To Plants Or Not To Plants
Probably one of the biggest points of contention in the fiction writing community is Pants versus skins Plotters. Some swear by pantsing, others claim plotting is the only means to good writing.
Even the world’s most famous authors seem divided when asked about their methods. Many have talked about being a pantser, plotter, or something called a plantser.
Now, no single method will make you a famous author. Whatever works best for you is the method you should use. Knowing the difference between the three will help you to figure out which one that is.
So let's rewind a moment. You may be asking yourself, “Wait… What’s a pantser?” I know I was a bit confused at first too. I thought it was like the schoolyard bully —sneaking up on you to yank your trousers down, embarrassing you in front of your classmates, the teachers, your crush, and the world at large.
But no, a pantser is someone who writes “by the seat of their pants.” I.e. they make it up on the spot. Improvise. They Han Solo the hell out of it. No plans, they just sit down and start writing.
Stephen King and Mark Twain are famous pantsers. Which, in my personal opinion, is why many of their stories tend to be hit-or-miss.
Some argue that you’re limiting your creativity if you’re not pantsing, but I disagree. There’s a difference between stunting your creativity, and just writing an incomprehensible story.
Pantsing is great for stream-of-consciousness prose, or getting the basics of a scene out of your head before you forget them. But oftentimes, pansters will face problems like a meandering storyline, missed plot points or continuity errors, and even switching POV, tenses, or entire genres in the middle of the story. This can be countered with help from critique partners, beta readers, and editors, but Pantsers often find themselves making more work for themselves than necessary, and they tend to be overwriters more often than not.
A plotter, if it’s not obvious by now, is the opposite of the pantser. They plot out the structure of their story. Where’s it going to go? Why does character X do action Y and when? There are some folks out there with notes upon notes of their outlines. It’s excellent for making sure you know exactly what’s going on in your book at any given time. Rarely do plotters suffer from writer's block as they know exactly what needs to be written.
Some plotters may get so detailed in their outlines that it could be mistaken for a first draft. But the downside is that you can lose some spontaneity, and purely plotted stories can sound a bit wooden and lifeless. Again, this can all be countered with the help of your CPs, BRs, and editors. Plotters may find they need to make multiple passes over the manuscript to ensure the details are polished, and they may find themselves underwriting —failing to meet their desired word count— and needing to pad things out and punch things up a bit.
So what am I? I’m a plantser. The plantser has the basic structure of the story down. The “bones,” if you will. They are static, and should not change as I write. The plot, character arcs, and settings are all outlined ahead of time.
Dialogue and action I will often pants, however. Few people think about what they will say in a conversation before they’re a part of one, so I try to let the dialogue be spontaneous and intuitive. The same for action sequences. It’s a bit harder to parse out where everyone is and what they’re doing, but I’d rather action be chaotic and confusing, than wooden and boring.
Toni Morrison, the award-winning author of the book Beloved is a plantser. She had this to say about the method;
“I write what’s there, what I know is there. If I have to rewrite it or change it, I’m not fearful about that anymore. I always know the story, the plot. The difficulty is with the intricate problems of language.” ~ Toni Morrison
At the end of the day, you’re the only one who knows your story, what’s supposed to happen, and how you want your reader to feel at any point. The best writing method for you is the one that lets you feel the most as you write, so experiment and see what works best for you. Pantser, plotter, or plantser, there’s really no wrong way to do it, and you’ll only get better the more often you do it.
