# I have a cunning plan my lord.....or do I?



## kevingordon (Jul 1, 2014)

A sort of follow up to my last question.

Do you plan what you are going to write? OR do you just start typing and see where the mood takes you?

In my day job as a software engineer I have learned that just bashing at the keys with a rough idea and hoping for the best just leads to patches, constant new versions, bugs and "Oh, I didn't think about that" problems. Well designed code just works better and has a habit of not falling down under slight pressure.  

Now I am not turning this into a debate about the nature of art versus science...but I am curios as to what everyone thinks the pros and cons are of each approach. And to any other alternative approaches anyone else cares to share. 

I am planning on finding an idea I feel comfortable writing and then I am going to start planning out my novel. That way I can get a sense of whether or not it will stand on its own to legs before I dedicate hours of my life to writing my tale.

As an aside or follow up question, how much detail do you put in your plan? Character backgrounds/bios, location photos, research notes etc. Or is most of the creative information kept in your head, the links (research) on a flash drive/browser url list and your plan is just a rough plot that forms the skeleton on which the story hangs.

I hope the above makes sense and thanks for taking the time to read/reply.


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## Deafmute (Jul 1, 2014)

I generally have a document saved just for notes. I often start the novel not really knowing where it will go, but after one or to sessions writing I have a pretty solid idea of the whole thing. I put that idea into an outline and everytime I think of something I need to add down the road or to character backstory it goes in the notes. So to start off I have very little planning but I plan all the time when I am not actually writing once I get into a story its all i think about. It doesnt take long till every little detail is in that note pad then its just time to get those ideas into the story. 

I actually have a problem with this though. Once I get the whole story out of my head into the notes. I have a harder time getting myself to sit down and write. The fire that I started with dies down a bit. As a result my most prolific period of writing is at the start and its gets harder after that. I sometimes wonder if it wouldnt be better to not know what is next so I im alway excited as I sit down not knowing where it will go, and so i dont have great scene i want to get to getting in the way of the scenes I have to write first to get to the other scenes.


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## EmmaSohan (Jul 1, 2014)

I do best when I just put my characters in a scene and let them do what they want to do. So I'm a "pantser" -- I plan as little as possible.

But my WIP is a fantasy world, so I made sure I had a consistent world and a final scene before I started it.

The opposite is a "planner." I don't know why they get such a boring name.

Stephan King said he once got to a "dead end" in his almost finished novel and spent two weeks before he thought of a solution. So, working your way out of seeming dead ends is a skill. Bishop recently erased 30K words (http://www.writingforums.com/threads/147886-That-Horrible-Moment) because he didn't like where he was going.

So I know there are potential problems with not planning things out. I just can't write that way.


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## popsprocket (Jul 1, 2014)

I plan.

I'm perfectly happy to deviate from the plan, but the plan is always there as a safety net.

As for how thoroughly? It's hard to quantify that. Generally I get an idea and I write it down in my notebook. If it's a good idea then it tends to stick with me and marinates in my brain until I have more of an idea of what I want. Once I've got a plot and some characters I write a scene list. A 1:1 account of every scene in the book. Each scene in the list gets at least one paragraph, depending on how much detail I have in my head or any ideas that I know I want to include and not forget.

The scene list usually gets two drafts, more if there are big changes.

Then I start writing.


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## shadowwalker (Jul 1, 2014)

I don't plan anything. I think of a character, or a situation, and then I start writing. Haven't come a cropper yet.


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## Ixarku (Jul 1, 2014)

kevingordon said:


> In my day job as a software engineer I have learned that just bashing at the keys with a rough idea and hoping for the best just leads to patches, constant new versions, bugs and "Oh, I didn't think about that" problems. Well designed code just works better and has a habit of not falling down under slight pressure.




My day job is as a software tester, so it's always gratifying to encounter a developer who understands this.  Oh, the horrors I've seen...


Anyway, I always plan before I write.  What varies is how much planning I do and how I document it.  At the moment, I'm experimenting with a balance between pantsing and planning.  For larger works (ie the fantasy novel I'm working on), I create fairly extensive background material on the world, the history, the magic or technology, the major characters, even the politics.  I find it necessary to get the setting firmly fixed in my mind before I can proceed with plotting.  From there, plotting basically turns into a list of bullet points highlighting the major events, with additional details documented as the need strikes me.  When I get to writing, I use the bullet points as a guide, but the details unfold as I write.

