A couple of thinks on the cheap have occurred to me over the past few days.
Ted (shredtedbob) has this writing collective kind of thing happening over at Discord. I helped him set up the server and offer an additional light moderating hand on the conversations. Which, it seems, it probably not needed at all because of the kind of folks he’s gathered to work on his scheme for cross-promoting a work or series of works. It’s a cool idea and similar to something I’ve tried to do in the distant past.
As I sat down and put on my “contributor” hat after taking off the “owner” hat, I quickly realized that some of my writing habits and goals have changed over the years. Under the gun, I realized that I’ve really, truly gone over and become a complete “pantster” writer. A pantster, for those of you unfamiliar with the term, is someone who does almost no planning when they sit down to write something. No plot, no problem. For a pantster, having crib notes and a general outline are the most they will put into their writing by way of planning. They tend not to mind the editing phase quite as much, because there are of course going to be things that need fixing after the story is done. The pantster is on the opposite end of the big stick from a planner, who tends to plan out most of the story before writing it and usually has well-developed notes and an outline. They tend to not need to have much editing, because most writers are somewhere between the two extremes.
While I have tried out approaches all along the continuum, I have become increasingly “fly by the seat of my pants” with my writing. I might be wrong in my assessment, but I get most frustrated with my output when things don’t follow the outline I’ve worked hard to develop and a story takes on a mind of its own. Which, honestly, happens more often than not. What I do is more of a “channeling” of story than I am the conductor of an orchestra.
Plus, I have been enamoured with writing shorter, rather than longer prose for at least 25 years. I used to think the epic novel was the paragon of writing, but I’ve been convinced that brevity is sometimes better than expansiveness. And, because I have a difficulty with planning too much (all that work is for naught when I sit down to write), I find myself freezing up when I am asked to write something lengthier and polished for future publication. That sounds like work.
I promised another useless and unimportant bit of thought: I have come to the realization that I tend to write absurdist, fantastic and weird fiction (as in Weird Stories, the defunct fiction magazine from the mid-1900s). My stories all seem to contain at least just a small amount of fantasy or the weird. It mostly is not part of the plan when I sit down to write to include those elements — it just happens that way. And I tend to leave folks with more questions at the end than resolutions. I’m not sure why I feel that is needed in most of these stories. It’s probably a bad habit that I should break. The pantster in me shrugs and notes that is someone else’s problem.
I probably should think harder about my contribution instead of rambling about such things, shouldn’t I?
Your homework:
Where do you fit on the continuum? Pantster — Planster — Planner
What subgenre do you consider your writing to be? Or do you strictly write literature?
Yeah, that’s all folks. Back to the grind. Extra points: Let me know below if you have any good story ideas I can riff off of.
36 responses to “Half-penny Thoughts — 30oct25”
I enjoy a good ramble 😊 Honestly I used to be the planner kind but as I have gotten older I have found letting go and winging it (my version of a pantster 😅) is my go to – I work better when I’m just flowing with whatever my chosen art form is without trying to control where is goes or how it looks. It has been an adjustment for me and I know you can’t always wait for inspiration. I say you do you & enjoy where the pantster labyrinth takes you 😉
I fully embrace the pantster approach, I just hadn’t realized just how far over to the dark side I have drifted until I started thinking about this project and realized, wow… that’s not me anymore. Screw planning! 🤣
I enjoy reading about the writing process of writers. Thank you for sharing, Michael.
Thanks for reading 💙
Glad to do so, thank you. 💛 I’m not sure how I’d label my writing self beyond “writer” when it comes to longer prose and my outlines are more like a list of plot details I plan to include. Once I start writing the story flows…
We’ll call it planster 🙂
I probably think too much about these things. 😅
Like stir the plans? 🤔🙂 We all have our things. 😄
😂
😁
Thank you for all your hard work. I know zip about Discord and can use all the help.
You seem to be doing fine. 🙂
Probably going to be a pro by the end of the week.
