Pantser Vs Plotter: Understanding Your Writing Style
- Livvy Skelton-Price
- 2 days ago
- 3 min read
Understanding your writing style is key to letting your words flow onto the page. Understanding what these writing styles mean is also key.
What Is a Pantser?
A Pantser is someone who writes without a plan. They start on a blank page and jump straight into the story. No plan needed. No story bible. No character profiles.
It all comes from within their head and out through their fingertips. Drafts are often written a lot quicker than the editing rounds. Those take a while and can include a lot of rewrites.
What is a Plotter?
A Plotter is someone who plots the novel before they jump into the story. They'll know what happens at the middle point, the inciting incident, and they'll even know the ending. They have fleshed out each scene so they know how each character gets from A to B to C to D. Nothing is a surprise for a plotter. Drafts often take an age but the editing rounds are a lot quicker.
Whether you are a Pantser, Plotter, or someone in between, it's important for you to know a few things about your story:
1) Your Genre.
You need to know this before you publish your story.
For Pantsers, you may want to write the book and see where your writing lands in the market. After the first draft, you'll get an idea for what genre your book falls into, and you can go from there.
For Plotters, you may like a story bible - something that details everything about the world of your story before you begin writing. This needs to include something about the genre. The conventions are important to know, even if you don't use them; you need to know what readers expect/are looking for. You need to understand story structure within your genre - this changes. And you need to know readers' expectations. This could range a whole lot, but you'll find a lot of similarities in what readers want.
2) Knowing Your Characters.
You need to, at the very least, understand your protagonist and antagonist. These are your two most important characters.
Pantsers, you might benefit from writing a few short stories with your protagonist and antagonist as main characters. Place them in different situations and different locations to see how they handle this.
Plotters, you want to draw up those profiles. Some people love questionnaires, others like Pinterest boards for their characters. You know how you know your best friend, your family, or even yourself? That's how well you need to know your characters - better even.
3) World Building.
You don't need to write a novel on the setting, but you need to understand where everything is. You need to know which street leads to where and which house is close to which.
Those impatient Pantsers can fix any world mistakes in the editing phase. As I'm sure they will. A safe option is to pick a real place you are familiar with. You know the streets and what the homes look like, you know how many shops there are and what the vibe is like. It's an easy way to understand your world.
Thoughtful Plotters can draw this out with maps, designs, and have an entire trilogy on their world. Learning the ins and outs as it comes to you is a magical and wonderful thing that plotters are able to do. Not something I have been graced with. Take your time and try to get the lay of the land as much as possible - what grows in the area, how kids interact with each other, what makes people collectively upset. Is it high taxes or war?
You want more? You'll have to listen to the podcast. Follow the links below:
My book, What’s Left: https://a.co/d/04vfTz1o
Website: https://www.livvyskeltonprice.com/
Medium: https://medium.com/@livvyskelton
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