An eternal debate in the writing community
involves whether plotting or pantsing is the better approach. Plotters develop outlines,
summaries, and/or detailed notes before writing. They usually know the main story beats
and have planned out the character arcs and world in advance. Pantsers write by the seat
of their pants, letting the characters and story reveal themselves as they go. They could have
an idea for the ending they’re working toward, but it’s liable to change; they
might have a structure in their head, even if they don’t write it down.
When I’m writing, I plot some stories and pants others; my approach
varies from project to project. In a 2011 interview, George R.R.
Martin refers to plotters and pantsers as architects and gardeners, and he himself
leans toward being a gardener/pantser: “The architects do blueprints before they drive
the first nail, they design the entire house, where the pipes are running, and how many
rooms there are going to be, how high the roof will be. But the gardeners just dig a hole
and plant the seed and see what comes up. I think all writers are partly architects and partly
gardeners, but they tend to one side or another, and I am definitely more of a gardener . . .
That being said, I do know where I'm going. I do have the broad outlines of the story worked
out in my head, but that's not to say I know all the small details and every twist and
turn in the road that will get me there.” Think of plotting and pantsing,
architecture and gardening, as tools at your disposal rather than inherent
traits or writing styles. Successful narratives combine elements of form and structure
with unbridled creativity and exploration. Both methods have pros and cons. Plotters don’t
have to worry as much about whether the story will feel cohesive because they already know that the
pieces will fit together. In the outlining stage, they can correct plot holes, add in foreshadowing,
and shape the character’s internal arc, which saves time later on. Plotting can help some
writers write faster and produce more cohesive first drafts. As Terry Brooks says, “Perhaps the
best reason of all for outlining is that it frees you up immeasurably during the writing process
to concentrate on matters other than plot.” However, plotters might become so attached
to their outline that they don’t consider diverging from it, missing opportunities for
more exciting paths the story could take. They might also lose the spark they feel for
their story if it’s too planned out—because it makes them feel like they’ve already written
the book and there’s nothing new to discover. Pantsers have more freedom to explore
different corners of the story, which can result in more surprising turns.
Ray Bradbury once commented, “When you plot books you take all the energy and vitality
out. There’s no blood. You have to live from day to day and let your characters do things.”
But this flexibility comes at a cost: pantsers can end up with stories that are uneven in terms of
their tone or pacing, like if the story transforms from being about a time-travel conspiracy to being
about a romance. If a writer isn’t working toward a definitive ending point, the story might
go on for hundreds of thousands of words, when that same story could be told in half as
much time. Pantsers who can’t decide what should happen next might experience writer’s block, and
the project will be left to rot in the trunk. Some writers are a mix of
both plotter and pantser, sometimes referred to as a “plantser.” These
writers might outline, but they still use some form of discovery writing to unearth new facets
of the characters and plot as they go along. It might help to visualize plotting and pantsing
as a spectrum. I’ve created five subcategories: extreme plotter, relaxed plotter, plantser,
controlled pantser, and extreme pantser. J.K. Rowling is an extreme plotter, as evidenced
by her charts tracking each novel’s subplots. She’s also said, “plot is such an
important framework to me when I write, that before I had finished the first book,
I had plotted all seven books about Harry.” Suzanne Collins is a more relaxed plotter; she used a three-act structure for The Hunger
Games series but didn’t outline every detail. As a plantser, Brandon Sanderson builds a
“floating outline” to craft his fantasy epics, using bullet points for scenes rather
than a specific plotting framework. I’d categorize Scott Hawkins,
author of The Library at Mount Char, as a controlled pantser. He has said, “I’m
very much a pantser rather than a plotter. In the initial stages, I just try to come up with
a couple of decent scenes and character sketches and worry about how they fit together later.”
Stephen King is loud and proud about being an extreme pantser: “I don’t take notes; I
don’t outline, I don’t do anything like that. I just flail away at the goddamn thing.”
Everyone has a process that works best for them or the project they’re working on, and no
process is inherently better than the other. To see if you lean more toward being
a plotter, pantser, or plantser, take this five-question quiz.
Question 1: When I have to write an outline, I feel...