I also started a short story last night from an idea that occurred to me a week ago.  I have about 90% of the major events in my head, a list of characters, and a very short list of bullet points so I don't forget my ideas.  But as I write this story, I just go with the flow.  The high-level events are in my head but I'm not sure how I will write out the details until the moment I'm actually doing it.  This story isn't in my usual comfort zone, so it's evolving into a weird off-kilter kind of thing.  I don't know if it will work out or not, but I'm having fun.

So, I'm learning that I need to do both pantsing and planning.  I need to plan, otherwise I don't know what to do, where to go, or how to get there, which turns me into a frustrated mess.  But I'm also impatient to get to the real work, so I try to avoid over-planning, since too much planning is just another form of procrastination.


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## woodenquill (Jul 1, 2014)

I have written many lines of code and most always have written or requested a logical sequence to follow. 
I have had to write to a break, assemble and test but is not my preferred method.
To date, I have written, for fun, nonfiction events from my life.
I started my first fiction piece a week or two ago. It starts with a two person dialog and I am trying to funnel it into a first person narrative of the events leading up to the time of the original dialog.  
Need to find a few more hours in the day.

Wooden Quill
Author of ill repute.
Bringer of doom.


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## EmmaSohan (Jul 1, 2014)

It might depend on genre too. When I do a real action scene -- which isn't often -- I plan. Things have to work, things have to be plausible, everything has to come together in a satisfying way, and all that takes planning.

When guy meets girl, I never plan what's going to happen.


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## T.S.Bowman (Jul 1, 2014)

EmmaSohan said:


> When guy meets girl, I never plan what's going to happen.



That's just about where I am in my WIP.

It's gonna be interesting to see how my MC handles it.


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## kevingordon (Jul 2, 2014)

EmmaSohan said:


> When guy meets girl, I never plan what's going to happen.



It's the only way you are going to get any sense of realism into the thing. Having it planned out would just make the whole thing seem a little...well staged at best or make one the protagonists come of as a little frightening at worst....


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## aliveatnight (Jul 2, 2014)

I do any research I need to know before I start writing, I plan out the basics for the characters (gender, name, any important skills/traits, and how they look), and I come up with the most important points in the story. For example, it may go like:
1. Gets in a fight
2. Is arrested
3. Gets out of jail
And whatever happens in the middle of those points is entirely unknown. I might have an idea here and there, but that's not often. I've found that over planning will shut my creativity off and nothing will get done.


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## Bishop (Jul 2, 2014)

kevingordon said:


> Do you plan what you are going to write? OR do you just start typing and see where the mood takes you?
> 
> As an aside or follow up question, how much detail do you put in your plan? Character backgrounds/bios, location photos, research notes etc. Or is most of the creative information kept in your head, the links (research) on a flash drive/browser url list and your plan is just a rough plot that forms the skeleton on which the story hangs.



I plan a little. I plan little scenes or situations. I think "okay, what happens if X characters are in Y situation?" then I start typing. That's usually the first scene in the book; then I plan an ending, or a middle scene that I work toward, and that's about it. It's not the mood that takes me places, it's my characters. They do all kinds of crazy stuff that I never expect... and they get shot for it a lot more than they'd like. So an answer to the follow up question, my plan has very little detail. Usually a snippet of dialogue at a key moment, or I know who's going to shoot who or how the villain will die/not die, etc, but the plan is very much fly-by-wire for me.


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## TWErvin2 (Jul 2, 2014)

I plan, doing an outline. It's sort of like a road map highlighted to take me from place to place (like a road trip vacation). Just as in a vacation, destinations change, sometimes you stay longer at a place than intended, or avoid/detour around anticipates stops, while also finding new and interesting places along the way. 

Thus, although I have an outline that helps me move foward (as I have something to write towards when I sit down, and I believe this is why I don't struggle with writer's block) when I sit down to write, nothing is written in stone, so to speak. None of my novels have remained absolutely true to the original plotted sequences.


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## Potty (Jul 2, 2014)

I plan an overall outline and all the little fiddly bits that an avid read might be able to poke holes in (Time travel loops holes etc). Everything else I write on the fly keeping to the outline I've laid out. The outline is basically the story as you might tell it to someone who asked... but there's no prose involved, that's all spontaneous.


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## Jeko (Jul 2, 2014)

I plan everything, in a way. But I don't write anything but the story I'm telling in whatever form of draft it takes.


