Panster or Plotter, do you know your writing style? 

Does your writing style work for you?

I’m a pantser, I’m a plotter. Ooh, my, my, my. What is better And why does it matter? I just wrote my second book and I’m going to share the process with you as well. And whether or not I am a pantser or a plotter, let’s talk about this.

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Welcome to the podcast. So, once you become a writer and once you find yourself in the writing community, you will going to hear the words pantser and plotter or plantser. Now, where these all came from, i do not know. But let me explain the difference between the three and also what my process is as well. A pantser is a writer who flies by the seat of their pants. They write, they allow the creativity download and they go where the story takes them.

That is the definition of a pantser, and most often they are very intuitive and very creative and they move about, just not plotting. They don’t have any plotting that’s going on at all.

And then you have the plotter, and the plotter writes out a plot, writes out a plan, has an outline. It can be extremely light or it can be as detailed as a 40,000 page outline for a 180 page book.

And then we have the combination of the two, which is called a plantser. This is a person who plots but also allows you creativity to come through and kind of merges in both. Now most writers are a combination because if you plant in that bed, this is going to be so much fun. If you pants along, you allow that creativity to come through, but if you don’t know where you’re going, it can sometimes be more difficult. It’s also harder in the editing process when it comes to being a pantser. Even if you plot, your creativity can still guide you because things will automatically take over in your brain. You’re writing something, you’ve got the scene, you have the outline and all of a sudden something pops in. That’s better.

When I first started writing, i thought I was a pantser, because I just want to write and I want to allow all that creativity to come in And I don’t want to have to worry about what was on the outline because yeah, it’s it Again. Yeah, it looks great. But I know my brain is going to take over and my creativity is going to come through. But I also know that I have to have guideposts. I don’t necessarily call myself a plotter in the sense that I sit down and write along outline, but I do have guideposts. I have a way to take me from point A to point B and then during that place I will add my own creativity. I have to do some form of an outline or a guide, because I write murder mysteries, So I have to know where the twists and turns are, i have to know when the big reveals are and all the clues. So I have to keep all that and I do plot that out. I do use Scrivener as my writing tool, so I have what’s called my clue bank and then I make sure, as I’m going along, where the clues are, what clue I may have mentioned, but you don’t necessarily know it’s there, or what clue I revealed, so I do have to put all that in.

So let me ask a question What is better? Well, actually none of them.

What is better is what works for you.

What is the best is when you know what works for you and you can use it to your advantage. If you were just starting out writing and you have a mentor who is a very heavy outliner I have some friends who will outline like almost the entire book and if you have a mentor who does that and you start taking that on as your way of writing and it just does not work for you, it’s going to make you put that book down. It goes completely against how your brain thinks.

I truly believe there needs to be some structure when it comes to writing at least a very simple outline. And when I tell you my outline is simple, it pretty much is two lines Kit goes here, that’s it, I don’t write anything else. And then, when I know Kit is going there. I write out where she’s going and I allow it to take over. Somebody else might write Kit goes here and who, what, where, when, how, and why, and that’s okay.

You just have to find what works for you, whether you need to have a one-liner or you need to have a map. You need to be prepared.

I like to think of it this way, with this analogy You’re going on a hike, you’re going to take the day off of work maybe you’re not supposed to, but you’re doing it anyway and you’re going to go on a hike by yourself. You got to get away, so you go and you grab your water, you grab your phone, you grab your map. Maybe you tell your roommate you’re going, but you’ve made a plan. You have a plan of action and then you go. You may not know the road you’re going to travel, but you do know you’re going to go on a hike.

Now, on the flip side, are you just going to take off and go out to the woods and not have a phone, not have a map, not have a water bottle, not have anything but the shirt and jacket on your back? You can a little more dangerous, but you can, and in that case. There’s no boundaries or guidelines on what’s going to happen When it comes to writing. There needs to be even a little bit. You’ve got to kind of, you know. You want to make sure you stay on the path. You don’t want to get so caught up in the thicket and the woods that you’re running into bears and then you’ve got no way out. That is my take on the pancer and the platter and the plancer. Am I even saying any of this right anymore?

So, if you’re wondering, I just wrote a short story which is called The Curious Case of Mr Buttons. It is a very cozy mystery, non-murder mystery, and it has the popular cat, gabby, who is in the first book, and she has to solve a mystery. This is a spin-off series. She’ll get her own series because she needs her own series. Everybody loves Gabby and wants more Gabby. This particular book is actually going to be going out to Amazon at a digital copy only this July, and when I wrote this book I did have a small little outline. I had to have clues that she would find. So I needed to write what clues were going to be there and I needed to know basically the purpose of all the characters. But the outline I can tell you was probably less than two paragraphs.

Now, this is a short book. It is only, i think, about 40 pages, but I did have a guidepost. Everything else I just allow or I like to allow my characters to talk through me. I often joke that Gabby’s in my head, because literally, if I sat here and I thought what Gabby would say, nine times it comes out as inappropriate. She’s very snarky, but this is just my process and you’re going to find your own process, and I will eventually talk about podcasts on how to increase your creativity and how to connect more with your characters. Also, if there is anything that you want me to talk about specifically on the podcast, just drop me a line and I can put that in my list.

Find what works for you, find out what is best for you and, if you’re not sure, try something different. Maybe consider writing a short story and doing it with a very simple outline. The one other thing I want to say and this is really important if you are a heavy plotter, be careful not you’re not squishing your creativity, because creativity does not come from plans. Creativity comes from openness and spaciousness. So just allow some of that to filter in, and it is okay if you’re writing and you go along and what you have on the paper no longer matches what’s coming in from inspiration. Sometimes that inspiration may be a little bit better. Alright, that’s all I have to say. See you next week.

Thank you for listening all the way to the end of this podcast. Head on over to the web page to read the show notes at FinishYourFictionNow.com. Be sure to grab the valuable Resources and never miss an episode by joining my newsletter. Remember you have the power to go from overwhelmed to overjoyed as you become a published author.

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