Pantser vs plotter

Lilac Mills
3 days ago
3 min read

First, can I say that one method isn't better or worse than the other.

Secondly, it doesn’t have to be an either/or situation.

Pink book titled "An author's take on plotting a novel, Writer Life" on a pink surface with a pen, paper, and heart/star-shaped objects nearby.

I'm more of a pantser - or what is sometimes called a 'discovery' writer, because I discover the plot (and my characters) as I'm writing the story. I've tried plotting out the whole thing, and it didn't work well for me. Although, saying that, it kind of did, too.

Let me explain...

Fairly early on in my writing career, I had an idea for a book that I pitched to my publisher, Canelo. I'd always only pitched blurbs - the copy found on the back of a book, with the added line of "and they get together at the end, obviously", because it is a romance after all, so that’s expected. But everything between the premise and the HEA was a mystery. I had no idea what I was going to put in the middle of this book, or how the main characters were going to get together. It would all become clear as I was writing it.

The pitch went off to my editor - then she asked for a synopsis to take to the acquisitions team.

She wanted a what??

But I can't do a synopsis because I haven't written it yet! was my first thought. My second was that I'd better get on and plot this thing out. All of it. In detail.

And do you know what? That book had very few developmental edits. I mean, hardly any. So the plotting worked.

However...

I didn't enjoy writing that book as much as I enjoy writing my less pre-plotted stories. I think it's because I knew what was going to happen. I'd already written in, albeit in an incredibly shortened format. There were no surprises along the way, because I'd already written them.

So yeah, I can plot if I have to. But I don't want to. Instead, I write a blurb for every book before I write the first sentence. Then I get stuck into the first chapter. And when that's done, I plot out the next couple of chapters. And so it goes on, with a little bit of plotting and a whole lot of pantsing. And the beauty of this method for me, is that by not plotting too far ahead I can easily divert if the story takes me in an unexpected direction.

That was the only time my editor at Canelo asked for a synopis. These days she's happy for me to just pitch a blurb and one memorable occasion, my 'blurb' consisted of "a series set in a Scottish castle with a craft centre of some sort".

So, I suppose I could be called a pantser with plotter undertones. Which is why I say it's not an either/or situation. It's a "do what works for you" situation.

Happy writing!

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