Some people prefer to plan out every detail before sitting down to write their story. \u00a0They flowchart. \u00a0Sometimes, after they’ve charted out the big stuff, the zoom in and chart at a lower level. \u00a0Some keep iterating, planning out finer and finer details. \u00a0Once they’re ready to write the story, they no longer worry about what they’re doing. \u00a0They get to focus on the sentence structure and the prose without having to worry about where the story is going. \u00a0These people are the Planners.<\/p>\n
Some people want to be surprised when they write. \u00a0For them, they receive the same thrill of discovery as the reader. \u00a0The words are there, just ahead of their cursor or pen. \u00a0They write “by the seat of their pants,” and so these are the Pantsers.<\/p>\n
I’m sure I’ve talked about this subject before, but with November creeping closer, it’s weighing on my mind. \u00a0Am I a Pantser, or am I a Planner? \u00a0How much do I prepare for my new novel, and how much do I leave undiscovered?<\/p>\n
I know that I used to be a Pantser. \u00a0I remember what it felt like when I wrote my first story, 25 years ago. \u00a0It felt like magic. \u00a0I felt like I had a super power that let me look at a screen and cause words to appear by my will. \u00a0I guess I still feel that way, sometimes.<\/p>\n
When I’m programming, I create flowcharts all the time. \u00a0I plan my logic out. \u00a0I scribble on notepads and whiteboards, and I write pseudo-code.<\/p>\n
It’s different when I’m writing fiction. \u00a0There have been several stories that I’ve tried deeply\u00a0plan out in advance. \u00a0I broke the story into acts, then broke each act into chapters, then broke each chapter into scenes. \u00a0I wrote up character sheets. \u00a0I planned it out so that there’d be no surprises.<\/p>\n
I wasn’t able to write that story. \u00a0There wasn’t enough joy left in it. \u00a0Since I already knew what was going to happen all along the way, the story was spoiled.<\/p>\n
Last year, I discovered that I can’t simply wing it anymore, either. \u00a0When I didn’t have a plan, my writing slowed down, and the story wandered aimlessly. \u00a0It wasn’t my best work. \u00a0I didn’t know what I was doing or where I was going, and that uncertainty\u00a0came across\u00a0in the story.<\/p>\n
Pantser or Planner… I’m somewhere in between.<\/p>\n
I’ve talked to writers about this subject before, and it always fascinates me. \u00a0The hard-line Planners I’ve talked to are organized, and talk with disdain about people that don’t plan things out in advance. \u00a0If I were to assign some sort of virtue to the Planners, it would be discipline. \u00a0Planners seem to be a little bit more disciplined than Pantsers. \u00a0I like discipline, so I want to be a Planner.<\/p>\n
The hard-line Pantsers I’ve talked to are more likely to talk about their characters taking over and going places they didn’t expect. \u00a0The writing experience they describe resonates with me, in terms of the kind of joy and fun they have. \u00a0If I were to assign a virtue to Pantsers, it would be spontaneity. \u00a0I like spontaneity, so I want to be a Pantser.<\/p>\n
I need to be\u00a0a little bit of both. \u00a0Writers I’ve talked to sometimes use words like “where you are in your writing,” referring to where I am in my development as a writer. \u00a0In some ways, I’m advanced. \u00a0In other ways, like this particular topic, I’m still finding my way. \u00a0It feels like something I’ll always tinker with.<\/p>\n
As I said yesterday when I talked about dressing up to write, different things work for different writers. \u00a0I need to do some planning, but I\u00a0must avoid\u00a0being too detailed with those plans. \u00a0I need to make sure that\u00a0there are places where I can be surprised.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Some people prefer to plan out every detail before sitting down to write their story. \u00a0They flowchart. \u00a0Sometimes, after they’ve charted out the big stuff, the zoom in and chart at a lower level. \u00a0Some keep iterating, planning out finer and finer details. \u00a0Once they’re ready to write the story, they no longer worry about […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-420","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=420"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":421,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/420\/revisions\/421"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=420"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=420"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=420"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}