Dear Pantser: You Are Not Broken
Dear Reader,
I have a confession to make. Before I finally finished a draft of my first novel, I was a failed world builder.
I was never addicted to world building, but I had a similar problem. Even though I desperately wanted to write a book, I could never get past the world-building stage.
My process always went something like this:
A flash of inspiration was implanted in my brain by the mystical muses of great fiction writing.
I sat down with the SFWA list of ten million absolutely essential world building questions you must answer before you can even think about being a serious writer. [SFWA stands for Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America. You can check them out here. And no, the world building list does not actually have ten million questions.]
I created a detailed plan for how I would get each one of those questioned answered.
I answered questions with joyful excitement for a few days, maybe even a full week.
I became dejected as the questions got harder to answer and then bored as I sat staring at my notebook or Word doc unable to answer any questions at all.
I trudged onward, falling further and further behind in my world building goals and feeling worse and worse about myself.
My spirit died. [Struggling with a similar level of writerly depression, check out this blog post on pursuing your writing goals without despair].
I gave up on the story idea, gathered all of my notes and maps into a binder and put it on the shelf.
A few months would pass and then the entire process would repeat—sometimes with fresh inspiration for the same project, sometimes with an entirely new idea.
Some writers talk about having drawers full of failed manuscripts. I never got that far. Instead, I have binders full of failed worlds.
Back then, I thought I didn’t want it enough. I thought I was doomed to fail.
I wasn’t. Neither are you. Here’s how I learned the truth.
Ever felt like you just couldn’t make your brain work? Yeah, that was me trying and failing to world build.
How I Realized I Had a Problem
Like many beginning writers, I had been told to plan, plan, plan before I dared to even think about writing. According to the internet, all successful writers were plotters and pantsers were failures. [P.S. Not sure what the difference is? Check out these articles from Writer’s Digest about plotters and pantsers].
I kept torturing myself with a process that didn’t work, convinced that if I had enough dedication to the craft, I would get through that outline and finally write a book.
I might have continued that try-fail cycle forever if it weren’t for two magical writing teachers who changed my life forever.
The Magical Moment that Changed My (Writing) Life
The first magical moment came during a session led by Ran Walker at the Writer’s Digest Virtual Conference in 2020. I almost skipped his session, “Use Microfiction to Write Your Novel”. After all, I wanted to write door-stopper epics, not microfiction, but I decided to keep an open mind and dive in.
I thought Ran would simply lecture, but instead he gave us a prompt: Write the climactic moment of your novel in 75 words.
It sounded impossible. But I did it.
Here are those 75 words:
The prisoner looked defeated, hopeless. His eyes widened in fear as she pulled the knife out of her pocket. He gasped as she cut through the ropes binding his hands.
“Go,” she said, “don’t ever come back here.”
“What’s to stop me from coming back with an army? From destroying this place?”
She said nothing. Instead, she turned and walked back to the village, knowing she would be responsible for every death to follow.
Not much, right?
In the moment, those words were magic.
I wasn’t sure where they came from. My book was a vague mix of ideas tumbling around in my subconscious. It was even scarier because I still believed that writing without an outline was one of the cardinal sins that would keep me unpublished forever.
And yet, the words were there. The characters were taking shape in my mind. All it took was seventy-five words of actual prose.
Magic Begets Magic
I might not have trusted that original impulse if not for what followed—a whole month of magical moments.
Gabriela Pereira hosted Writer Igniter Con back in November 2020. The premise was simple—26 prompts and video lessons to help you write the first 18,000 words of your novel in a month.
It sounded too good to be true, but I dutifully watched each video and completed each prompt.
And guess what—it worked! By the end of the month, I actually had 18,000 words written. More than I had ever produced. Even better, I was feeling energized about the project.
At that moment, I realized a fundamental truth: I am a pantser. And that’s okay!
My color-coded planner loving self was absolutely shocked by this realization. But leaning in to this new pantser identity unlocked my writing process.
By the end of February 2021, I had written 85,000 words and finally typed “The End” on a very rough draft.
And I did it all without making an outline or answering a single world-building question.
The Takeaways
That manuscript is still in revision, but I’ve found that my greatest ideas come out after the draft is already written. That revision process doesn’t look like the process that a diehard plotter would use. But it’s working for me.
