✍️ In Defence of Pantsing

or, How Putting One Word After Another May Be Power, But You Still Need a Power Grid

Can you brag about having written a novel if it ends up on the scrap heap?

If you told me “Yes!” to the above question, I’d feel a little chuffed. I you told me “No!!!”, I’d feel less chuffed, but…

I know what I’ve accomplished.

I am lucky that I know today why my novel, Social Grooming for Higher Primates, failed. Many, many, many thanks to my beta readers and other feedback for that. Motifs that dead-ended in tunnels. Plot lines that didn’t see the “Bridge Out” sign. New themes that just started out of nowhere, chugging happily along with no real beginning or resolution. Emotional swings from 0-60-0 in a blink. To name a few.

But these are all symptoms. No, the real reason it died is because I am a pantser (vs. planner or plotter), and when I finished putting one word after another, it turned out I didn’t put any of the other important things you need in a story like plot, character arcs, emotional context, and devices that I either ignored or didn’t know about.

So far, to paraphrase Thomas Edison, I’ve found four ways how not to write a novel. So you’d think that might stop me from pantsing my current WIP. Right?

Right?

Not quite. Because here’s the thing: I can’t be a planner. Trust me, I’ve tried it! I’ve created Microsoft Excel spreadsheets, used index cards, written story synopses, tried to learn Scrivener... None of it helped, other than to underline that I’m not a planner. If you’d called me on it before, I would have some weak answer about, well, it’s not in my DNA or something.

That’s the downside to pantsing: you never know where you’re going to end up.

But now, thanks to a recent post from Terry Fallis, I have a better understanding of my deficiencies really good reasons why I can’t plan. It’s because I don’t know the story until I write it.

Writing to Find Out What You’re Writing About

First, a couple of definitions for those who want them:

• A pantser is someone who writes a novel (or anything else for that matter) just by sitting down and writing. Sometimes, there is a brief whiff of story. Sometimes, it’s a character or a situation. It may literally begin with just a blank page.

• A planner or plotter is someone who extensively outlines, does character sketches, and knows fairly precisely where the story will go before they start writing it.

All writers exist someone on that line between blank-page pantsing to blueprint planning.

Terry Fallis

has a great definition of pantsing vs. planning here.

Earlier this month, Terry also wrote a post titled, “Writing songs versus writing novels” and something in me clicked. He wrote:

"I carry the story around in my brainpan for months on end, letting it steep and ferment, and generally emerge and/or evolve. At some point, it feels as if my characters and story have somehow matured, ripened..."

-Terry Fallis

I realized that although stories and characters steep and ferment in my brain, they don’t ripen until I put them down on the page.

For example, a snippet of a scene will cross through my brain, often fully formed. I’ll write it down in a note or email to myself. Later, I’ll add it to the novel. As of this moment, that novel has something of a cohesive narrative along with a hundred (or so) disparate snippets waiting to be connected. There isn’t any context for them. There certainly isn’t necessarily any story in them.

And there won’t be, as long as I try exclusively to think on them. I need to write the story in order to find the story.

I think this is for several reasons:

• Although the snippets mentioned above will jump in my head at any given moment, my creative energy doesn’t kick in until I’m physically writing.

• At least part of the reason my creative energy doesn’t kick in is because I don’t have the bandwidth I used to. Blame it on day-job work, blame it on age, blame it on any number of things. Putting stuff down on paper helps free up that bandwidth.

• Magic happens when I start writing – and only when I write. This, I’m sure, is connected to the first point. Do you ever have those moments when the story or character or just the words take you to unexpected places? That can’t happen for me – or at least, not as much – until I physically write the story.

• I don’t like structure. The two years I spent in an open concept school were my best.

• Other stuff.

In other words, I need to write in order to know what I am writing about. This is a concept I discussed in an earlier post, “How to Start EFFing Writing”. When I wrote that post, it wasn’t really meant to be an ode to pantsing. This post, on the other hand, is an ode to pantsing. I think in my case, it’s both a blessing and curse. And, like most blessing/curse hybrids, it’s all about how you manage your symptoms…

How to Pants the Night Away without the Hangover

A logic puzzle for me. Pantsing has in the past led to a twisted wreckage of a story/book. However, planning the story before I write has led to… well, not writing. I need to write in order to see the story. So how can I pants my story and have it follow accepted narrative pathways that make it a satisfying read?

As I mentioned above, I know at least some of the failings of my first, complete novel. Those failings would have been solved with planning.

However, there’s nothing to say I can’t put that narrative frame under my story after I finish writing it.

I can stretch it here and stitch it there so that it hits all 15 beats mentioned in Save the Cat! Writes a Novel. Hey, we’re writers! All that amounts to is rearranging words on the page until they hit their marks.

I have a writing retreat coming up with one of my writing groups. This glorious weekend, I will be focused on putting down 50,000 words. Ambitious? You betcha. But ambitious for a reason. I don’t want to write 10,000 or even 5,000 “perfect” words. I want to throw down the whole effing story onto the page. I have 55,000-odd words already. Another 50,000 would put me way over max word count. But it will be that lump of clay that will allow me to come back, edit, and place those words over the story template of, say, “Save the Cat! Writes a Novel”.

I may not hit 50K, but you know: reach, grasp, etc.

Will it work? That’s the million-dollar question. Because that’s the upside with pantsing: you never know where you’re going to end up.

In any case, the retreat is mid-February, so I’ll update you after then.

Key Takeaways: Pantsing has its pros and cons, just like most things in writing (and Life). Pantsers may feel frustrated or less-than simply because they can’t plan their novels. But pantsers can still play to their strengths and end up with a novel that works by making it fit over whatever beatsheet or novel template you use after you’ve written your story down.

Over to You: Are You a Pantser Who Struggles with Plot?

If so, what do you do? Are you able to cobble together a narrative plan anyway or do you need to go back to fill in those story elements after? Let us know in the comment section!

I’ll leave you An Evening with Terry Fallis below from one of his events in Winnipeg.

Until next time... keep writing with wild abandon!

~Graham

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email me if you get lost.