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## Sam (Jul 2, 2014)

kevingordon said:


> In my day job as a software engineer I have learned that just bashing at the keys with a rough idea and hoping for the best just leads to patches, constant new versions, bugs and "Oh, I didn't think about that" problems. Well designed code just works better and has a habit of not falling down under slight pressure.



[ot]This is the sort of analogy that probably sounded amazing when you thought of it and wrote it down, but falls apart under scrutiny. My brother is a software engineer as well and he frequently codes on the fly. A good deal of his software written in this manner has been implemented into the business he works for. Very little patching and same for bugs. Your analogy is what they call in psychology the 'argument from incredulity'. "It doesn't work for me and therefore it cannot work period". It's flawed by its own premise, because not only are there people who write novels on the fly and devoid of any planning, there are programmers and engineers who code without planning. 

I know you specifically stated that you didn't want to turn this into a discussion, but you could have asked this question without the quasi-subtle criticism of people who don't plan -- the kind of veiled insult that irritates people who've been there, done that, and watched the worms eat holes in the T-shirt. None of this is your fault, of course, and I'm not trying to make you feel bad; but it is nonetheless a prevalent issue with new writers who've heard someone criticism non-planners, read someone who criticised non-planners, and then proceeded to make snap judgements about something they have little to no experience of. I would never presume to tell someone that planning was inferior in any way, but yet people deign to tell others that planning is "better and has a habit of not falling down under slight pressure". 

By all means plan. Ask questions about planning. But perhaps you would extend non-planners the courtesy of not ridiculing what they've been doing for years. It works for them, as planning seemingly works for you, and let's just leave the analogies at the door.[/ot]


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## Ixarku (Jul 2, 2014)

Sam said:


> [ot]This is the sort of analogy that probably sounded amazing when you thought of it and wrote it down, but falls apart under scrutiny. My brother is a software engineer as well and he frequently codes on the fly. A good deal of his software written in this manner has been implemented into the business he works for. Very little patching and same for bugs. Your analogy is what they call in psychology the 'argument from incredulity'. "It doesn't work for me and therefore it cannot work period". It's flawed by its own premise, because not only are there people who write novels on the fly and devoid of any planning, there are programmers and engineers who code without planning.
> [/ot]





This is a fair statement, although personally I'm not sure if I know any programmers who fall into the "pantser" category.  At least in my experience in software development, it's easy to confuse laziness with lack of planning.  I work with a few people who don't plan their work well and don't "pants" well enough to make up for it, either.  Hence, defects and emergencies for _me _to deal with.

Where I work, the corporation puts a lot of emphasis on planning, although in practical execution, planning often falls by the wayside.  The coding itself may or may not be planned out in detail by the actual coder, but in theory everything else in the overall management of the software development project is supposed to be.  The reasoning:  predictable, repeatable processes lead to predictable delivery and consistently higher quality results.   One key measure of quality is the incidence of defects in production.  So the theory is that better planning leads to more predictable execution which leads to fewer defects and overall lower costs associated with rework, which equals PROFIT.  Therefore, pantsing = bad and planning = good.  Better planning also means more opportunity for checks and balances - those reviews intended to catch defects earlier in the project.

This is all coming from a Waterfall model, of course, which is out of favor with a lot of development shops these days.  Personally I don't have any experience with AGILE, so I don't know how different the quality controls & planning are there.


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## Sam (Jul 2, 2014)

[ot]Once again, the argument from incredulity. Just because your corporation operates that way and stresses that protocol, it doesn't mean that any other way is wrong or incorrect. You see what I'm saying? Your experience and schooling on the subject has led you to believe what you believe, but you don't know every programmer who ever existed. You don't know every corporation that ever existed. You're basing your "pantsing = bad and planning = good" on a finite experience of one corporation. Do you deny that there are exceptionally talented programmers who can code exceptionally well without planning? I think you might be fooling yourself if you answer that with a no.[/ot]


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## garza (Jul 2, 2014)

How can you code without knowing what the result is supposed to be? How can you write a novel without some concept in mind even if you don't have a setting, characters, or plot before you start typing?

I'm neither a software engineer nor a published novelist, but in the good old days - 70s and early 80s - I wrote my share of assembly language routines to run in BASIC utilities and more recently I've turned out a couple of novels that friends say are pretty good. In the old days we were all 'hackers' at a time when that term meant a computer hobbyist writing his own software and not a criminal. 

Before software can be written, you must know what you want the programme to do. You can't start writing code and watch to see what you end up with. If you know what you want the software to do, you can start in writing without spending much time in detailed planning and, so to speak 'write on the fly', but as a minimum you must know what you want the end result to be.

