For as long as I’ve been writing (pretty much most of my life), I’ve always been a “seat of my pants” type of writer. I normally don’t plan anything out; I just write and once I feel like the story is done, I print out all the pages to read through it. Not only me, but whoever decides to help me out by being a reader. Even with my very first book, I tried outlining it, but for some reason it didn’t really work out and I just continued writing.
That’s why I consider myself a “pantser,” a term used to describe a writer who writes by the “seat of their pants” without any planning or outlining. That’s how I was with my first two books, The Disappearance and He’s Here!, and I think they worked out fine.
Now, for the past few months, I have been fully working on my next book, a paranormal romance entitled The Vampire from Hell, and, like the last two, I have been writing it with no outline or anything… until the new year came. I had this epiphany, this a-ha moment, this realization that I needed to organize these chapters and see what still needs to be worked on and see what’s missing. So, I sat down one day, started going through each chapter that I have so far (by the way, each chapter is in its own Word document right now, until the time comes where I feel the story is complete and then I will take each chapter and put it into one document), seeing which ones are done and which ones aren’t, and I started an outline.
That’s right, this pantser, who never thought she would create an outline in her life, created an outline. I have become a “plotter,” someone who plans out their novels.
The thing is, though, I feel like I’m both because I will always write by the “seat of my pants,” but I am now also realizing that I’ll probably need to write out an outline to make sure I’m not missing anything. So then, what does that make me? Well, there is a special term for someone who is a little bit of both–a “plantser.” No, this is not a term I just made up by combining “plotter” and “pantser,” this is a term I found in an article on The Write Practice website, and I kind of love it. Haha!
So now, the question is, are you a plotter, a pantser, or both? You can email me at lhauthor87@gmail.com with the subject being the title of this blog and I would love to hear your thoughts on this and if you consider yourself a plotter, a pantser, or a plantser.
Thanks for reading! Until next time, take care and write on!
Comments