Pantser: someone who creates using the seat of their pants, rather than developing a plan beforehand.
Sometimes the way we choose to do things is, pure and simple, fun.
Sometimes fun trumps everything else. For some, we choose easy rather than what doesn’t come naturally or is perceived as complex.
So choose wisely… not naively, not lazily.
Sadly, preference too often becomes process because the writer doesn’t know any better. Nobody has explained the consequences of, or the alternatives to, what they choose. Because at the end of the day, you may decide that fun wasn’t ever the highest reward available.
This isn’t a question of right or wrong. It’s a question of what works and what doesn’t. And that particular metric varies from writer to writer.
Writers send me questions all the time, which I welcome.
Some arrive by email, sometimes via other means, including posts on author websites. Today’s Storyfix post is a response to a reader concern that reached me from that avenue.
The writer with today’s question runs a cool blog called This Midlife Crisis Rocks, and her current post represents a pretty common and troubling aspect of the writing life for many. That author is, it seems, a pantser who loves to make it up as she goes along.
Sometimes (and I do pick my moments with this) I ask such writers this: so how’s that going for you?
You may relate to her question, and to my answer, which you can read by clicking over to her post. My response appears directly below it… and here, directly below this post (the one you’re reading now), as well.
I do not judge.
I have tried to clarify my position on pantsing, which I initially fumbled through my enthusiasm for craft, often misinterpreted as an indictment. The truth is – and I say this whenever I even mention pantsing as a writing process – it does work for some writers, and almost every writer uses it to some degree in the creation of a manuscript.
I pants scenes. I do know the mission and narrative context of the scene, but once that’s in place I use story instinct (honed by the principles of effective scene writing) to write the scene itself.
The trick then, for any writer who questions their process, is to understand if your chosen process is working for you. If your story sense makes you a functional pantser.
Or not.
Pantsing is the most difficult of all writing process. Even if it seems like the most fun while you’re doing it. The the outcome makes you question your choice… then this is for you.
My response to the post (which you’ll see that author actually asks for… feel free to chip in your response, as well, either here or on her site), is shown below. Swap out your own non-writer hobby or lost dream (cooking, golf, painting, acting, whatever) for the one I use here as an analogy and you’ll still be in the mix with this.
May it help you understand your options, as well as how to stop the pain.
*****
Thanks for the shout out. I think I can help.
Story planning – the antithesis of pantsing – is a matter of degree and scope, and a little is better than none. Most writers, even the most vocal of pantsers, engage in some form of planning, even if it manifests only within their head.
Let me offer an analogy. Do you like/watch D-1 or NBA basketball? They have diagrammed “plays,” certainly, but most of the time players are running a “pattern,” and within that pattern they are freelancing… reacting, seizing moments, moving on instinct. Making it up as they go along.
If they didn’t know the game intimately, and hadn’t practiced it at the level they actually play it, and more importantly if they didn’t know the pattern, then the freelancing wouldn’t work It would be chaos.
But they do know the game and the prescribed plays. That’s the key.
Same with writing a novel or screenplay.
Here’s the truth: most new writers don’t really “know the game.” They don’t understand how good stories are built in both a structural and expositional sense. They may have a “sensibility” of it after years of reading… but really, that’s like watching NBA basketball for years from your barcalounger and telling yourself that you are ready to step on the court and do what they do.
You can, actually. But on a playground, NOT at a professional level.
And that’s the most direct analogy of all here… if you are writing stories with the intention of publishing, then you ARE striving to be a professional. To play in the NBA (National Book-writers Association… sorry, couldn’t resist) in your game. Most writers just aren’t up to it, either relative to end product OR the process of getting to it.
By “not knowing the game (the structures and principles) of how to write an effective novel” at a professional level, I mean to say that writers don’t understand the lines within which they must play. And they don’t realize that to play outside of those lines is to lose.
As a story coach I see this all time… novels without a compelling concept… novels with thin and familiar premises… novels without a hero’s quest giving us something to root for… episodic novels that are entirely character-centric… novels without an antagonistic force in play (this is usually a “villain”)… slice of life novels that have zero dramatic tension… novels with no structural sensibility (for which there are expectations and principles – like lines on a court – that if you violate them, or ignore them, or are ignorant of them, your game tanks.)
