needed to take a step back and do a little plotting. Now, don’t get me wrong, I still don’t like the idea of plotting out an entire book before the story starts, but plotting sections here and there throughout has helped me tremendously. Plus, now that the story is on its third installment, I didn’t go into this book with as many fleshed-out ideas as I had for Books 1 & 2. I figure, that is most likely why I felt the need to pause to plot so early on with this one. Or maybe I just need to throw a bunch of new ideas into my Inspiration Cauldron and stir up a magical Story Potion.
I am curious if other authors, especially pantsers like me, who have written a sequel, a trilogy, and/or a series have had this problem before. Do you map the books out ahead of time, know what’s going to happen in each one and where the story is going? Or do you just run with it and keep writing your way through each book, figuring it out along the way?
As a pantser, the process of writing through it to find out what happens in the story is an exciting journey for me, like reading a new book or watching a new movie. That’s part of the reason why I prefer to write that way. I love not knowing exactly what my characters are going to do, not knowing what obstacles might pop up for them along their journey, not knowing what hoops they might have to jump through to achieve their goals. Like life. But even before writing Book 3 of The Bone Cutters Series I have sometimes stepped back during the middle of writing a story and had to do some plotting to help the writing process along. And now it appears to me that pantsers and plotters can learn a lot from one another, and adopting strategies that you may have thought were not for you might help you craft your next amazing story.
But, oh hell no, I cannot and will not plot out and outline a whole story or book in advance. Nope. I’m not that way. I need to keep it real and alive, dancing and fighting and fucking across every page. This process fuels me. It’s fun for me. Outlining is not fun for me. It sucks the joy out of my creativity. And if I lose enjoyment out of the process, then what’s the point? My lack of enjoyment will outshine anything I try to create if I do it that way.
To all the writers who happen upon my little newsletter here, what does your writing process look like? Are you a pantser or a plotter? Or are you a little of both? What about your writing process do you think other writers can learn from? Are you an author who produces a lot of work each year? Do you produce a lot of published works each year and still have a day job, a family, children, multiple creative projects? If so, how do you work it all into your “regular life” schedule? Have you written a sequel, a trilogy, or a book series? If so, do you plot the whole thing out ahead of time, or in pieces, do you outline your work, or do you pants your way through the whole thing?
Please, comment below with your answers. I’d love to get a discussion going around these topics, and hopefully we can all learn a little something new from one another.
Now, back to writing more horror fiction. Chat soon. In the meantime, stay spooky and keep creating!
~~~Peace~~~
Renée
Renee S. DeCamillis 