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.