I am doing something even if it doesn’t appear that way?
Yeah. You have figured out plots for things, what can and can’t work because you’ve watched how others have handled it.
You may be a bit more of a group/social pantser.
I’m not. I don’t need help to think up stuff and check to see if it works well. I need my brain to shut up altogether, at times.
1 Like
Wow…didn’t know that. Thanks so much!
Hi. Pantser here who has tried plotting and planning to see if it would work and then found out it wouldn’t. I plotted a four book series and couldn’t write it for two years suffering from writer’s block with it. I did really try to make plotting work, but it just wasn’t my thing.
So, I ignored the plot and gave myself a NaNoWriMo challenge. If you set up an account, you can challenge yourself however many words novel any time you want. I set up 50k for about a month and just wrote like crazy because I knew if I’m on a time pressure, I wouldn’t even have time to think about checking my notes. I really wanted to make sure I didn’t look at my notes.
I turned out not looking at my notes at all except character names. I did copy paste the character and place names into a new document to keep track, but that’s about all I got from my plotted notes.
If you want to write a story that you have plotted, I suggest to just write the story and not look at your notes AT ALL. Don’t even revisit them. If you need character names, make a list outside of your notes. It’s the notes that are possibly hindering you. You tend to remember the basic plot line you wanted, so just loosely follow that.
You also might try to give yourself a time limit. That’ll force you to just write and not plot because you just don’t have time to do it.
Those are my suggestions, anyway 
2 Likes
Hello, there friend and fellow panster!
Like put myself on a timer of sorts?
I haven’t plotted anything though. I am just pantsing the whole thing. But I do get what you’re saying.
What about writing down the character’s name and their roles, but nothing else? I can attempt to do that if that is what you mean!
Timer in short bursts, maybe. But I would suggest setting up a month or two. You don’t have to finish the first draft, but aim to finish it. Like, REALLY aim to finish it but also don’t beat yourself up about it if you don’t. The point is to write a lot of the story.
Great. Go for it! I also like to call it discovery writing
Well, what I meant is, you’ll need to keep track of some factual information, right? Character and place names would probably be the big ones. If you need to jot down roles, you can, but make it really simple. Don’t start writing paragraphs and paragraphs.
What I do with character names is like this:
Cypur Cromlight - fifteen, male, shoulder length blond hair, blue eyes, adopted Sorcerer
I don’t personally put anything else because I do tend to remember those things. After about 10 chapters or so, I might add extra things like what he usually wears, what he likes to do for fun (if it comes out in the story) and any other factual information.
1 Like
A slight fake it till you actually make it sort of thing?
It goes great sometimes because I get in the zone then stumble hard chapters into.
I was able to finish one novel, but it was that thing where I still could have added more, but I ended it in a way where it is still fairly good.
Maybe writing strictly novels and big epics are no longer my forte. I may have to stick to writing short stories or novellas that don’t surpass 20k.
That alone bothers me because I am always wanting more when the reality is I am doing too damn much.
The House of Naivin was over 70k and I still can’t grasp how I stuck with that story for that long and not call it quits sooner.
1 Like
Essentially 
I’m going on an average of 80-90k recently. Even close to 100k. So, you’re not writing unusually long or anything. In fact, a lot of writers I know on Instagram do over 100k all the time. Even after editing it’s around 90k.
1 Like
Don’t think I can write something a 70k to even a 100k novel anymore. Got lucky with the House of Naivin, but now, I don’t think I can pull it off a second time. Not doubting myself. I prefer to write something a bit on the shorter/smaller side.
Not so much a short story, but either that or a novella. I would series of short stories or novellas, but I would have to not make it so long in series numbers.
Cool!
1 Like
But don’t limit yourself if you do feel like you can go longer. Let yourself go longer if you feel it. Set yourself freeeeeee 
1 Like
Fair enough. LOL!
Thanks!
1 Like
Yeah, I get that. Sometimes changing things around helps the story/stories a lot.
Yeah, a novelette or a novella. Whatever works best. Just break it down, and add it all up. If you break it down, it’s easier to edit things and change them to be coherent with the one big story unit that you are hoping to end up with. If you get me?
