The Four Types of Novel Writers

hey guys it's Ellen Rock novel editor today I want to talk about different types of writers so I've been thinking about this a lot lately I've noticed that some writers will find certain techniques eye opening and just completely beneficial in every way and other writers will find those same techniques stifling uninspiring unhelpful maybe even setting them back and set it forward so I wanted to come up with a typing system for writers that would help them to identify what types of strategies and techniques they should listen to and what types they can disregard because everything just doesn't work for everyone and if we all try to follow the same rules and the same systems it's just gonna be a struggle so I came up with four different types and I believe that if you can identify the type that is the closest to you you might want types and I think that would be very normal you might also change types or come to a realization that this type kind of worked for you but this other type is actually a better fit and I think that that may be a natural progression over time as well so I don't want you to feel pigeon holed into your type or that everything about that type has to fit you exactly correctly but I think that if you can type yourself it will help you to figure out the strategies and the techniques that will work for you and I think that will also help you to stay motivated because you won't be butting up against tactics or techniques that are really just holding you back or making the process more difficult for you I'll be posting follow-up videos that go into more detail about each of the types so I'll be making a video for the strategies and techniques that will and won't work for each type but in this video I just want to go over what the types are what my reasoning was behind the different types and how you can start to identify which type you think that you are so that you can find the strategies and techniques that will work best for you so I came up with this idea based on two different continued so before I get into the four types I want to go over the two Continuum's that I'm using to come up with the types so the first continuum is plotter versus Pancer so if you are on the far side and you are an extreme plotter you're the type of person who's going to benefit from breaking down every little nuanced element of your story in advance so on this far far far end you might have absolutely everything broken down the emotional shift for every scene you might have every subplot tracked you might know every relationship and how it develops across the story you might have an elaborate world building Bible you might have multiple tracking systems or different software's and lots of different techniques that you're using to make everything line up and you know exactly what the book is going to be before you start writing the first draft on the far extreme on the other side you have someone who is a complete Panther so a panther is someone who flies by the seat of their pants they're not going into the first draft with any sort of plan at all on this extreme and they're going in just completely with essentially nothing maybe a spark of inspiration a line that they thought of that that really inspires them or maybe a character that inspires them but they haven't done prewriting planning plotting they're flying by the seat of their pants somewhere around in the middle you might have someone who has the gist of the plot they might have jotted down their main ideas or objectives so they have a little bit of a mix they have some plotting done but they're really going into the first traps without a ton of planning or an elaborate breakdown they just have a little bit of an idea so I think most writers tend to tip one way or the other on this continuum it is important to keep in mind that what I'm talking about with the writing types is what works best for you and that might not necessarily be the method that you prefer or the method that you find the most fun in my experience most writers want to be Panzers it seems more fun not having to do the planning and the plotting in advance on the other hand I have also seen people who are the more creative pantsing type who sort of need to have their story unfold as they go but for whatever reason they feel like they need to outline or plot in advance and that can also be detrimental so one side isn't better than the other it's just a matter of which side actually works for you if you're not sure which type you are if you're not sure if you're a plotter or a pantser one way to sort of assess that is if you attempt to plot and you plan everything in advance and then when you write your story you deviate constantly you're just never sticking to the plan that could be a sign that you would do better as a pantser another big sign probably the biggest sign that I tend to notice is after the writer outlines they just don't want to write the story anymore the inspiration is completely gone they don't feel creative they they just have no investment anymore they just they don't want to do it anymore so if that's you then you're probably a panther and not a plotter if you think you're a panther and you are not what usually will happen is you won't get very far into your stories you'll write a few thousand words and then get stuck you don't know what should happen next and you just put it away and you never pick it up again or you might be the type of writer who starts novels constantly you're constantly starting a new one but you're never getting past that initial set up or that initial few thousand words so that's a good sign that you need to plot in that you're losing direction so that's the first continuum the second continuum is intuitive versus methodological so an intuitive writer on the far far far side is going to be very artistic gut feeling motional they are thinking with their heart or thinking with their intuition and that's how they plot it's how they edit is how they solve their problems so they don't need or don't rely on understanding theories or anything like that it's all about their gut on the other side on the far far far