Almost all of those stories have an interesting character in play. But for too many – and often, from pantsers – they fumble the other criteria.
So here’s the proposition.
Learn the principles. Learn the core competencies of writing a good story, and internalize the six realms of story physics (forces) that make them work. Apply that knowledge within the somewhat (but not completely) flexible shape of accepted story structure (pros know you absolutely cannot make up your own structure – also something struggling pantsers do, and successful pantsers don’t question – and professionals know there IS a structure you need to fit your story into, with certain things happening at certain points).
Successful pantsers write toward that structure. Frustrated pantsers try to find that structure – or any structure if they don’t understand the principles, which is the problem, because they can’t make one up by the seat of their pants and have it work.
This is something you can test. It is a principle that reinforces itself in nearly every published commercial novel written.
Even if the keynote speaker claims to have “just listened to my characters” (that’s B.S., by the way, but hey, it sounds great from behind a microphone), their story sense is vetting what they “hear” and applying it to the page WITHIN the parameters of story architecture.
So the question isn’t pants or plan. It’s this: what is the state of your story sensibility?
When you are in possession of the core knowledge, when you accept it and apply it as your vetting filter for ideas and the expositional roadmap for your narrative, then you are playing the game, the way the game works at a professional level.
Writing what you want, any way you want, without KNOWING all this stuff… it may be fun, but that’s for hobbyists, amateurs and people stuck in a limiting belief system. Or maybe they have no idea what writing an effective story really means.
So go ahead, make it up as you go along. And when it isn’t working, when it’s still fun but takes you nowhere… re-read this, and know that you choose your own fate in this regard. And that you can choose out of it.
If you write stories – pants them or plan them – with the principles of the game solidly in your head, it’ll work. and it’ll be oh-so-much more rewarding than how you’re pantsing it now.
Frustration with the principles isn’t the source of frustration. Not understanding and accepting them is… because that condemns you to chaos. Writers who get this love those principles, because they are precisely what makes successful pantsing possible.
When you revise a draft, what you’re really doing it moving it TOWARD what was there all along as a final requisite destination – the proven principles of storytelling via story architecture (which is, bottom line: structure plus character put in motion in context to a killer premise).
Become a professional. Learn the game.
Know what a First Plot Point is and where it goes (call it what you will, but even the most ardent “pantsers” who succeed ARE placing a textbook perfect FPP right where it is supposed to go… though sometimes it takes them multipel drafts to get it there). Know how and why dramatic tension drives everything, and how character emerges FROM it, rather than being the focus. Plot (a source of dramatic tension stemming from a motivated hero’s quest) is the KEY to character.
Once you really do know how a story is built – and believe me, pantsers who publish have indeed landed on those very same principles that you could apply to the first draft – you can plan or pants your way through a manuscript it, makes no difference. Just like Kobe can score off a diagrammed play, or he can isolate and go one-on-one against anyone. A score is a score. And it only works if it happens within the lines.
Just don’t try it if you’re not in his league.
Hope this helps. Larry
6 Responses
@Larry – Sorry if I came across as railing in my undeniably passionate comment. That wasn’t my intention. No, you don’t use the word “outlining.” I said in my first paragraph I was interpreting “planning” as “outlining.” And anyone who has followed your column for any length of time, as I have, knows that you advocate outlining over pantsing. Nothing wrong with that – it works for you and plenty of others. What worries me is those pantsers who get the impression that pantsing is a no-no. On the blog post you point to on This Midlife Crisis Rocks, the author says:
“However as I have tried to learn my craft I have been told that seat of the pants writing only works for a few, such as Stephen King, because they seem to be able to pull it all together despite often starting out with only an idea.
And it usually means lots and lots of difficult re-writes.”
The “only works for a few” is what bothers me. I don’t want any pantser to give up on writing because of this misunderstanding. I say stick with your craft, learn how to apply it, and pants it if that’s the process that works best for you – as it is for me.
Larry, you know we both respect each other and our intentions are the same: to help writers improve their work. I’ve been an editor for more than thirty years, and I know where you’re coming from. Yes, planning is essential, either before or during the writing. I just don’t want pantsers to feel shunned and left out in the cold.
I sincerely thank you for the great reply.
