Planning VS Pantsing. Which Writing Method Suits You?

    I’m a dedicated plotter and planner when it comes to writing books, but I always think how great it would be to be able to sit down and write a book, just like that! No idea of what I was going to write about. Just sit down, open a note pad (I always write by hand) and start writing - any time, any where.

    How amazing would that be?

    This probably explains why I’ve read so many books by Dean Wesley Smith, because he’s a life-long pantser and has written several books about how he writes books, and writes them fast. He can write a novel in as little as five days - a perfect first draft too. Damn, I’d love to be able to do that.

    And if that’s not amazing enough, his wife, Kristine Rusch, set up a challenge recently with a bunch of writers to each write three stories each in a month. But she lost the challenge because her first story turned into 43,000-word ‘surprise’ novel. Damn! So impressive.

    I sometimes write without an outline but only for short stories, https://writeaholic-inspiration.blogspot.com/2019/08/debunking-myths-of-writing-fast-or-slow.html and even then there’s a couple I never finished because I couldn’t think of an ending. Even now when I read those unfinished stories again I still have no idea where the story was going, and I think to myself, what if that happened when I was writing a book?

    I always use and extensive outline for book-length projects whether fiction or non-fiction. I find it makes for a clean first draft, and even if I stop and start writing, with my detailed outline I always know where I’m up to.

    With short stories it’s fun to write into the dark (as they call pantsing), but only if I’m writing just for fun and the stories may or may not be published one day.

I’d love to dark write a book, just sit and start writing, not knowing what’s going to happen next until I write it.

    But I’m an aggressive plotter, which is probably something to do with  my personality type. I alway need to be in control and I don’t like surprises. I clean my house routinely and prep meals. I wake up every day, at the same time, with a plan already in place for my mornings and afternoons, as well as a plan of what to make for every meal that day.

    And that is probably why I prefer to plot my books first. I find writing easy and enjoyable when I know where I’m going.

    But I still dream of sitting and writing with a blank page and writing off into the dark  for  a few days and creating a whole first draft of a book.

    Now THAT would be amazing. And intense and fun.

Writing into the Dark: How to Write a Novel without an Outline
https://amzn.to/3EKs1Vl