I'm a recovering pantser.
I say recovering because, for the longest time time, I wrote by the seat of my pants (get it...pantser) with only the vaguest clue as to where I was going or how I was going to get there. As a result, I spent many, many, many full drafts and partial drafts and half-ass drafts of my current WIP (Beneath These Falling Stars) wandering aimlessly around with nothing to show for it except for hundreds and hundreds of pages of fluff and nonsense. And that shit is for the birds.
For those of you not familiar with the terms "plotter" and "pantser" I'll give you a brief explanation.
(And I swear, if spellcheck tries to change the word pantser to panther or punster one more time...It's a @sg&S%$ word okay?!)
Pantser - As mentioned above, a panster is writer who prefers not to outline their novel and revels in the excitement of not knowing what's ahead. The biggest reason that pantsers prefer their unstructured method is that they feel that writing a detailed outline and following it would be stifling to their creative process (which is what I used to think). But hey, it works for some people, like Stephen King, who normally eschews outlining his novels.
Plotter - A plotter, on the other hand, likes the structure and security of an outline during their writing process. No matter if the outline is simple or detailed, a plotter finds confidence in knowing exactly where they are headed and where they need to go. J.K. Rowling, and Brandon Sanderson are plotters.
Since becoming a plotter I've noticed that I suffer less from writer's block too, which is a huge plus in my book. I also recommend reading Chuck Wendig's awesome post about plotting. It sums up everything I would say about the pros of outlining.
So, like I said, after many, many drafts that ultimately went nowhere, I approached the holidays with the depressing knowledge that I would be starting yet another draft in the new year. I wanted to give up. I cried about it. I despaired. I even started writing a completely different novel, trying to convince myself that Beneath These Falling Stars was just a learning novel to hone my skills with, but would never be a viable publishing option.
But after a couple of weeks of missing my characters and reminding myself that BTFS was far from being the first novel I ever attempted to write - I knew I had to give it one more chance.
I also knew that something had to give this go around. Something had to change and I knew what that something was. I had to let go of all my preconceived notions and prejudices and finally do something I swore I'd never do. I had to outline my novel.
So, off I went, in the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas, and I outlined the entire novel. I had never done such a thing before and I really didn't know how to go about it. I read a couple of books and tried to do a little research online. The only outlining I had ever done was academic and included roman numerals. Not something I thought would be conducive for creative writing purposes. I had already started a little on the draft and was about three chapters in. So I decided to write down what I already had in scene form and my outline was born.
I went through the first three chapters and summarized each scene. This would include a very simple and basic description of who was in the scene and what was happening. Sometimes I included a bit of dialogue, if there was something I knew I wanted a character to say, but usually the scenes included no dialogue. Usually they were no longer than a paragraph. As I crept into uncharted territory, things got a little trickier. But there was also a sense of relief in knowing that if I went down a path that proved to be a dead end, it was going to be a hell of lot easier to back up and erase a handful of scene descriptions than it would to erase dozens and dozens of pages of writing.
I actually found freedom in the plotting. An ability to be much less inhibited and less afraid of making certain plot or character choices with the knowledge that it could all be easily changed should I find the need.
I never lost anything about that creative process that I love. I still had the element of surprise in figuring out where I was headed and what would happen. And it is only an outline. It isn't set in stone. As I write things may still change as the need arises.
In the end my scene outline clocked in around 100 pages. I put it away for about a month before pulling it out again in order to give myself a little distance and fresh eyes when I returned to it.
Now I'm in the process of editing my outline, which I'll talk about in my a future post.
If any writers out there are actually reading this, which method do you prefer and why?