@Nann – love you. Love your passion. And thanks for completely endorsing everything said in this post. Pantsing can and does work for many, certainly as many or more writers that try to outline. I said that. As you just did. But here’s what you didn’t say, or don’t understand: planning is NOT outlining, so that’s an assumption you made (that I didn’t say… is the word “outlining” even in the post? I don’t think it is).
You can “plan” in your head. I do it all the time, without an outline. It’s simply understanding what should go where, and why. In other words, the principles. They apply to, and are used by, success pantsers (like you) without compromise.
Let me simply this (this should really have been my only response here): you’re talking about outlining, I was NOT. You interpret the concepts to be the same: let me help you here, they’re not. “Planning” is thinking about what you’re doing to write and then using that direction to execute, rather than having nothing in mind and simply “being in the moment.” The planning process totally is open to – indeed, it actually fosters – new ideas mid-stream. Pantsers have no exclusive claim to that. My point is this: you wrote a response to the wrong thing. You saw “outlining” in the post, but that’s you… that wasn’t ever what the post was about. So you jumped at it… when you should have looked before you leapt.
Planners need to accept that some claim this is not as “fun.” I said that in the post. Pantsers need to accept that there is a higher failure rate and the process itself is inherently less efficient (don’t misread that word, I’m not saying ‘less effective”… this is the type of thing people react to, too quickly), though some writers (like you, I would guess) are an exception. Believe me, almost every frustrated writer I hear from is a pantser… they’re just making stuff up as they go along (read the linked post, is that writer missing something by admitting it isn’t working for her?). Even the most satisfied pantser needs to own that, as well. It’s just true.
It works for you, because you KNOW what you’re doing. Many don’t. So don’t mislead them by muddying the water here.
Pantsers – like Stephen King – who claim this is the only and best way to go, which they do (are you writing outraged letters to them, too?) – are displaying hubris of the most visible kind. It works for THEM. Good for them. May we all worship at the alter of their genius. If a planner claimed the same thing – which I do NOT – then the same would be true for them.
Planning doesn’t work for many. Pantsing certainly doesn’t work for many, even though they have “fun” doing it. The post says EXACTLY that, but what you say in your response (maybe “live in the pause” next time) implies otherwise: when an organic writer (a pantser) has a good “story sense,” it works. It’s wonderful. Same for outliners. When an “outliner” (which I didn’t say, but since you did I’ll go with your term) doesn’t apply the principles and sensibilities to the story plan, then that doesn’t work either. “Outlining” didn’t work for you (again, to be clear, outlining is ONE MODE of story planning, there are many others), which means you need the organic process to bring it out. I also said that almost everybody, no matter how they polarize the issue, does BOTH (including you, I’d wager… because intuitively applying the principles IS story planning in its most fundamental state)… I admitted to doing it myself.
What happened here is a little window into human nature. One thing I said got your hair up, so now the whole thing is offensive to you, and you’re railing against a perception that isn’t accurate, and isn’t what’s actually there in the post. Read it again. I say almost exactly everything you say, including that a writer should use the process that serves them. Thanks for clarifying that the principles are available and used by pantsers who succeed… I said THAT, too. Thing is, the default process for writers who DON’T understand the principles is pantsing, 99 times out of a hundred. There is learning there, for them especially.
As for “characters talking to you,” I’m being literal (it’s like trees talking to you when you take a walk… they don’t). Instead of listening to some external entity that YOU created in your head, you are engaging in the creative moment, listening to YOUR story sensibilities, and then labeling it as “listening to your characters.” Call it what you want, but don’t try to sell it as literal, nor imply to newer writers that they’re missing the boat if they don’t hear little voices in their head. And guess what, pantsers don’t have an exclusive claim to that “listening” description. Planners “listen and follow” as well. To what? To their own “story sense.” That’s what it is.
The two processes don’t differ all that much… one consumes a few dozen pages, the other a few hundred. The criteria for story effectiveness is EXACTLY the same. Choose the process that serves you.
Which is precisely, and clearly, what I say in this post. Pantsers who jump and say, “but it works for me!” which is what you’re doing here, are only putting a stamp of approval on this cross-process truism.
