Pantsing vs Planning

To Pants, To Plan, To Plan To Pants.

No, seriously though. These are two words that sum up two different styles of writing that people do. (These are the thoughts of one: Scribbles The Chee. These should be taken as the opinions of someone who sometimes has zero clue about what is going on around them. A.K.A Do not take this post as if it’s all factual.)

Planning obviously involves meticulously putting work into a story. Outlines, character questionaires, notebooks of ideas for things that you want to happen in your story. Planning obviously comes in many different forms but always boils down to one simple concept: Plans usually come before the writing. Like I said, you can do outlines, whether detailed or not.

For example, your detail can be like this.

1. The story starts in this way.
2. Somewhere down the line, this happens.
3. There’s a big final showdown between good and evil.
4. Good wins! (Or doesn’t win)

Or, your detail can be like this:

1. Our story begins with our main character typing at their computer
   • They’re writing a blog post about the differences between planning and pantsing.
     • They’re more of a pantser but they’re trying not to make it too obvious.
   • They write on the computer till about twelve in the morning only stopping to make themselves a cup of coffee.
2. They decide to stop working on the post at around one o’clock because they’re tired.
   • They go to the restroom to brush their teeth and stare at themselves in the mirror.

I jest, of course, as I am not much of an outliner. Don’t get me wrong, I am very good at starting them. I have a good friend, he’s a rat and he’s super cool, who was helping me through a pitfall where I was just stuck on a story and how to start it. And he, like the very helpful friend he is, told me I should outline. So, I started the outline. Then about six bullet points in, I realized I had the perfect way to start the story. And to this day, the outline is still not finished. The story is though, coming soon to an anthology near you.

My point is, planning is knowing what the major points of your story are. Putting detailed work into making a character and their arc. You make note of important details, like their sense of smell, their dislike for certain things, how people treat them. Planners have a solid idea of what they want from their story, and a decent idea of how they are going to get from plot point to plot point.

A downside of this, is of course, that plans do not always go the way you want them to. Characters, no matter how you make them, may act unpredictably. Or you may write your character as planned only to find out that… you don’t like them the way you’ve written them. Plans change, and sometimes, meticulous planning doesn’t prepare you for that.

Pantsers on the other end… I don’t know what the true definition of pantsing is, but I am going to assume that it involves flying through by the seat of your pants. You’ve got a vague idea of what you want to write, and you start writing it. The cards will fall in the way that they fall.

Pantsing may not be for everyone. It’s carefree, unstructured, wild. There’s not a reference anywhere except your imagination, and some folks work better like this. It may be the lack of your own expectations for what you’re writing. You just have an idea, and by golly gosh you’re gonna write it. You’re gonna write it so good!

But just like with planning… Pantsing also has downsides. Roadblocks to pantsing come in the form of, “I know how I want this story to go, but how the hell do I start it?” Or even worse, “Oh my god, this character is insufferable! How the hell did this happen?” Pantsing is fun, and free. But in my experience fun and free without backup plans can leave you trapped. If you get stuck, you can’t always write your way out.

This happened in the story I mentioned earlier, as well as so many other stories. I write, till I get trapped. And when I’m trapped, I either abandon ship or call for help. And most of the time, unfortunately, I feel like I can’t get out.

These ways do work for some. They just do not work for me. Not completely. Which brings me to something I am very familiar with, a secret alternate option! Plantsing.

Is that a real word? For the sake of this post and my sanity, I say yes!

I don’t think I need to invent a silly definition of what that means. It’s when you take elements from both and utilize them. I love the feeling of diving headfirst into a fresh idea and riding that train as long as I can hang on. But I also know that not every story can be like that. And even if I do successfully write a full story, it still needs so much work.

One thing I have been doing lately (within these last two years), that I consider plantsing, is that if I have a story finished and I don’t feel one hundred percent comfy with how it is, I start from scratch. I have my original story open on one side of my computer, and a fresh empty document on the other. I go through that original document, and — unless I really like the original wordings in certain places — rewrite every single sentence. Maybe I’ll add a character’s introduction earlier than usual. Maybe I’ll add them later. Maybe, I will scrap an entire paragraph because it doesn’t fit this new tone.

Here’s an example of the first paragraph of a WIP I have.

This is the original first paragraph.

Ari Arman was not having a good birthday. Between three “incorrect” coffee orders for his higher-ups at work, a below-passing grade on his essay on the underwhelming release of another Off-Road Rebels film, and a drained social battery, the Asiatic cheetah was looking forward to knocking back some drinks and enjoying a nice evening with the people he was close to. He just wasn’t too thrilled at the location.

This is the current first paragraph.

As far as birthdays went, Ari Arman was not having a great one. Between three “incorrect” coffee orders for one extremely bitchy column editor at work, a below-passing grade on his essay about the underwhelming release of the most recent Off-Road Outlaws film, and a drained social battery, the Asiatic cheetah wanted nothing more than to go home and pass out on the couch.

The bones are the same, but the writing feels a bit more fluid. There is less going on, but more description about what is going on. Does that make sense?

Side Note: I was thinking about my description of how I rewrite stories and realizing that it’s like I am plagiarizing my own work and just trying to avoid the imaginary plagiarism checker. Don’t plagiarize. Unless it’s your own work. I think. Is that the lesson I want to teach here? Is it?

That’s just one way. I also have notebooks filled with little snippets of ideas, character sketches where I have all their information on a page with their name on the top. I have excerpts of stories where I would write in notebooks, then transfer them to my laptop when I got to a point where I would be able to do it all.

But again, this is just how I do things. My way is not going to be the same way as yours. Your way isn’t going to be the same way as your favorite writers. You can try to find a writing style that fits you but just don’t forget that you’re looking for your style. Something uniquely you.

So, question of the day! What’s your preferred style of writing? What’s your favorite way to get words out?

Bonus points to whoever can correctly guess how I… wrote this blog post!