Thanks. 💕 Learning new things is nerve racking. 😬
You seem to be doing great. 💕
🤗
Feel free to use in anyway the story on Google docs.
Thanks, but I’ll probably try something new. 🙂
You got this.
We’ll see about that 😅
I don’t think you should ever plan your writing too rigidly!! As you have pointed out, a lot of the time the piece goes off in its own direction! You may as well throw all that planning in the dustbin!! I think stories have a distinct mind of their own!!! Nice post, Michael. I’m probably a pantser!!!
That’s usually what happens when I plan too much. One of the characters inevitably has other plans than mine and it goes off on an unexpected tangent 🙂
You’re exactly right, Michael! And what’s more, going off on a tangent is when the best writing gets done!! In my humble opinion! Happy writing! ☺
Pantster for me too Michael don’t worry you’ll find your space in between and it’s gonna fit in great
We’ll see. Even more than usual for this time of year, my time is spoken for by other people. Fire drills all over the place.
🔥
Or to say it another way, some days the story writes you🙂
That’s certainly a more-than-adequate representation of the process.
I’m a pantser always have been – maybe because I’m so organised in the rest of my life whereas writing gives me the space to breath and wing it, and if I screw up it’s no big deal. I knew a writer for a while, someone I met on social media who appeared to have things the other way around. He was a total planner in his creative world – knew, for example, that he’d be killing-off a character in Chapter 7 before he even got started. How is that even possible? His persona life, however, had been a train wreck – multiple divorces and all that goes with them. I prefer things my way, and if that puts me on the ‘dark’ side, so be it. 😎
I find most writers tend to put a higher emphasis on outlining that I do. I tried it with a couple of different methods and it was good exercise, but ultimately fruitless. I even used to roughly outline the order of events, but that was a waste of time as well because the characters had other ideas and, when I stuck to the script, the story was often more like wet cardboard than something compelling.
We all do as we can do, I suppose.
I guess. I just know that, however messy it gets, I just have to write it as it comes to me – which always means the end first, followed by the beginning, then loads of scenes all out of sequence as they come to me, with an eventual reckoning of what I need to write to join them after I’ve put them in order. I don’t know how, but it works! 🙂
That’s all that matters in the end.
I’ve written two books in my life. Both were Pantster, completely unplanned. Both didn’t see the light of day. I think this is the only way I can stay motivated to write.
Perhaps they will see the light of day if/when you get motivated to give them an edit? Who knows, right?
Nope 🙂 but I may write a third one.
😉 looking forward to it.
Oh, definitely more ‘pantster’! I may jot the odd note but if anything gets planned it tends to stay in my own head and ferments for a while before hitting the page. And sometimes it’s just a wee kernel that kicks things off and it’s a sit and write job.
I don’t think I’m cut out to be a meticulous planner, besides I’ve read far too many novels which really ought to be novellas (if not shorts) which makes me realise how pointless ‘filler’ is.
Oh, and I like the intrigue and open questions in your writing. Very much my thing.
There is new book I was considering reading, possibly against my better judgment (which pointed out to myself, I didn’t much care for one of the author’s other books, why would I like this one?), but it intrigued me based on the premise and the sample on Amazon. And then I checked out the professional reviews to see what they said. The reoccurring theme in the reviews is that it would have been better as an 800-page novel than as a 1400-page novel. And the author could have probably made it shorter still. Needless to say, I think I’ll be skipping it until it goes for fire sale pricing. And maybe even then…
I sometimes wonder if authors write lengthy novels as a matter of ego. In many cases, most of the novels I have read didn’t need a trilogy (or more) to tell the story. As you said, they would have worked much better as a novella. Some, I’d argue, should have only been short stories.
Thanks for not being bothered by my lack of resolution in my fiction. I know some people really hate being left hanging by a story, but I think that stories are rarely resolved and tied up in a tidy bow in real life. They end up being just one continuum of a tale, with peaks and valleys.