I’ve workshopped parts of my rough draft in several writing classes and even at a competitive juried workshop (a workshop you have to apply for with a writing sample and get accepted for). Over and over again, I have gotten compliments on world building, character development, plotting, and the resonance of my story. I’m not done yet, but that’s okay. I know I’m on the right track and I’ve found a process that works for me.
Still stuck trying to find your own process? Here are a couple of lessons I’ve learned in my writer journey.
1) If it’s not working, change it.
I wasted so much time trying to force my round pantser self into a square plotter hole. We need to stop worrying about getting our process “right” and worry about the real goal: creating excellent books for our readers. It doesn’t matter how you get there—all that matters is that you keep moving closer to your goal.
If you aren’t getting words on the page…
If your writing craft isn’t improving...
If you aren’t getting positive feedback on your work…
It’s time to make a change.
Read a new craft book. Listen to a podcast like How Writers Write to learn the varied ways that professional writers get the job done.
Keep testing, refining, changing, and honing your process until you find the steps that work for you.
Don’t worry about what others think you should do. Focus on your journey. After all, there’s a book that only you can write and readers somewhere are desperately waiting for it.
2) It’s a Spectrum, Not a Binary
I used to think of pantsing and plotting as either/or. Either you went in to your novel with a solid road map or you rushed in headlong, barely able to make out the hand in front of your face.
Of the two, plotting seemed like a better fit for my personality. Then, as I listened to more writers’ processes and got more confident in my craft, I realized that I could take the best of both worlds.
I still lean more toward the pantser side, but I also plot things out. Right now, that process looks like writing the story more or less in order. If I have an idea for a new scene, I write it down and slot that snippet in wherever I think it will fit in the manuscript. In revision, I use reverse outlines to audit my draft and figure out my next moves.
I also stole a big page from the plotter book and created a series bible for world building and character development. The difference? I did all of that work after I had my first draft.
3) We All Do the Same Things, Just Differently
The more time I spend in the writing world, the more I realize that the plotter/pantser divide is almost meaningless. All writers go through a process of planning, drafting, and revising. They just spend more or less time at each of those stages. Plotters spend a lot of time in the planning stage, pantsers reach their peak during the revision stage.
That doesn’t make one better than the other. It just means that pantsers need to be ready to tear their manuscripts apart in revision, while a plotter might not have as much to clean up. A pantser might not need to do any planning on paper, but a plotter might need to spend weeks researching and dreaming up their story before they start drafting.
Make sure you do what makes sense for you at each of these stages and don’t move on until you feel ready for what comes next.
4) Creativity and Consistency Always Matter
Whatever process you choose, make sure you avoid the top two pitfalls: lack of creativity (a plotter pitfall) and lack of consistency (a pantser pitfall).
For plotters—leave room to surprise yourself. Just because you had one idea in your outline, doesn’t mean it’s the only or best direction for your story. If another idea comes to you in the middle of drafting, be fearless and chase it! You can always create a separate doc to experiment with a new version of a scene or to test out a new character’s voice. If the new idea takes you in a better, more entertaining direction, great! If not, at least you learned something new about your story and perhaps yourself.
For pantsers—make sure your final draft works as a cohesive, coherent whole, no matter how messy your first draft. If that means ditching an entire plot line or sacrificing a character or going back and meticulously checking that you’ve used the correct spelling of the character name you changed 50 times, then yes, you have to do it. That revision process might be difficult, but it’s worth it and it’s what your readers deserve from you. If that level of revision makes you cringe, then you might just have a little bit more plotter in you than you thought. And you know what? That’s okay!
If you’re struggling to write, don’t despair. Try changing things up—you just might surprise yourself.
Need help honing your process? Check out my coaching services here.
Need help sorting out a messy manuscript? Check out my editing services here.
P.S. Staying organized as a pantser can be difficult. I use Dabble to keep everything organized as I revise. With Dabble, it’s super easy to add new scenes, reorganize parts of the manuscript, and write down all of your notes for revision. I also use Dabble to organize my character & world bible—it’s a lifesaver. You can check them out here (just fyi, this is an affiliate link, but I would still sing Dabble’s praises if it weren’t!).