A. Excited B. Overwhelmed
C. Indifferent Question 2: When I’m writing from an outline…
A. I write faster B. I write slower
C. I haven’t tried, or it’s no different from
writing without an outline Question 3: I lose interest in my story when…
A. I don’t know what happens next B. I know everything that happens next
C. I don’t really like the path I have in mind Question 4: The main reason I don’t
finish writing projects is because… A. I lose confidence in the story’s structure
B. I don’t feel excited about where the story is going
C. A combination of the above Question 5: I’m most excited about writing during…
A. The plotting stage B. The drafting stage
C. The revision stage Count your A, B, and C answers. Mostly A might
suggest you lean more toward plotting; mostly B, pantsing; mostly C, plantsing. Keep in mind that
this quiz is meant to help you reflect on your writing process rather than being a completely
accurate reading of the type of writer you are. Let’s look at the spectrum of techniques you can
use when it comes to plotting or pantsing a novel. Feel free to jump to the labeled section
in the video that most appeals to you. Extreme Plotter: An extreme plotter might create
a 20,000-word summary of the world, characters, and chapter-by-chapter scenes. They might even get
feedback on the outline before they begin writing. These outlines act as iterations of the story so
that by the time they’re writing the first draft, they’re basically creating the third draft.
Plotters can find themselves at home in a number of outlining methods, such as the
snowflake method, the Story Grid model, or the Save the Cat! beat sheet. John Grisham,
famed author of legal thrillers, has said, “The more time I spend on the outline the
easier the book is to write. And if I cheat on the outline I get in trouble with the book.”
You can also incorporate timelines as part of an outline, whether in paper notes or
spreadsheets. William Faulker’s short story “A Fable,” which won the Pulitzer Prize,
started out as an outline on his office wall. Joseph Heller outlined Catch-22 in great detail
in a story grid. The horizontal axis lists the major characters, while the vertical axis lists
dates. Even though the story itself is not told chronologically, he organized the grid by year
so he could keep track of what happened to the characters across their lives and how that
coincided with the events of World War II. Another plotting method involves writing out
scenes on index cards or sticky notes as a way to visualize and organize the story. Michael
Crichton used index cards to plot his books, rearranging them on a table. Scrivener has a
digital notecard feature that mimics this process. Charts, timelines, and beat sheets
are an extreme plotter’s best friends. Relaxed Plotter: Some plotters enjoy outlines,
but they don’t like to go too deep into every last detail. Their outline doesn’t need to
be a perfectly polished work of art before they start writing. They plan out the
characters and scenes in broad strokes so that they know where they’re headed, but
not exactly what they’ll find on the way. On her plotting process,
Suzanne Collins has commented: “I’ve learned it helps me to work out the
key structural points before I begin a story. The inciting incident, acts, breaks, mid-story
reversal, crisis, climax, those sorts of things. I’ll know a lot of what fills the spaces between
them as well, but I leave some uncharted room for the characters to develop. And if a door
opens along the way, and I’m intrigued by where it leads, I’ll definitely go through it.”
The Hunger Games is famed for its three-act structure, with each book in the trilogy
having three sections of nine chapters each. A seven-point plot structure can be another
way of breaking down a three-act structure, popularized by author Dan Wells’ YouTube
series. It features “plot points” and “pinch points”—scenes where important reveals happen,
or the stakes are raised. A more character-based approach comes from the protagonist’s internal
and external transformation, which can be seen in the classic Hero’s Journey and Dan Harmon’s Story
Circle, both of which stem from Joseph Campbell’s The Hero with a Thousand Faces, a theory about
how myths share similar narrative structures. DIY MFA also presents a cool way of
visualizing a story’s arc with a “story map” that threads together the major dramatic
question—the main plot—with the lesser dramatic questions, which are often the subplots.
Using these types of broad, predefined structures can be useful to relaxed plotters.
Plantser: For a comfortable middle ground, you might be a “plantser” who has a bullet-point
list of major plot events—the key scenes that the story can’t function without. There’s no defined
story structure or labels; it’s just a list of scenes and important character details. Some
authors even use a “reverse outline,” outlining the story they’ve already written to help
them step back and examine the big picture. Brandon Sanderson says he
tried to start by freewriting, but his first few books were train wrecks: “I
had good characters and interesting settings, but the stories fell apart as I wrote.” Nowadays,
he has to know the ending before he writes: “Generally, when I’m preparing to write a
story, it’s a dramatic ending that makes me want to finally sit down and write the book.