In my writing I do not make outlines or detailed plans of any sort, but I know the ideas I want to express, the theme or themes of the story, and when I start writing I have that in mind as I go about creating characters, plot, and setting. In a sense I do write 'on the fly', but I have a sense of direction. So to me there is a closeparallel between writing software and writing a story. In both cases there must be purpose. In fiction the purpose may not be well-defined until well along in the writing process, but it must be in there somewhere. In non-fiction, of course, there is a close parallel because the purpose of the writing, the end result, must be clearly in mind before any writing begins.

This is not expressed very well, and I hope some of you can grasp what I'm trying to say.


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## Greimour (Jul 2, 2014)

Think I get you Garza, but that's where debating what pantsing and planning is... unless I actually misunderstood.



kevingordon said:


> *Do you plan what you are going to write? OR do you just start typing and see where the mood takes you?*
> 
> Now I am not turning this into a debate about the nature of art versus  science...*but I am curios as to what everyone thinks the pros and cons  are of each approach*.
> 
> I am planning on finding an idea I feel comfortable writing *and then I  am going to start planning out my novel.*


I am a little confused as to why a need to know our writing preference is needed and the pros and cons for planning vs pantsing. 
Wouldn't hints and tips on the planning process be sufficient seeing as you already fully intend to plan?

Everyone plans to different degrees, but I am a seat of the pants writer. That topic I've covered several times before though so not going to go into it.

Look Here

Pantsing, planning, whatever - it's a personality thing. Maybe a mind thing. Maybe a psychology thing. 

I was told I had to have an ending in mind before I could begin writing once before... I ended up sat there for hours trying to think of an ending. The next day I just started writing any old rubbish and before I knew it I was full flow into a story and 12,000 words later I was close to finishing. The end took me by surprise. I re-read it and it turned out I needed to tidy parts up. But if I'd waited for that ending before I even began, I would still be looking at a blank screen. Better for me to have a story to tidy up, than a screen containing no words.

 As it happened, I kept the story exactly as I had written it in essence, I just tidied up typos, verb confusions, tense confusion, removed a few adverbs here and there, tidied clunky sentences...  the story itself... the adventure, the underlying theme, the twists, the surprise ending, the characters - all stayed the same.

Still needed another edit by time I had finished but I was satisfied enough to move on from the subject. 
I had tried it someone elses way and failed.
My way works for me and that is why it is a 'pro' in a pro vs con scenario.

Pantsing *for me*:
Pros: It works
Cons: I am not skilled enough to knock one out in a single draft.

Planning *for me*:
Pros: - I will come back to this as I can't think of any.
Cons: Doesn't work.

***

Pros and cons are subjective to the individual, as is perhaps the ability to pants or plan - or perhaps even comprehend what planning/pantsing is or else pertains to.


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## Ixarku (Jul 2, 2014)

Sam said:


> [ot]Once again, the argument from incredulity. Just because your corporation operates that way and stresses that protocol, it doesn't mean that any other way is wrong or incorrect. You see what I'm saying? Your experience and schooling on the subject has led you to believe what you believe, but you don't know every programmer who ever existed. You don't know every corporation that ever existed. You're basing your "pantsing = bad and planning = good" on a finite experience of one corporation. Do you deny that there are exceptionally talented programmers who can't code exceptionally well without planning? I think you might be fooling yourself if you answer that with a no.[/ot]




Sam, you're misinterpreting what I said.  Which, to be honest, is my fault, and I kind of expected it.  But dinner was calling me and I opted to cook & eat, rather than to correct or elaborate on my post.

I'm not saying that I personally think pantsing is bad in and of itself.  At work, I don't particularly care how the steps upstream from me get handled as long as I get a smooth turnover on the project and we do what the company says we're supposed to do.  I'm paraphrasing what I think the corporation believes, and specifically in the context of an enterprise-level policy for rolling out and supporting software.  For that matter, stuff like CMMI-DEV and Waterfall exist precisely because pantsing your way through an entire large-scale software development project is a bad idea.  Project Management itself exists as a profession because companies recognize the need for proper planning and control during projects.  You can certainly pants your way through a specific task, but it's impractical to manage an entire project that way.  There are plenty of statistics and an entire history of failed and successful companies out there that back this up.

