Plotters and Pantsers

two approaches to writing your novel

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A professor friend of ours writes academic books. As a meticulous and brilliant man, he creates challenging content with substance and wisdom befitting someone influencing a generation of learners. A couple of times he’s asked about my approach to writing a novel. “Do you storyboard?”  

I responded with a question of my own. “Have you heard of the terms ‘plotters’ and ‘pantsers?” He had not.

For anyone unfamiliar with these terms, a novelist who is considered a plotter writes a detailed outline of their novel-to-be and writes from that outline. They know how the book begins, dips, rises, and comes to a satisfying ending. They create the big picture of their stories before adding the details. Authors who write as a pantser sit down at the computer with a few seeds of an idea and they write “by the seat of their pants.” They might have a couple of characters in mind, a subject or theme they want to explore, a situation that intrigues them.

I have been both a plotter and a pantser and wrote my third novel using a combination of the two approaches, describing myself during that writing season as “a recovered pantser.” When writing my first novel, The Forgotten Life of Eva Gordon, I learned it took me so much longer to write by the seat of my pants than it did to have some sort of plan in place, however loosely detailed. I found myself backtracking and backtracking, not always sure of the direction I needed to go. Eventually, the novel came to a satisfying ending, but we had journeyed together for quite a while.

But here’s the problem for me if I only wrote as a plotter—I like to be surprised by turns in the plot and even by characters who unexpectedly step on the stage. Some folks will say it isn’t possible to have characters step on the stage. They don’t do this. Yes, they do. And the characters in my books who have unexpectedly stepped on the stage from the far-reaching corners of my imagination became some of the most important characters or foils in the story. Their interesting quirks and fleshed out personalities grounded the book when they arrived with all their luggage, ready to unpack and join the other characters. Their arrival surprised me as I wrote, as did the endings of my books. I worry that if I’m not surprised by the story’s ending or direction, readers won’t be surprised either. I would need to swerve away from an outline at times.

At the moment though, I’m back to being a pantser on my fourth novel, feeling like I’m driving on a dark country road with my headlights off. I can’t see where I’m going, but miraculously when I show up at my computer, the characters talk, the story moves forward, subplots appear, and it seems to be working. A few months ago, I shared the first of scene of An Overstayed Welcome, the title of this fourth novel, with my dear writers group. They asked all those important questions about what I was trying to do and where I wanted the story to go. I told them I had a bare skeleton of an idea and that’s all. When they remarked about looking forward to seeing where the story would go, I responded, “Me too!”

I’m not afraid to write this way, starting with only the barest bones of a story, a shell of an idea. For The Forgotten Life of Eva Gordon, I only had a scenario in mind. At the time, IRL, my brother was living with one of our elderly uncles and dating a girl with two kids from a previous marriage. I played around with this scenario and asked what it would be like if his new love interest didn’t have children but also lived with an elderly relative. And what if that relative was cantankerous, and wanted to run away, and was having some memory issues? Eva Gordon was born.

In my middle-grade novel, Hotel Oscar Mike Echo, I wanted to pull together a couple of my ministry experiences: teaching parenting classes in jail or tutoring the formerly homeless or incarcerated at transitional homes. Then one day while walking in my neighborhood, an older gentleman and a young girl road their bikes past me right down the center of the street, side by side, chatting up a storm. For several weeks, they rode into my day. She was Black; he was White. I wondered about their story and how they had come into each other’s lives. I decided to form my novel around their close relationship. Mr. Goodwin and Sierra were born after I flipped her to be White and Mr. Goodwin to be Black. After I finalized the story’s premise, I never again saw them riding on my street. I did write this novel with a more detailed plan of where I wanted the story to go but allowed for surprises, which came. I planned one ending and the story chose another one.

In my third novel, The House Goodbye Party, a friend who grew up in Chicago told me of a party they held for their mom when she sold the family home of forty years. The night before closing on the house, they took her there one more time and brought favorite foods and played a game, asking about favorite guests who had visited there, favorite parties, favorite memories. When I heard this story, I knew it would make a great structure for a novel. This seed of an idea grew into a 90,000-word novel (eventually) thanks to some plotting and some writing by the seat of my pants. Right now it’s making the rounds at publishing houses, knocking on their doors, hoping to be invited in.

I’m sure these two approaches to writing manifest in people’s lives in other ways besides writing. Some folks are planners, some take life as it comes. Some of us are logical, orderly, measured. Others are spontaneous, dramatic, extroverted, or feelers. If we learn anything from plotters and pantsers, we learn we’re all wired differently, approaching life with different make-ups and varied abilities. Where do you fall on the spectrum of pantser and plotter, and how have you seen it manifest in your life? Share your thoughts in the comment section, or share with your reader/writer friends if you enjoyed these thoughts.

Until next time,

Linda