To plan it or pants it?

[SamScribble]

It’s a question that seems to come up about once a month. I don’t think we ever manage to arrive at anything approaching agreement, but here are a couple of snippets from a recent Michael Dirda piece.

The first, from E L Doctorow (Ragtime, World's Fair, Billy Bathgate, etc): ‘Writing is like driving a car at night. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.’ I think that is pretty much my own approach.

The second is a piece of second-hand advice from Peter Robinson (the Inspector Banks novels, etc). The editor of one of his early manuscripts apparently suggested: ‘Something should happen now.’ I think most of us recognise that moment. Dirda says: 'That might be the best general writing advice I’ve ever come across.'

 

[vanmyers86]

Pantser here. I lose interest if I know what happens too far ahead.

That is very good advice!

 

[SimonDoom]

No agreement will ever be reached on this issue because there's no need for agreement. Different people approach creativity in different ways. People's minds work in extremely different ways.

I like to plan and plot. Writing a story is like painting a painting for me. Or planting a garden or building a bench. It's not linear. I'm not going to start painting the upper left corner without having a pretty good idea what's going on the bottom right corner. That seems as strange to me for a story as it does for a painting. Every word is intended to get me to a place I have a good idea I want to go.

Others think of it completely differently, and that's fine.

 

[ElectricBlue]

The first, from E L Doctorow (Ragtime, World's Fair, Billy Bathgate, etc): ‘Writing is like driving a car at night. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.’ I think that is pretty much my own approach.

Yes, mine too. I've had entire plot shifts and new characters arrive between the first sentence of a paragraph and the last. My job as writer is to keep up and find the right words.

 

[KeithD]

The planning I've found necessary has gone on mostly in my head before it surfaces as a writing process. The planning continues in researching character names, setting, and anything else needed before the writing begins. The actually writing is "pants," but it's based on "plans" having been laid out.

 

[yukonnights]

...‘Writing is like driving a car at night. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.’ ....

I've taken many long road trips throughout the US and Canada. The thing is, most all of those trips have been with the assistance of a map. It's only if you already know the route — or don't care where you end up — that one would be able to to drive the whole trip with only the headlights.

So, there is an opportunity to discover wonderful and unexpected things without a map — but also, an opportunity to get terribly lost and end up running out of gas in the middle of nowhere. I see both; an opportunity to discover unexpected beauty and the risk of a ruined trip. Sometimes the adventure is worth the risk, but I still like to have a general idea of where I'm going to end up.

 

[KeithD]

What you then do when you've run out of gas somewhere in Nowhere can make for a very pleasurable and creative writing experience. Such a journey now and then can be really beneficial.

 

[NotWise]

I usually know where the story is going, but my notes on a story (if I have notes) usually cover just the next few scenes.

I'm in a kinda rough state right now. I committed myself to finishing an old series before I published anything new, but right now that old series is killing my soul, and I haven't published anything since August.

I have notes on three stories that I've put together while working on the series, and the last one passed the "notes" stage before I knew it. So, for that story I'm flying by the seat of my pants. It's not that difficult because there's nothing significant about the story.

It's kinda liberating to realize that there's nothing significant about the story.

 

[HeyAll]

These days I like to make the story as I go along. But I have to have a solid idea of what the story is and the premise has to be strong.

 

[SisterJezabel]

Whilst I'll always claim I'm a pantser, I will often write the backstory and then put it at the end of the story to be added in when I feel the backstory needs to be revealed- in my mind, I need to know and understand the backstory in order for the story to make a little sense.

 

[Candy_Kane54]

Usually, it's a bit of both. I have a destination in mind before I leave, but how I get there can be the most rewarding part. Like others, I research first (look at the map to see where I need to go, noting particular road junctions and towns along the route) then I head out with my headlights on, telling the story as I go. It's amazing the adventures you have when you take the back roads (pantsing) instead of staying on the interstate highways (the plan) the whole way.

 

[Omenainen]

Pantser here. I lose interest if I know what happens too far ahead.

This is me, literally. I write mine to find out what happens to my characters. If I already know, I just get bored.

My process is best described by “open a vein and let it bleed”. The bigger the vein, the faster the flow. Control? None to speak of.

 

[MColton84]

A little bit of column A and a little bit of column B. I like to have a plan written out; who, what, when, where, why, and how. It helps me know what I am trying to accomplish and where I am in proximity to that goal. However, when writing, I follow my characters . When they go off script, I follow. Sometimes inspiration sends you flying by the seat of your pants, leaving no choice but to fly with it or let it go .

 

[jaF0]

Funny, but pantsing had a different meaning for quite a while, maybe still does.

Pantsing really meant de-pantsing, which is more what we're after here, no?

I don't really plan though. I may jot notes or a disorderly outline, but when it comes time, it's all on 'til it's done.

 

[karaline]

I plan meticulously. My stories are often more complex than the original plan, more fleshed out, but I rarely begin writing without a plan, and when I do i feel quite anxious until I know the ending.