I write for endings. In ELANTRIS, the events of the last few chapters were by far my favorite in
the book—and I had them in mind from page one.” Sanderson has developed a floating
outline approach that works for him: “I feel lost in a story if I
don’t have a climax in mind, and I have trouble writing a character if I
don’t know how they are supposed to progress. However, I do enjoy the discovery of
writing. If everything is TOO rigid, then I don’t do well making connections and coming
up with innovative ways to be clever with my plot. So, I’ve grown to follow what I call a ‘Points on
the Map’ philosophy of writing. I’ve heard some other writers speak of similar methods–some
call this a ‘floating outline’ method, so I know I’m not unique. I do think that this
is a good way to have some of the organization of an outline without losing spontaneity.”
Before he writes, he already knows the characters’ personalities and character arcs. He has a
setting in mind, along with the culture and magic. He splits the book into four parts and has one
or two bullet points briefly describing the major plot points. Then he creates sub-bullets for
what needs to happen in order for that major plot point to come to pass. These notes aren’t as
detailed as what an in-depth plotter might write. He says, “I don’t think that they’d be
all that coherent to anyone but myself. These are reminders, or sometimes
instructions, rather than explanations.” Another plansting method I recommend is
writing a one-page summary of the book as if you’re describing it to a friend.
Plantsers can construct a freeform narrative arc from start to finish without worrying
about fitting scenes into specific boxes. Controlled Pantser: I have met so many
pantsers who have the whole story arc mapped out in their heads. They know
the ending and the major story beats, and they can even quote lines of dialogue
they want to include. They write in their heads as much as they write on the page. So,
the story is planned out but not written down. Controlled pantsers are often great at oral
storytelling, with experience in acting, sharing stories at parties, or playing the role
of Dungeon Master. If you’re a controlled pantser, talking through your story ideas with
someone else—a friend, critique partner, editor, sleeping cat—can help amp up your
excitement as you hear your ideas out loud. For Isaac Asimov, pantsing was
what drew him to storytelling: “Writing was exciting because I never
planned ahead. I made up my stories as I went along and it was a great deal
like reading a book I hadn’t written.” He didn’t complete many of his early stories,
which he attributed to the fact that he started writing without knowing how the stories would
end. In his memoir, I, Asimov, he shares: “What I do now is think up a problem and a
resolution to that problem. I then begin the story, making it up as I go along, having all the
excitement of finding out what will happen to the characters and how they will get out of their
scrapes, but working steadily toward the known resolution, so that I don’t get lost en route.
When asked for advice by beginners, I always stress that. Know your ending, I say,
or the river of your story may finally sink into the desert sands and never reach the sea.”
Ray Bradbury simply noted, “First, find out what your hero wants, then just follow him!”
For pantsers, it can be enough to just decide the main character’s goal and how the story
ends, and then you can be off to the races. Extreme Pantser: This is when there’s no mental
outline or clear future ahead. You don’t know what happens in the next moment until you write it,
much less the story’s ending. Each sentence is an act of discovery—you’re just writing and letting
your subconscious drip onto the page as it may. Margaret Atwood says, “When I’m writing a
novel, what comes first is an image, scene, or voice. Something fairly small. Sometimes that
seed is contained in a poem I’ve already written. The structure or design gets worked out in
the course of the writing. I couldn’t write the other way round, with structure first.
It would be too much like paint-by-numbers.” With pantsing, it can be good to keep in mind that
seed of an idea. What is the essence of the work, your primary goal in telling this story? Are
you aiming to tell a rollicking adventure story, or to make a commentary on a certain social issue?
Is your goal to show the main character turn from a hero into a villain? You can use that
single flower bud to guide you as you write. As a writing exercise, try one of the strategies
mentioned in this video and reflect on how well it worked for you. Did it help you organize
your thoughts and motivate you to write? If you’re plotting, you could write a beat sheet;
if pantsing, just decide on the story’s ending; and if you’re going the plantsing route, you
could create a bullet-point list of scenes. No two writers are alike. When I think about
how different authors can be in their approach to producing brilliant works, C.S. Lewis
and J.R.R. Tolkien always come to mind. In her book Bandersnatch, which is
about the Inklings writing group, Diana Pavlac Glyer captures the two
authors’ contrasting writing habits: “While Tolkien wrote things out in
order to discover what he wanted to say, Lewis tended to mull things over before committing
anything to paper. While Tolkien produced draft after draft, Lewis completed his work rapidly
once he had settled on a clear idea and the right form to express it. And while Tolkien
reconsidered every word on every page, when Lewis finished a story, he was restless to move on.”
You can be a great writer regardless of what process you use. Figure out what works best for
you and the story at hand. All that matters is that you get words on the page, finish projects,
and create stories you’re proud to call your own. What were your quiz results? I’d love to see them
in the comments. Whatever you do, keep writing.