other side you have extreme methodological types people who know every literary theory who use very elaborate structuring systems who understand the ins and outs of all elements of literature so they might break down the character our components they might break down every scene and all the structure and again I'm not talking about plotting I'm just talking about understanding it and knowing it so they're thinking whether they're plotting or not they're using their head versus the intuitive type is using their heart or their gut so the main difference that you'll see between these types because both types can plot both types can pants or fly by the seat of their pants the main difference is the intuitive type will figure out problems and solve problems based on their feelings in their gut and the methodological writers will figure it out based on theories based on ideas concepts things that they have figured out so plot structure scene structure character arc etc if you think that you're intuitive type and you are not intuitive type you'll tend to write stories that are very boring very meandering very scattered lacking in focus lacking in vision that's all a really good sign that you need more technique and that you just don't have that gut instinct as to when things are working or aren't working you might know that something's not working but you don't know why you're not really instinctually solving problems if you're spending huge amounts of time editing and you never really feel like you're getting anywhere that's a good sign that you're not really intuitive if you think you are the methodological type but you're actually intuitive type you can usually tell because you'll already know if a story works or not before you apply techniques like structure to the story you'll already know if it works you can already feel that it works or that it doesn't work alternatively you might find that even when you know that a story works you cannot explain it with structure you can't apply structure even when people might say here's the structure of a story it just it isn't making sense to you it makes sense to you intuitively you're like yeah this story is great it works I like it it holds up but the logical level of thinking about it it just it doesn't work for you it isn't helping you it isn't assisting you in any way and it may just never make sense to you and it's completely fine to be on either side I don't want anyone to feel like this site sounds better or this site sounds better they're extreme pros and cons to both sides so I'm just trying to present unbiased ly what those two sides might look like another major difference that you'll notice between the intuitive type and the methodological type is that a methodological type writer when they learn about theories structure technique things like that they get excited their eyes are open they're like wow I get this this makes sense this helps me so much first is the intuitive type might say this feels really restrictive or this doesn't feel right to me or this makes me really uncomfortable I feel like I can't do what I want to do like this this isn't adding up to me it's a difference in perception of the story going with your gut versus going with your head and I think that is often the most obvious difference but again we're not talking about preference and we're not talking about not liking to learn structure so if you've never tried to learn structure or seen structure character are components things like that if you've never tried or if you found it difficult and gave up that's not the same thing as being intuitive make sure that you give it a significant try because I would say in general methodological type is probably we at least a little bit more common but I think most writers tend to like the idea of being intuitive so just make sure that you are giving it a genuine try before your writing off the methodological type so if we take these two Continuum's and we put them together we end up with the four different types of writers so there's the intuitive answer the intuitive plotter the methodological plotter and the methodological Pancer so now we've got our the Continuum's the general definitions and the four different types I'm going to go into a little bit more detail about what the profiles of these different types would look like so that you can better identify yourself so the first type that I want to go over is the intuitive Pancer now this is probably the most romanticized type of writer this is the type who's gonna go in with little to no plan fly by the seat of their pants they may apply intuitively apply structure in odd or unusual ways they may also be able to better compensate naturally when they're not really following scene structure or not really following plot structure so they're more able because they're going with their gut or their intuition they are more able to come up with creative or unusual ways for the story to flow that they don't even necessarily realize that that's what they're doing and then it would make more methodological types have a complete meltdown trying to analyze how do they make this work because it doesn't seem like it should work on the surface so I think that's an interesting element of the intuitive pancer type this type is probably the rarest but I think it's the type that most writers want to be because it's just such an appealing idea that you could just sit down with a Word document and write out your novel and it's just beautiful and artistic but this is a very rare type this would I think almost be like being a prodigy this is very unusual potential downsides for this type mainly have to do with a long time spent in editing the combination of going with your gut which typically can make problem-solving take a little bit longer you might have to do more soul-searching more thinking that combined with winging the first draft it can be a very long process for this type of writer to go from starting the novel to the finish draft so the next type is the intuitive plotter so an intuitive plotter still has that same intuition and got feeling about stories but they may have a hard time sparking that