Frankly, pantsers claiming that it is the ONLY fun and effective way to write outnumber outlining enthusiasts (or at least are orders of magnitude louder about it) who claim the same to a significant visible degree (frankly, I’ve never met an outliner whose nose gets out of joint when they hear a pantser claim outlining doesn’t work… they sound as clueless as someone saying pantsing doesn’t work (which I do NOT say). Don’t miss the point, and the truth, just because I label the creative phenomena differently than you do (“listening to the voices in your head”… they are YOUR voices, not those of constructs who suddenly take over, that’s just a romanticed way to describe it and your experience; it’s the label that’s B.S., not the true nature of it).
So relax, please. We’re on the same page on all of this. Thanks for contributing. L.
I’m a published author. I’m a pantser. And it’s no BS, my characters DO talk to me. I love Larry’s columns. I love his passion for his beliefs and his willingness to share that passion with all of us. But I don’t think anyone should disparage another person’s process just because it doesn’t work that way for them. Keeping to that principle, I do not disparage outliners. Please note I said “outliners” rather than “planners.” That’s because I’m a planner, too: I plan to pants my novels henceforth and forever. Here’s why…
Trying to follow Larry’s advice, I built an outline for my current WIP. I didn’t particularly enjoy building it, but I thought it looked pretty good. So I started writing. I wrote the whole story with only minor digressions from the outline, and when I finished it, I had only 40,000 words. That’s a novelette. So I’m now in the process of going back and inserting subplots that will help fill out the story. Now you might say that I should have put those subplots into the outline, and that sounds like a reasonable assertion. But the fact is, those subplots never occurred to me while I was putting the outline together, no matter how hard I tried to think of them. The outline didn’t ignite any sparks for me. And the writing to the outline seemed more a chore than something I took pleasure in. Writing can be difficult, yes, but it doesn’t have to be painful.
When I’m pantsing a novel and I quit writing for the day, I enjoy that those scenes continue to play in my head. I ask, what if I do this; what if I do that? What conflict can I introduce and how will my characters react? (This is when my characters talk the most to me.) Sometimes, the answers come to me in the middle of the night. When I write the next day, I use what I’ve already gone over in my head and add more. I ask myself those same questions while I continue to write. I have “Eureka!” moments that I really enjoy. They’re FUN and add life and animation to the story. Often, they lead to my subplots.
When I’m about halfway through the novel, the end occurs to me and I add that to any notes I’ve written to myself about the story. As I continue writing, I aim the plot toward that ending and tie up the subplots and loose ends along the way. I’m not suggesting everyone—or anyone—write this way. I just know there are pantsers out there who can write publishable stories without having to outline them or waste time on multiple drafts “searching for their story.” I’m one, and I’m personally acquainted with some others. BUT…
Those of us who can pants good stories KNOW OUR CRAFT, perhaps intuitively or because we’ve studied it or both. (I own more than a hundred books on writing.) To me, that’s the most important part of writing good stories. Larry’s a master at teaching the craft of story structure, and I’m a real fan of his story deconstructions. So whether you pants or outline, you’ll learn a lot from his columns. Improving your craft is an ongoing endeavor. The more you know, the more depth you can bring to your stories and the better they’ll be, whether outlined or pantsed. That’s why I’m here. To learn.
I’ve spent all of 2015 so far, trying to apply “Story Engineering” to my concept/novel from my last NaNo adventure. “Story Engineering” hit the nail on the head for me — high-energy starts which dwindle to “I don’t know where the hell I’m going”.
Now, in my 60-scene beat-sheet, I’ve got 29 beats on the timeline. I’m struggling to come up with the other beats. Is that a sign my concept isn’t quite right? Or something else?
Your book has been an eye-opener for me and I’ve gleefully shucked my “pantser” label in favor of getting published! 😀
Thank you!
Anne.
Reading your books and blog post have given me the tools I need to write at a professional level. I’m not “tortured” anymore about what goes where and why. No amount of reading Salinger was ever going to help me intuit how to write a compelling wonderfully structured story. Now I can pants a scene but know it’s purpose. So thanks!
As you well know, Larry, I’m a huge fan of structure, and also of the fact that the structure allows me to pants my way through the paint and fabric once I’ve got the framing and plumbing in place.
It’s a delight to see someone realize they need a bridge. Also nice to see someone with your knowledge step in and give it away just to help. Bravo.