'Pansters' are constant source of bafflement to me.

 

[mfan2112]

I have some waypoints and some specific points of interests that inspire me to start taking a journey, but I rarely start off with a detailed route map.

While being on my way, I notice the scenery, I pass interesting sights, meet various people I never met before, and I write down what I observe. Especially for longer stories, I make calculated but originally unspecified detours, and sometimes the things I see and the people I meet seduce me to follow a different path than originally intended; I may end up somewhere I'd never thought of.

It is not unusual for me to travel the same path again and again, to fill in missing details and to make corrections of things that weren't wrong when I came there the first time. Already halfway through the story I may find out that the mindset and the nature of my characters are different than I'd originally expected, and then I have to adjust their early actions and comments accordingly. Also the timeline may change while I'm writing.

Especially for longer stories, I do a lot of research in advance, often without knowing how this info will be implemented. Quite often, it's only used as background in my head. While writing, I do more specific research, looking for details and aiming at the situation at hand.

I am the same way.

 

[RejectReality]

I have some waypoints and some specific points of interests that inspire me to start taking a journey, but I rarely start off with a detailed route map.

While being on my way, I notice the scenery, I pass interesting sights, meet various people I never met before, and I write down what I observe. Especially for longer stories, I make calculated but originally unspecified detours, and sometimes the things I see and the people I meet seduce me to follow a different path than originally intended; I may end up somewhere I'd never thought of.

It is not unusual for me to travel the same path again and again, to fill in missing details and to make corrections of things that weren't wrong when I came there the first time. Already halfway through the story I may find out that the mindset and the nature of my characters are different than I'd originally expected, and then I have to adjust their early actions and comments accordingly. Also the timeline may change while I'm writing.

Especially for longer stories, I do a lot of research in advance, often without knowing how this info will be implemented. Quite often, it's only used as background in my head. While writing, I do more specific research, looking for details and aiming at the situation at hand.

Well, this saved me a lot of typing. Ditto. LOL

 

[Athalia]

It’s a question that seems to come up about once a month. I don’t think we ever manage to arrive at anything approaching agreement, but here are a couple of snippets from a recent Michael Dirda piece.

The first, from E L Doctorow (Ragtime, World's Fair, Billy Bathgate, etc): ‘Writing is like driving a car at night. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.’ I think that is pretty much my own approach.

It may be true that you can make the whole trip that way, but you must at least know where you're going and which road you need to take to get there.


And Omenainen wrote:

I write mine to find out what happens to my characters. If I already know, I just get bored.

I get that. But although I already know what's going to happen to my characters, I don't know how it's going to happen, and why it will happen this way and not that way. That's the fun of writing stories, to me ... to figure out what's going to happen between the beginning and the end.

 

[jehoram]

That's the fun of writing stories, to me ... to figure out what's going to happen between the beginning and the end.

And -- here's the tricky part -- to figure out WHY it happened, and why it had to happen that way and not some other way.

 

[NotWise]

I have a question for the self-identifiend pantsers.

How do you write a story without a plot?

 

[SamScribble]

I have a question for the self-identifiend pantsers.

How do you write a story without a plot?

Begin at the beginning and keep on going until you reach the end.

 

[SisterJezabel]

I have a question for the self-identifiend pantsers.

How do you write a story without a plot?

Good question!

I'll often have a plot idea in my head- or a story idea, but often it will go a long way away from what I intended. So for instance, in my latest, I knew there was going to be a pretend boyfriend and a Valentine's Gala to attend. I planned the main family characters from the start too- female lead and brothers and parents, but not the male love interest. I trust my short-term memory still too- not sure how much longer I'll be able to but whilst I can...

I'm actually struggling with my current project, because I took on a challenge to write something from the story ideas thread and there was a lot of information there already about what was wanted. It's getting there, but it's much slower than usual which is frustrating for me.

 

[MColton84]

I'm actually struggling with my current project, because I took on a challenge to write something from the story ideas thread and there was a lot of information there already about what was wanted. It's getting there, but it's much slower than usual which is frustrating for me.

I am the same way. I often get frustrated when I don't feel like I am writing at a sufficient pace, progressing as I should. Worse yet, feeling frustrated often slows me down even more. This has been especially true when I was writing a story that someone else requested.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I have a question for the self-identifiend pantsers.

How do you write a story without a plot?

Life doesn't have a plot. My stories are mostly encounters that might occur in real life (with good luck and a tail wind), and are more about mood than story. So a story emerges, just as a relationship might.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I have a question for the self-identifiend pantsers.

How do you write a story without a plot?

Same way history happens: create characters with motivations and personalities, pick a starting point, then keep asking "what would they do next?"

Usually I go for something in between pure "plan" and "pants". ("Plants"?) I'll have a rough idea of where I want the plot to go, and occasionally I'll nudge the characters in that direction, unless they come up with something more interesting than what I had planned, which happens now and then. The balance between the two varies with the story.