Plotting versus pantsing: finding the approach that actually works for you

If you’ve spent any time in writing communities, online or otherwise, you’ve almost certainly encountered the plotter versus pantser debate. Plotters plan everything out before they write. Pantsers fly by the seat of their pants, following the story wherever it leads. And somewhere in the middle sits the plantser, a hybrid of the two.

It sounds like a matter of preference. In my experience it’s more fundamental than that. Getting this wrong, or never figuring it out at all, can be the difference between finishing a novel and not finishing one.

I know, because for years I didn’t finish one.

The pantser years

For a long time I approached writing the way a lot of people do. I had ideas. I sat down. I started writing. And somewhere along the way, usually after a promising start, things stalled. The story lost momentum, or I wrote myself into a corner, or I simply didn’t know what happened next. I have a folder full of unfinished manuscripts that are testament to this approach.

I’m not saying pantsing doesn’t work. I have friends who write this way and finish books regularly. I admire their ability to sit down without guardrails or plotted direction and find the story as they go. It’s a genuine skill. It just wasn’t my skill.

What changed

In 2020, during the pandemic, I sat down to write what would become The Weaver, the first book in the Old Blood Saga. This time I did something different. Before I wrote a single word of the actual story, I plotted the entire book out on a Miro whiteboard, building a chapter by chapter synopsis of the narrative from beginning to end.

Once I was satisfied with the shape of the story, I picked an arbitrary calendar year to use as a timeline guide for the events in the book. I then mapped that chapter by chapter outline against a calendar I built in Excel, which gave me the overall pacing and timing for the story. When I was happy with that, I transferred the entire outline, timings and all, into Scrivener.

Then I wrote the first draft in four months.

I’ve never looked back.

Every book in the Old Blood Saga has been written this way. The outline gives me the confidence to sit down and write each day because I always know what happens next. The calendar keeps the internal logic of the story consistent. Scrivener holds it all together. The actual writing, the prose, the voice, the moment to moment texture of the story, that’s still where the creativity lives. The plot is just the scaffolding that lets me get there.

If you’re just starting out, one of the most useful things you can do is figure out which of these you are, sooner rather than later.

Try both if you haven’t already. Start a short story as a pantser. Then try plotting one out before you write it. Pay attention to which feels more natural, and more importantly, which one gets you to the end.

There’s no right answer. Some of the best writers working today are devoted pantsers. Some are meticulous plotters. What matters is knowing yourself well enough to set yourself up for success.

For me, plotting didn’t constrain my creativity. It unlocked it. The years I spent trying to pants my way through novels weren’t wasted, they taught me what I needed to know about how I work. But I wish someone had told me earlier to treat this as a question worth answering deliberately, rather than something I’d just figure out along the way.

The tools I use for plotting

For anyone curious about the practical side:

• Miro for building the initial chapter by chapter outline (virtual whiteboard, great for moving things around as the story evolves)
• Excel for mapping the outline against a timeline calendar
• Scrivener for holding the complete outline and writing the first draft against it

I’ll go deeper on each of these in the Writing Tools post in the Resources section.

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