For the #WritingCommunity and anyone else interested in writing processes:
Yes, I’m a plantser, most of the time. What’s a plantser? It’s explained in terms of preparation for writing a story. There’s a whole spectrum of possibility, and it will help to examine the extremes first, because plantser falls somewhere between. Disclaimer: I’m not claiming to be a know-it-all. What follows are my opinions based on my experiences and what I’ve read.
Writer Types in Terms of Preparation
The Plotter
At one end of the story preparation spectrum is the writer who writes pages of details/notes about their story before writing the actual story. This type of writer is the plotter. The full-fledged plotter knows exactly what will happen in each scene, because it’s practically already written. The plotter must add color and nuance and all the other elements that turn flat text into a living, breathing story. But none of the added color or nuance or other new elements can be allowed to alter the plot line. No diversions allowed. This is at the extreme. In practice, even a self-described plotter might deviate on occasion from their outline. But for the most part, a plotter sticks to the plot as prepared in advance.
The Pantser
At the other extreme is the pantser, that is, a writer who writes “by the seat of their pants,” also sometimes called a discovery writer. A full-on pantser might start typing words just to see what ideas those words generate, and then add more words, and then more and more and more, each addition of words bringing additional ideas to mind. The story builds like a snowball rolling downhill until at some point the author decides to stop it, for whatever reason and by whatever means. The snowball may have picked up all sorts of unsightly objects on the way down, some of which are buried deep inside. The author might easily remove blemishes on the surface, but to get rid of deeply buried unwanted items, it may be easier to simply make another snowball, with a mind to avoid the kinds of unwanted objects picked up by the first one. That is, the author may be looking at heavy revisions or even rewriting the whole story from scratch, with the first draft as a guide. I’ve done the latter before.
Some might suggest it would have been better for a writer facing the task of rewriting their story to have spent their time in creating a plot first, as it would have been shorter and completed faster than the first draft resulting from their discovery writing. Each author must determine what works for them, and what works for one story might not work for the next.
Even the pantser must remember details and events that occur early in the story. Conflicting descriptions later in the story can kill the prized suspension-of-disbelief. Some pantsers take notes as they go along, building a reverse outline that can be referenced as needed in later chapters.
The Plantser
As mentioned before, there’s an entire spectrum of writing preparation styles, from heavy to none. The more preparation you do—the more you rely on outlines, notes, plotting software, and the like—the more credence you give to a claim of being a plotter. The less you rely on such things, the more credence you give to a claim of being a pantser. Moreover, if you claim to be plotter or pantser, people will form a mental picture of your writing process accordingly. Any given writer may do some plotting, even if in their heads, and may do some discovery writing, even if between nailed-down plot points. The line that separates plotter from pantser is not a hard one.
In the gray area between plotter and pantser lives the plantser. A plantser plots part of the story and discovery writes part of the story. How much of each? It varies.
Types of Plantsers
So, what does a plantser do? They plants, used as a verb. Right.
I’ve used three different approaches to plantsing, and those are the approaches I’ll discuss here. There are bound to be other approaches, but I can’t talk to them, not having tried them. The first method I’ll address is often referred to as waypoint writing, a term I’ve seen in use elsewhere on the web. The second I’ll refer to as where-to-next writing, my own coining of phrase. The third I’ll call refactoring, a term borrowed from software development.
The Waypoint Writer
The waypoint writer begins with a slight outline. They write notes about the beginning and ending of the story and a few points in between. Perhaps they use story structure to help them decide which points to plot. For instance, using the three-act structure, the waypoint writer might write notes about key events to occur at certain percentage point marks in the story, 0%, 12%, 25%, 37%, 50%, etc. These notes don’t need to be precise. They briefly describe goals to hit. MC breaks leg, might be such a note. MC falls in love with physical therapist, might be another. Details as to when, where, how, or why might be omitted. All missing details between waypoints are pantsed, but the author knows where the story is going, and not only where it’s going now, but which goal it will head for after it reaches the immediate one. There’s a plot, but it’s super light.
Call the waypoint writer a lazy plotter if you like. But if I write, say, ten sentences, one sentence per waypoint, and each sentence is ten words or less, that’s at most one hundred words. How do I, with a 100-word plot, compare myself as a plotter to someone who has written plots consisting of one thousand, five thousand, or even twenty thousand words? Like I said, there are no hard lines, but I have a hard time considering myself a plotter if I’m using a drabble as a plot.
A writer who likes the waypoint method can turn it into a full-fledged plotting process. Once a set of waypoints are defined, the writer can create waypoints between the waypoints, refining the plot. Then repeat the process, over and over, to heart’s content. At some point, what you have qualifies as a full-fledged plot, and I’ll believe you when you say you’re a plotter.
The Where-To-Next Writer
Where-to-next writing is a term I’ve coined to refer to the process of a writer who knows where they’re starting and has something in mind regarding their destination, but rather than knowing the full route they’ll be taking, they only know their next milestone. Once they reach the next milestone, they determine only then where another one is. They’re like a waypoint writer, but with only one pressing waypoint known at any given time.
I’m writing a serial on Royal Road now using this process. I have an idea for an ending, albeit a vague one. It’s enough of an idea to keep me from painting myself into a corner with no ending at all. My starting point is a basic concept from the GameLit/LitRPG genre, transporting real-world people into a virtual world with no clear way out. I started writing with one specific goal in mind for where the story would go first. It took me seven chapters to reach that goal. I discovery wrote those seven chapters. Characters were introduced that I had no idea about until I was into the chapter in which they occur. A couple characters introduced this way now have major supporting roles in the story.
