“At heart, I would have to say I’m a pantser. I fully embrace the chaos of letting the unintended happen, on life and on the page.”
– MARGARET STOHL
When you write a story or a novel, you’re undoubtedly focused on turning out a good one. That’s the product. But what about the process? Are you a so-called plotter, one who creates summaries and outlines before clicking out your story or novel? Or are you a so-called pantser, one who follows your intuition or your instinct, seeing where that takes you? Or are you both – a “plantser?”
We were curious to know where five well-published authors stand on this issue. Which are they, plotter or pantser? What do they see as the upsides and downsides of both creative processes?
WHETHER YOU’RE A PANTSER OR A plotter might depend on your genre or on the stage of your draft, regardless of genre. You might be a pantser in one case and a plotter in another.
When writing literary fiction, Grant Tracey, author of several novels, confesses to being “mainly a seat-of-my-pants writer” with an eye toward discovery: “I start with a destabilizing condition that places the lead character under duress and then pursue the story’s inner journey. Following the characters’ impulses, I make discoveries as they do.”
Interestingly, however, when writing crime fiction, he becomes more of a plantser. He still believes in letting the characters evolve on their own, without an outline on hand, yet he does see the need to impose some structure – namely, author Syd Field’s three-act structure for screenwriting. “There have to be two turning points that spin the lead character off in new directions. I don’t know ahead of time what those deflections are, but I know they
