Are You a Plotter or a Pantser?

Do you have a solid idea of what you will be writing when you sit down? Have you spent oodles of time thinking about it, writing ‘off the page’? Or do you have a solid structure in place? Are You a Plotter or a Pantser?

I can type until the end of time about the strengths and weaknesses of plotting versus pantsing. That’s been done to death. So I’ll just give you a short overview.

Basically, plotting means that you have your structure all mapped out. You know what your Main Character will be doing in this scene and the next and the next. J.K Rowling is a plotter. 

Pantsers are non-plotters. They sit down and type out whatever their heart desires. Sometimes they get lost along the way. They almost always need to edit heavily. Stephen King is a pantser.

You don’t need to decide which kind of writer you are just yet, and you probably shouldn’t. If you are a very new writer, you may want to try each style and see what works best for you. You may find that you are a mixture, like I am. So you don’t really need to be firmly a plotter or a pantser, but it does help to know what camp you’re in.

When writing a short story, I am most usually a pantser. Yes, I usually think the story through before I start. Sometimes I will start a writing exercise or prompt, end up with a story and just roll with it. I don’t have too much invested with shorter works and so don’t have too much to lose if I need to edit until the cows come home or even toss the whole thing out (which for me means letting it sit in the back of my Google Drive). 

Longer works…oof. I need to plot, but I only plot loosely. Some structure advocates suggest writing full character treatments and scene overviews before even starting to write. This technique probably works well for some people, maybe a lot of people. I can see value in the idea of knowing exactly what you are to write that day. For some people.

I don’t have the patience for it.

I love the discoveries about plot and character that I uncover along the way while I’m writing. Overplotting, as I call it, would hamstring some of my creativity. I believe that it can slow down flow, for me at least. Plus it sounds like it would take forever and I don’t have that kind of free time. If you are more of a linear thinker than I am, you might be an ‘overplotter’. If you are, good for you. Do whatever works best for you.

I just get into Scrivener and plot using index cards using a line or two for each scene. I’ll get into how to structure  in my next article, so have no fear if you’re a little lost.

So for now…

Happy Writing!

And make sure that you check out Seven Simple Ways to Make Your Writing Rock.