Now that I’ve reached my initial goal, I’ve decided on the second where-to-next goal. I’ve not planned how many chapters it will take to reach that goal. I’ll write until I reach it or determine it can’t be reached. In either case, I’ll determine a new where-to-next goal when the current one is no longer useful.
Some might say that where-to-next writing is discovery writing with scarcely a nod to plotting. Where-to-next writing falls closer on the spectrum to discovery writing than to plotting, absolutely. But at the extreme end of the spectrum, discovery writers have no idea where their story is headed beyond the moment. They have zero milestone markers. They aren’t following any path. They can’t get lost, because they already are. They are explorers through and through. In contrast, the where-to-next writer always has a path to follow. Yes, they can abandon it if they wish, but they quickly find another, and their final destination, even if blurry and distant, always rises high above all else, a guidepost to orient them when feeling lost.
The Refactoring Writer
In software development, refactoring occurs when a piece of software is modified and other pieces of software that depend on it must be modified to accommodate the change. Refactoring is done in the hopes of improving the software, whether it be for program optimization or code maintainability.
Think of a story plot as a software program, with plot lines as components from which scenes and chapters are built. If you alter a plot line, you need to modify all the scenes and chapters that plot line affects, as well as any other plot lines depending on it and the chapters/scenes they affect.
Refactoring a story plot might be useful when a writer tries to plot a story, but their natural instinct is to discovery write. They’ve written a plot of thousands of words, and maybe used plotting software to create a complicated plot that holds together well. Then they start writing the story. In chapter two the instinct to discovery write kicks in, they can’t resist it, and their carefully crafted plot is blown to hell.
Yes, I’ve done this.
As soon as this happens, the inclination of the writer might be to completely abandon the plot or to delete the chapter of discovery writing. There’s another option: refactoring the plot. As a plantsing process, the refactoring happens sooner rather than later. One can weave new material into the plot, inserting plot lines for the discovery-written material and modifying the plots of chapters yet to be written. Figure out before burying oneself too deep how to handle the unanticipated events arising from the discovery writing.
If you’re trying to follow a particular writing process that doesn’t allow you to veer from your plot, it’s still your choice as to how to proceed when a hiccup occurs. Refactoring can help you keep the exciting discoveries you make and yet still follow a plan for the rest of the story. Of course, refactoring doesn’t have to only happen once. It can happen as often as you find yourself discovery writing despite having a prepared outline. However, if you find yourself continually refactoring a complex plot, think about what that says about the plot in the first place and/or your ability to adhere to one.
My Writing Processes
I don’t have “a” writing process. Perhaps after I’ve been at this writing gig a while longer, I’ll come to value one over the rest. I’ve been writing for decades, but up until lately I’d never published a novel. I’d written a few, but nothing publishable. Now that novel-length fiction has become a priority for me, I’m paying more attention to process.
While I enjoy reading well-plotted novels, I don’t enjoy writing them. I enjoy discovery writing, the kind of writing I’ve done as a hobby for decades. But discovery writing comes with a price when there’s a desire to publish. Rewriting is always necessary for me when I have no other process than to discovery write.
But I’ve also rewritten novels that I’d plotted and adhered faithfully to the plot. I have a novel filed away that I rewrote from start to end three times. Each time, I started with a plot of at least ten thousand words. But I was never satisfied with the result. It felt flat and contrived. It wasn’t organic.
For another novel I plotted out, I purchased a critique from a professional editor. I’d thought I had grown as a writer enough, maybe this time the story was publishable. The editor told me the story failed to build significant tension, because, to paraphrase the feedback I received, every time the MC got into a predicament, they got right back out of it too readily. Having an outline doesn’t guarantee a successful story. That story is also filed away. I have several stories filed away. Some of them I hope to revisit eventually.
I’ve loved reading for as long as I can remember, and writing for almost as long. Discovery writing for me combines what I love about both reading and writing. Sometimes I get so excited about a story I’m writing and how it’s unfolding, like I’m reading a book by a favorite author. I can’t write fast enough to see what happens next. It hardly matters in those moments if anyone else will like my finished work, assuming it’s ever finished. I have a number of unfinished novels filed away too.
I’ve never been good at plotting. I’m sometimes a pantser and sometimes a plantser, but even when I’m trying to behave as a plantser, some things I’ve planned turn out not to be where the story naturally goes once I start writing it. The more I plot, the more likely I’ll be refactoring the plot.
When I plot beforehand, it’s difficult for me to take character personae into account, and how a character might naturally react to some fine detail in the plot. For me, character always wins over plot. I find where-to-next writing works better in giving me freedom to explore my characters while not letting them take over the story completely, because they will if I let them.
One problem with where-to-next writing is the difficulty in applying story structure. I have to be careful in what goals I set for my next one, and try to choose goals that lend some structure to the story, without knowing what will happen much later in the story, and having only a vague idea of the ending. In my second novel, Undone—co-authored with Emila H Thicke—the MC/narrator at the end of the book admits the story lacks a cohesive structure. Emila and I employed the where-to-next writing process for the book. And while it hasn’t found readers, I love the resulting story. I’ve never put as much of myself into a story before. The MC is as close to being me as any character will ever get in any of my stories.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this brief exploratory post on writing processes in general and the plantsing process in particular.
Check out my free-to-read GameLit/LitRPG serial on Royal Road: Something Smells Flowery. Check out my Connect page for links to other sites of interest.