It's not like this stuff is my personal idea -- entire companies center their development processes around these ideas.  I don't deny that there are talented programmers who can't code exceptionally well without planning.  However, I can emphatically state that I've worked on many projects that went either went badly because of lack of planning or were rescued because people stopped in middle of a disaster to actually rethink and plan their next steps.  My experience is hardly singular.  In reality, the success of a development project depends on proper communication at all stages of development, and communication almost invariably means somebody is planning something somewhere.

Improvisation has its place, as does planning.  Yin and Yang.  Neither is universally applicable in all possible scenarios throughout all of existence.  I'm sure we can both list countless things where planning would be unheard of, or where pantsing would be akin to suicide.  But at a macro level, with the more people involved in a project, the greater the need for planning and control to ensure success, particularly as complexity arises in the design, deployment, or maintenance.  This is reality throughout the business world.


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## shadowwalker (Jul 2, 2014)

garza said:


> How can you write a novel without some concept in mind even if you don't have a setting, characters, or plot before you start typing?



Give me a photo, a sentence, a character, a place - and I can write a damn good story without any further plan than that. Guaranteed - because that's exactly what I've always done. And I'm getting darned tired of trying to convince other people of that _*fact*_. Maybe I'll just start saying the gremlins snuck in and planned it all. They'd probably believe that.


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## Ixarku (Jul 2, 2014)

shadowwalker said:


> Give me a photo, a sentence, a character, a place - and I can write a damn good story without any further plan than that. Guaranteed - because that's exactly what I've always done. And I'm getting darned tired of trying to convince other people of that _*fact*_. Maybe I'll just start saying the gremlins snuck in and planned it all. They'd probably believe that.




Seems to me the key difference between pantsing and planning is the amount time spent in thought before the actual action takes place.  With planners, it may be hours, days, weeks, months, even years of thought before the action begins.  With pantsers, it sounds like the thinking is measurable in seconds or fractions thereof.  TBH, I admire improvisational ability immensely and, in certain circumstances, I'm more than a bit envious of those who have it.


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## shadowwalker (Jul 2, 2014)

Ixarku said:


> Seems to me the key difference between pantsing and planning is the amount time spent in thought before the actual action takes place.  With planners, it may be hours, days, weeks, months, even years of thought before the action begins.  With pantsers, it sounds like the thinking is measurable in seconds or fractions thereof.  TBH, I admire improvisational ability immensely and, in certain circumstances, I'm more than a bit envious of those who have it.



If you haven't tried it, in any of its various forms, then making any statements about how it works is rather... imaginery. I assure you I think about what I've written as I'm writing the next part. I don't write whatever happens to pop into my head (and no, I don't have a huge re-write at the end, either).


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## Ixarku (Jul 2, 2014)

shadowwalker said:


> If you haven't tried it, in any of its various forms, then making any statements about how it works is rather... imaginery. I assure you I think about what I've written as I'm writing the next part. I don't write whatever happens to pop into my head (and no, I don't have a huge re-write at the end, either).





I have and I do.  I play guitar, for one thing, and that's not all about memorizing exactly how to play a song.  But I'm not going to get into arguing about the definitions of words again, so that's all I'm going to say.


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## garza (Jul 2, 2014)

Shaeowwalker - I'll use 'Venus in Transit' again as an example of what I mean. The idea came when I saw a photo on the Internet of Venus transiting the face of the sun. That photo got me thinking about how there are transition times in our lives, and that turned, with no planning, into the story of a girl making the transition from childhood to young womanhood. Once the idea was grasped, the story wrote itself. 

I needed that initial idea sparked by the picture to give me a theme for the story. Maybe you can write a successful story with absolutely no thought given to anything before you start, but I can't.


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## shadowwalker (Jul 2, 2014)

garza said:


> Maybe you can write a successful story with absolutely no thought given to anything before you start, but I can't.



That's fine. But when you make statements like "How can you write a novel without some concept in mind even if you don't have a setting, characters, or plot before you start typing?", you're implying that no one can. And that's what I (and others) get really, really tired of.


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## Bruno Spatola (Jul 2, 2014)

I think it's amazing that you can write without predetermined knowledge of where your story is going. Unbelievable, almost, because it's so different than how I imagine the average writer operates. I'd argue that's what stumps some other writers, in general: that it sounds counterintuitive, even though it clearly works for many artistic people. I read recently that guitarists aren't fully aware of what they're playing during improvisation until they've played it; that they use a different part of the brain than when playing a basic chord structure or whatever. Maybe you're tapped into the more illusive sub-brain (made that up).

