Posted on October 19, 2011 - by Nicole Humphrey Cook
Are You a Planner or Pantser?
Do you outline your novel? How much outlining do you do? Do you use a program? Notecards? Pieces of torn paper or napkins?
In my normal daily writing, I tend to be a planner, plotting, outlining, note cards and post it’s. I used yWriter up until recently when I have been messing around with Scrivener a little. Not sure what I will be using for NaNo – yWriter or Scrivener. So planning is something that comes naturally to me.
But when it comes time each year for NaNoWriMo, I tend to go back and forth between outlining & planning and then doing the whole wing it by the seat of my pants kind of thing. The first few years (four I believe) I just sat down at the start and wrote and wrote and wrote. Slept a little, had some dreams, added some of those elements into my novel and then wrote and wrote and wrote so more. There was no outlining, no structured planning. And I’ve won NaNo several times that way – the problem is, those are the novels that need the most tweaking, the most editing, the most help when it’s all over. Those are also the novels that continue to sit with little done to them because they come across as such a mess to me.
Last year and the year before, I took time to plot and outline. I’ve used both the snowflake method, storyboarding as well as mind mapping. I’m usually more successful if I use the snowflake method or just create a basic outline/storyboarding.
I’m honestly curious, which are you? A Planner or Pantser? Does it change come November?
A couple useful articles I came across while researching outlining methods:
Planning, Outlining and Organizing Your Novel
11 Comments
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November 2, 2011
[...] I’m a pantser. [...]
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January 6, 2012
[...] right, prepare. Plot. Outline (or just be a Pantser). NaNoWriMo is a (free) program/site designed for writers to help them tackle this dream in just [...]
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January 9, 2012
[...] and I discovered how I could move the plot forward. Although I write some of my best stuff as a “pantser” (read as writing by the seat of your pants), it’s always tough when you hit a road block in [...]
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April 18, 2012
[...] question “are you a planner or a pantser” has popped up everywhere lately. A “planner” is a writer who outlines her novel. A [...]
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September 14, 2012
[...] creating a story, whether you’re a planner or a pantser, you know about the importance of [...]
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September 27, 2012
[...] to the keyboard, or one’s pen to the paper. One will tend to follow the course of either a planner or a pantser: one who pre-writes and plans their novel ahead of time, versus one who “flies by the seat of [...]
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October 19, 2011
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Regina said:
I’m generally a pantser. Inspiration strikes randomly and I just sit down and write, and a lot of times, I don’t have even the slightest idea where it’s going. I also generally write shorter pieces, and this method works rather well for them.
But when it comes to NaNo – and longer projects in general – I prefer to plan. I always do at least a partial outline, and I’ve discovered that the better my outline, the easier the writing comes. I need to have some vague idea what’s coming up or I find myself wasting valuable writing time trying to plan the next step. So it’s definitely better for me to do my planning ahead of time.
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October 19, 2011
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acwright1972 said:
I’ve only won Nano once and I did a lot of outlining for that novel. I had some of the characters from the previous year’s Nano and worked with that. It was also the most well-written of my Nano novels and my favorite one. However, once Nano was over, I stopped writing it even though I wasn’t even close to being done with it. The next three years after that were tough because I was still thinking about my novel that I liked. It’s been a tough run and I’m hoping I’ll be able to get further a long with this year’s novel. We’ll see. I’m writing in a completely different genre so I don’t know.
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October 21, 2011
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guilie172 said:
Pantster. Total pantster. Ideas bang around in my head for a while. I sit down, start typing. Before midday–oops! 2K words. And YES, this method (if it can even be called that) requires a LOT of… wow, you were kind. “Tweaking” is what I do to the fifth draft, or to a sentence / para that’s already been rewritten (revised, polished and reviewed) a few times. The first draft of my stuff is usually Draft Zero. It’s going to get its little butt whipped, most–if not all–of its A’s (adverbs, adjectives) extirpated, and ALL the darlings I can find snuffed out before it goes even to the kindest and most supportive beta reader. But… That’s how I write. Someone on a NaNo thread mentioned the other day something like “if I write an outline I get bored–it feels like I already wrote the story.” I can’t agree more. in school I’d do the outline after writing the paper… Kind of like an index
Good luck with Scrivener–I love it!
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October 27, 2011
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Ezmirelda said:
I’m trying to convert to plannerism this year but my pantser side won’t have it. As soon as I start writing everything in the outline doesn’t happen. The characters seem to get mad at me for trying to plan their whole future for them. They complain that I don’t let them make enough of their own descisions. Lol, I try so hard to stick with the outline but then the voice in my head keeps saying “I have a better idea than that”. Using an outline and planning ahead makes the process a bit less enjoyable to me. Although what does help is figuring out what who the characters are beforehand because if you’re going to be writing about them the whole story they have to be interesting and important enough to you that you will plow through to the end of the novel to see that their story will be told.
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September 14, 2012
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Lisa Voisin said:
I’m a bit of both. I plan things out and then I go into pantser mode for awhile. If I get stuck, I go back into planning. But mostly, I write by the seat of my pants.
Lisa Voisin recently posted..Winged Wednesday: Do Angels Have Wings?