Plotting or pantsing?

There is a long-running debate on whether “plotting” or “pantsing” is the better way to write. When “plotting” (or “planning”), you fully develop the outline of the story before you tell it. “Pantsing” (or “flying by the seat of your pants”) is starting the telling without preconceptions and letting the story take shape as it flows out. 

The advantage of plotting is that you know the end from the beginning. Your writing is more directed, less haphazard. You can add foreshadowing and build in clever details that work seamlessly. The danger, though, is that the story can feel contrived, wooden, or forced as always knowing exactly where you’re going can make you ignore interesting creative avenues.

Pantsing gives your imagination free rein to go wherever the story moves you. Creating can feel more powerful and rewarding. But a pantser can wander, lose direction, and even end up stuck in a corner with nowhere to go. Imagine being 50,000 words into a project and then realizing it doesn’t work. 

As an example, I was over halfway into my 2018 National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) novel when I realized it was turning into a simple love story, and I wanted something more complex. So I kept what I had, but added a thriller element. The problem was the new part of the story did not fit what I had written so far. I was pantsing the thriller element as well, and it started getting too fantastic. So I toned it down as I moved towards the novel’s conclusion, but again, the toned down section did not mesh with what came before. The novel ended up needing a significant rewrite, which I did months after NaNoWriMo ended. For this year’s NaNoWriMo novel, I did basic plotting but had some significant events only roughly in mind, and it came together as I pantsed almost all of it.

Is plotting more necessary for some topics than for others? Probably. If I wanted to write about time travel, with a story that loops back on itself, it would be easy to write myself into a dead end. But such a story might have all the more need for the creativity and spontaneity that comes from not having the story all worked out in advance. 

It’s impossible to know in advance which approach will lead to a better outcome. I think it’s more a matter of personal taste. There are as many versions of plotting and pantsing as there are writers, and most people end up somewhere in between the two poles. I suspect many of the greatest pantsers are mental plotters. They may not have written down where they expect to go, but set ideas end up influencing the direction the story takes as it develops on the page. I also suspect the greatest plotters can write with a spontaneity that belies the fact that the story’s basic structure was worked out beforehand.

I am a confirmed “in-betweener,” but my process is much more pantsing than plotting. I want to see where the story is headed, but I enjoy the twists that appear in my pure flow of imagination as the story streams out line by line. As exciting as a plot twist may be for the reader, I doubt it can match the excitement for the writer as something never imagined appears on the page. It’s exhilarating!

Is pantsing just lazy? No, I think it’s simply hard for me to get my mind far enough into a story that I can anticipate every emotion, thought, and action of my characters without writing it.

So how far can pantsing go? I have pantsed six novels. Could it also work for a trilogy of novels? I am considering writing a longer work. I think I should plot enough to define the major twists. I would also decide on the breakpoints in the story at the end of the first and second novels in the three-novel series and the final ending. I would want the three novels to work together as a whole, and I worry I can’t pants a trilogy, so long and complex. At the same time, I’m sure once I start writing, the story will evolve. I don’t want to plot intricately only to throw it away. 

The proof, though, will be in the writing. I guess this makes 2020 the year of biting off more than I might be able to chew.