I fall somewhere between the two, like I usually do when fruitlessly trying to define myself. I sometimes plan an entire story out before getting stuck in; others I write in one go, trying a more spontaneous method of storytelling, but it's still totally conscious. I'd guess I don't have the self confidence to write first, think later. I mean that in a non-reductionist way. I believe there's some seriously complicated neurological business going on there, personally. Anyway, who cares in the end; do whatever feels the most comfortable and efficient to you.


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## J Anfinson (Jul 3, 2014)

I tend to think of key events and characters ahead of time, but rarely have any idea how it's going to get from A to B to C, etc, until I sit down to write the story. I like it that way, too. The eureka moments are what keeps it exciting for me.


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## Sam (Jul 3, 2014)

garza said:


> I needed that initial idea sparked by the picture to give me a theme for the story. *Maybe you can write a successful story with absolutely no thought given to anything before you start, but I can't.*


Stephen King made a career out of writing successful stories with absolutely no thought whatsoever given to anything before he started. Robert Ludlum was one of the greatest thriller authors who ever lived and he made a career of same. There are hundreds more who've never planned a story in their life and their work is included in the pantheon of world-class literature. 

It's really frustrating to have to keep assuring people that pantsers know what they're doing. When will people understand that it isn't a valid argument to say, "I can't do it and therefore find it difficult to believe that anyone can"?


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## Jeko (Jul 3, 2014)

Yay, another thread disrupted by the non-existent 'planner' and 'pantser' division. Though people would still hold their misconceptions without the terms, we'd be able to get further if people didn't think use them, because we'd be talking about the depth of the issue rather than the surface-level assumptions.


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## Sam (Jul 3, 2014)

It doesn't seem to be that much of a non-existent division, given that so much ignorance and vitriol abounds on the topic. 

But, I digress, and I apologise for derailing the thread.


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## garza (Jul 3, 2014)

I don't plan, but I do need an idea. I can't write without some germ of an idea for starters. So if everyone else starts typing with no idea whatever of why or what, that's all for the good. I never said you can't. I asked the question, 'How can you?' How do you know what the first words should be? When I saw the photo titled 'Venus in Transit' it gave me an idea - not a plan, but an idea, 'people in transit'. I can't write without that spark.

Another thing I can't do, and this I believe is related to whether a plan is needed,  is write about people I've never known or places I've never lived. How can you create a character in a culture you've never experienced? How can anyone write successfully about a school of magic if such a school does not exist? I know I can't, but J.K. Rowling did. How did she do that? It's beyond me. My stories about the early days of the war in Vietnam and about the Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi and about the Civil War in El Salvador are based on my knowledge, my personal experience, in those places and among the people involved. The longest story I've written, the novel _Sketches from the Life of Paul_, uses my 20 years experience of living in Belize. (That one I admit was planned, outlines and all, from the beginning though it was sparked by a book of the same title about the life of the Apostle Paul by Mrs E.G. White..) I can't create a world unlike any world I've ever known, but Isaac Asimov and Ray Bradbury had no trouble doing exactly that. How could they do that? I don't know. 

Sorry to have offended. Perhaps I was careless in the way I expressed what I was trying to say.


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## Kyle R (Jul 3, 2014)

garza said:


> I don't plan, but I do need an idea. I can't write without some germ of an idea for starters. So if everyone else starts typing with no idea whatever of why or what, that's all for the good. I never said you can't. I asked the question, 'How can you?' How do you know what the first words should be? When I saw the photo titled 'Venus in Transit' it gave me an idea - not a plan, but an idea, 'people in transit'. I can't write without that spark.
> 
> Another thing I can't do, and this I believe is related to whether a plan is needed,  is write about people I've never known or places I've never lived. How can you create a character in a culture you've never experienced? How can anyone write successfully about a school of magic if such a school does not exist? I know I can't, but J.K. Rowling did. How did she do that? It's beyond me. My stories about the early days of the war in Vietnam and about the Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi and about the Civil War in El Salvador are based on my knowledge, my personal experience, in those places and among the people involved. The longest story I've written, the novel _Sketches from the Life of Paul_, uses my 20 years experience of living in Belize. (That one I admit was planned, outlines and all, from the beginning though it was sparked by a book of the same title about the life of the Apostle Paul by Mrs E.G. White..) I can't create a world unlike any world I've ever known, but Isaac Asimov and Ray Bradbury had no trouble doing exactly that. How could they do that? I don't know.
> 
> Sorry to have offended. Perhaps I was careless in the way I expressed what I was trying to say.