intuition over a very long work so they may have a hard time reining in their ideas shaping those ideas or holding all of the components in their head so the intuitive plotter does it does benefit a lot from plotting in advance but they won't do so based on techniques or methods or structure they'll do so based on their own intuition so a really good strategy for this type might be to write a summary a very creative sort of summary of what the story is going to be and that helps them to sort of shrink it down clarify their vision but they don't need to follow any sort of rigid structure to do that the intuitive plotter tends to be a good problem solver on an intuitive level if you find that that's not really the case that you get stuck in the plotting process and you can never really get to a point where you feel like it works for example maybe you're always shelling scenes around and you're like maybe this will work maybe that'll work but ultimately you never come up with an outline that you're happy with you're probably methodological you're probably not intuitive if when you're creating this outline or the synopsis and you're having these Eureka moments where you're like yeah that that's it that's it it's perfect I love it it works really well you're probably more intuitive of course both types can experience that but if you find that that's more often your experience then that's a good height that's a good indicator that you're intuitive so the third type is the methodological plotter so these are the extreme planners they have many many things planned in advance they use scene structure story structure character our components there you have everything really broken down and they really have a good sense going in of everything they want to accomplish in a lot of ways this type of writer is editing in advance they're all they're thinking through all of their different ideas and how they all fit together and how do all these pieces SWAT in what doesn't slot in what can I throw away and they're coming up with a plan that is there they're pretty sure is cohesive before they write the first trap so one of the upsides of this type is that they usually don't have to do a lot of editing because they've done most of that work already a good sign that you are not this type is if you go through all this process of plotting and breaking down all of the different elements and then you don't want to work on the book anymore you're just done with it there's no life left in it you or you feel so constrained by this outline that you feel like you can't be creative anymore it's not fun or exciting and of course at times it writing is always going to be not fun and exciting at times but if it's paralyzing you and you're like I don't even want to look at this anymore I don't want to work on this it's a good sign that this is not your type methodological plotters sometimes will say things like they're not real writers or they don't feel like real writers this is complete nonsense just because you need to plan in advance doesn't mean you're not a real writer a lot of people will tell you or I've heard a lot of people say things like real writers don't need to break down their stories and components or real writers don't need to outline or things like that that's just nonsense the strong point of the methodological plotter is once they come up with a system that works for them they are usually the most prolific so they're able to churn out books a lot faster than the other types because they're able to come up with a system that works for them they can stick to it and then they can produce so the last type is a methodological Pancer this type might seem like an oxymoron because you think well if they're methodological why wouldn't they plot why wouldn't they apply these things in advance but this is the type of writer who needs to see something on the page in order to start developing their vision so they might do a little planning do a little writing do a little planning do a little writing break down the structure do some more writing go back and change the first four chapters change it change it in their plotting outline or whatever they're using and so they might be plotting and writing simultaneously and they might be doing a sort of back and forth a kind of switch between editing and writing so you're sort of going between doing and planning back and forth back and forth throughout the whole process so it's a very interesting type they may essentially be editing and play and plotting and writing all at the same time but they need to do that in order to wrap their brain around what they're trying to accomplish so don't let people make you feel bad if this is your type it's a valid type a lot of writing advice might not apply to this type when it comes to always plotting this way or never edit as you go but this type is definitely common and if you can embrace this process it is a chaotic process but if you can embrace this chaotic process you can definitely produce very strong competent novels so I really hope you found this video helpful I'll be back soon with videos for each of the individual types so we can talk about strategies and specific techniques that you would find most beneficial in the meantime let me know in the comments what type you think you are let me know if you think there are any other types or maybe you don't fit into any of the types I'm really curious what your thoughts are and I did just hit a hundred thousand subscribers I'm super excited I really can't believe it and thank you guys so much for your support let me know how you want to celebrate I know some of you mentioned 2qa I don't really have the ability to do a live Q&A but let me know if you're interested in a pre-recorded Q&A and I will try to make plans for that soon so happy writing guys

Channel: Ellen Brock

Views: 112,841

Rating: 4.9616671 out of 5

Keywords: writing, novel, fiction, writer, book, types, styles, techniques, methods, pantser, plotter, planner, plotting, planning, ellen, brock, editor, editing, help, advice

Id: eryQEZImm6Y

Length: 20min 18sec (1218 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 31 2020