2 Likes
Always keep scraps of blank papers near where you write 
That’s my advice
3 Likes
Just in case I do need to jot something down? I get that also. I do have a notebook and some sticky note pads to jot down something small that isn’t too much.
Most of the time I just want to go with the flow/wing it.
1 Like
So, even if I finished where I left off with The Breakers which I decided to call Red Reign, I will probably have to edit that ENTIRE thing or scrap it for a total redo/rewrite.
Or make Red Reign and The Breakers two somewhat different stories, but Red Reign will have some of the things that are present in The Breakers.
Alright, I understand. I think my world of Alagossia would work better if I focus on smaller stories than something insanely long that requires serious planning.
Thanks for the help.
1 Like
And that’s perfectly okay. Planning isn’t for everyone—some of the biggest writers out there are pantsers. The whole point to planning, essentially, is a tool to help writers better understand their story, whether it’s their characters, their setting and world building, or where the heck it’s going.
Personally, I’m a bit of both—a planster—and while some of my planning (depending on the project) can be extensive, I usually go in with an eye patch where, unlike going blindfolded in, I kind of know where I’m going but I’m still blindsided… if that makes sense? Like, I only know half of what I’m doing. 
The other point to outlines is to create a coherent story that you can dive right into and keep it fairly the same (like, you can change some things as you go along, but not the whole thing) because it’s to help you keep yourself in check so you’re not constantly revising the plot.
But some people can still get their book written regardless of having an outline. My only suggest to you is to be careful because, as you’ve said, you’re not too sure where you want it to go. It’s okay to not have the entire picture painted ahead of time, but it’s important to know what you want the picture to look like because you can’t necessarily paint a mural without having an idea of what you’re doing in mind, you know? And constantly changing your mind on where to go with it won’t help you at all because it’ll just stay unpainted.
You can write the story as you see it one way, and when finished, you can rewrite it or revise it the other way with how you see fit. Otherwise, you’ll drive yourself crazy writing idea after idea after idea over something that isn’t even written yet, or worse, you’ll drive yourself crazy rewriting the story over and over again and never truly finishing it (whether it’s the whole book or just the first few chapters). This kind of indecisiveness and or perfectionism is what some writers will do to themselves, and as someone who has been around writing forums for over a decade, the result is depressing: many writers who experience this often feel like writing becomes a chore because they can’t make a decision and then stop writing overall. Some who may experience it may stop writing that story and move onto another project, but many who often do this, don’t ever finish their projects because they often change the story dozens of times within the first few chapters. They have an idea of where it goes, write a chapter or two, then change their minds and rewrite the chapters, and then change their mind again, and rewrite them once more. And it becomes a cycle. An exhausting cycle. And sometimes, it’s not even about the story’s plot, but about its style. I once edited like ten chapters of this one person’s book where it was all in first person. Then the author hits me up with, “Hey… I uh… changed my mind. I want to rewrite this in third person.” So then they wanted me to go back into those same chapters and help them edit it again but to make sure everything was in third person. Then halfway through, they wanted to change the tense. I’m sorry, but no… 
It’s important to hold yourself accountable for not only seeing the story through, but deciding on something and going through it entirely. Specifically if you want it done. Otherwise, it definitely will feel like a chore, exhausting, and even make you bored of doing it and not want to ever touch it again.
But honestly, being a pantser is perfectly fine. There’s nothing wrong with being one. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to discovery write because it is one of the greatest parts about writing—exploring these stories as they go. Don’t feel bad for it.
2 Likes
I went back to finishing The Breakers. So, I should be good for the time being, but I totally get where you are coming from. I’m not going to change anything to the story and keep writing how I originally seen it.
2 Likes
To piggyback off this, a planner kind of knows their material going in, but a pantser may have to stop writing to look more things up than a planner would because some element of their story MUST work, right now.
I don’t do it all the time, but that’s because I have a wide range of random knowledge and don’t need to be 100% accurate in a 1st draft, but when I got a patch where I need to know something, right now? Omg, I’m dying.
3 Likes