I'm a plotter myself, but I do pants from time to time, as a writing warm-up exercise. So, to answer your first question, "If you start typing with no idea... How do you know what the first words should be?"...

For me, I just make up a name (male or female) and a physical action.

Adam stood by the door.

There's my first sentence. Now an image forms in my mind, of this character, Adam, standing by the door. I begin to see his features, his clothes, what the door looks like. I'll describe these things in the following sentences, and while I'm describing them, a multitude of reasons for _why _Adam is by the door will pop into my mind.

I'll choose the one that seems the most interesting to write. Any ideas that pop up along the way, I'll go with them, too. A creature with three eyes slithers in from the ceiling? Sounds great! Let's put that in there, as well. 

Then, if I choose to revise the writing, I'll go back in and streamline the opening. The first few words I wrote may end up being deleted completely. If so, that'd be okay, too—they served their purpose by being the creative spark to get the ball rolling.

I don't know if that's how other pantsers operate, but that's how I do it when I feel like writing without an idea. The process can lead down some interesting paths.

Sometimes, I'll pants out a piece of flash and then, with the concept I come up in that piece, I'll sit down and plot out a full-length story based on the idea.

Once I've got an idea, I become an extensive plotter. There's a certain assurance, a safety line that outlining provides me. I like the assurance of knowing the general story, from start to end, before I begin writing it. I like being able to plan the peaks and valleys of the plot, the high points and the low points. I like scattering revelations and misdirections and having them add up neatly at the end. Outlining reassures me that I'll have a plot I'll be happy with, one I don't have think about in terms of where it's going while writing, so I can focus purely on the quality of each scene itself. 

Some writers work better without a map. I liken them to brave explorers blazing trails across an unknown countryside. Me, I can't go anywhere without my GPS. :encouragement:


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## garza (Jul 3, 2014)

I don't understand the concept of 'pants', but no doubt it has meaning for those more practised in the writing of fiction.

You used a prompt - 'Adam stood by the door'. That's a starter idea. It reminds me of the first line of a short story I wrote recently - 'Lester always smelled like a wet dog'. That was the initial twinkle of an idea with no knowledge who Lester is other than he was an olfactory nuisance, but four thousand words later I had the whole story and knew all about him. The story has been reworked slightly and put into the sketchbook _Seven Miles on a Dirt Road_ as a segment called 'Lester'. 

But I could not have written the story without that germ of an idea. The line opened up all sorts of possibilities, just as the name of the photo 'Venus in Transit' opened up all sorts of ideas from which developed a bit of flash fiction. Once that line was on the screen, the rest followed easily. Others, I understand, can start to write with no such idea or prompt at all. I'm not that skilled.


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## Greimour (Jul 4, 2014)

garza said:


> Shaeowwalker - I'll use 'Venus in Transit' again as an example of what I mean. The idea came when I saw a photo on the Internet of Venus transiting the face of the sun. That photo got me thinking about how there are transition times in our lives, and that turned, with no planning, into the story of a girl making the transition from childhood to young womanhood. Once the idea was grasped, the story wrote itself.
> 
> I needed that initial idea sparked by the picture to give me a theme for the story. Maybe you can write a successful story with absolutely no thought given to anything before you start, but I can't.



That actually sounds like pantsing to me. Haha.

I am a seat of the pants writer. I sit down and I start writing. Can't get more basic than that. Still, it is generally how you described it there. The story wrote itself. 

It is not that I don't think about something before I begin, it is simply that the thought can be limited to a single thing. A pebble, a photo, a scene, an action... anything. From there the story writes itself. 

As shadow said, give her 





> a photo, a sentence, a character, a place - and I can write a damn good story without any further plan than that. Guaranteed



From what you said, you wrote a story based on a thought presented by a picture. Did you write out a huge plan describing the start, middle, end, the characters within, the underlying theme, the morale of the story? ... Or did you just write with the thought in your head and let the story do its own work? 

---

To the subject in general and not primarily in response to Garza I say this:

I've lost count of how many "how to plan" threads, books, web pages, etc. that I have read. But they all did nothing for me. 

This I should point out though... especially for those that believe writing by the seat of the pants is unrealistic, impossible, not real or otherwise incomprehensible.

IT CAN BE DONE.

There are as many topics by people who successfully write by the seat of their pants as there are by people who successfully use planning. The difference is, there are far more people who can't do either that decide to write on the topic of how to plan. This gives a general opinion that is biased in the belief that planning is better. 

I know it can be done because people do it and have done it. Some of the traditionally published authors on this site are such people... and no matter what the vast majority of people claim or teach or anything else. What matters is what works for the individual.


~Kev.


P.S. 

Garza... 'Pants' or 'Pantsing' is in reference to 'Write by the seat of your pants' which is a term coined from a phrase - 'Fly by the seat of your pants' which means: Decide a course of action as you go along, using your own initiative and  perceptions rather than a pre-determined plan or mechanical aids.

Perhaps flying by the seat of your pants is a phrase/term you have heard before?

Seems to me from your replies you are just as able to pants or plan equally well.


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## mmkp1990 (Jul 4, 2014)

I tend to have a basic idea in my head. From that idea I tend to know the basic concept and the ending. I then proceed with making a list of everything that happens in the story, then flesh it out with more detail.

In other words, I plan out my idea and expand and change when neccearsy.


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## bazz cargo (Jul 4, 2014)

> *OP Kevingordon*. As an aside or follow up question, how much detail do you put in your  plan? Character backgrounds/bios, location photos, research notes etc.  Or is most of the creative information kept in your head, the links  (research) on a flash drive/browser url list and your plan is just a  rough plot that forms the skeleton on which the story hangs.



One sentence is enough to focus on. A lot of writers start off with a massive info dump, then thin it out as the edit requires.


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## Nickleby (Jul 4, 2014)

kevingordon said:


> In my day job as a software engineer I have learned that just bashing at the keys with a rough idea and hoping for the best just leads to patches, constant new versions, bugs and "Oh, I didn't think about that" problems. Well designed code just works better and has a habit of not falling down under slight pressure.



I've done some coding over the years. You simply can't create a nontrivial application without some kind of template. Maybe you've done the same kind of project before, so you already know what goes where. If nothing else, you have to know what parameters to pass back and forth.

There are some similarities between coding and writing. The necessity for an outline is not one of them. Personally, I do need an outline for anything beyond flash level, but I've learned that that's the way I have to write. I wouldn't tell you to do it that way, any more than I would tell you you have to write sports fiction as a metaphor for Kierkegaard's relationship with Scholasticism. You should write what you want to write, the way you want to write it.

I can offer hints and tips, but you're free to ignore them or use them or adulterate them to get the effects you want. Try writing with an outline, and try it without. If you think the outline is a waste of time, toss it. If you want a graph with different colors for each plot line, cross-referenced to a chapter list and a character chart and a calendar, with eight-by-ten color photo glossies and all the rest, I'm your guy.

In the end the only thing that matters is the words you put on the page. How you get there is up to you.


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## Kyle R (Jul 4, 2014)

kevingordon said:


> how much detail do you put in your plan?



For novels, I start with a blank four-act structure document, with five beats per act (for a total of twenty beats). These are my basic, must-have scenes that I want to hit (things like Setup, Inciting Incident, Midpoint Reversal, All is Lost, et cetera...). I use a modified version of Blake Snyder's beat sheet, as explained by Tim Stout here:

http://timstout.wordpress.com/story-structure/blake-snyders-beat-sheet/

_If anyone wants to learn more about this particular approach, I recommend reading the Save the Cat! trilogy series by Blake Snyder. 
_
Once I've got my ideas for my scene(s) for each beat, I write each scene out as a flash vignette, around 250-500 words each. I do this until I've written a flash scene for every beat in my outline.

When I'm done, I end up with a full outline that reads like a novelette, clocking in at around 10,000 words.

This becomes not only my outline, but my novel itself. I go in and I begin fleshing out each vignette—adding more detail to the setting, thickening the dialogue, layering the conflict. Each vignette grows from a few hundred words to a few thousand words. Pretty soon I'm in novel territory.

Right now, using this approach, I'm at around 78,000 words, closing in on my target goal of 90,000. 

If someone's looking for an outlining approach to try, maybe this one would work. It's one of my own design, but it's certainly not my original idea. It's more like a hybrid of the _Blake Snyder's Beat Sheet_ and _Randy Ingermanson's__ Snowflake Method_. :encouragement:


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## T.S.Bowman (Jul 4, 2014)

Greimour said:


> IT CAN BE DONE.



While I appreciate the article, the writer's advice isn't really close to the process I use.

The writer started with a character...but she also knew something about those characters before starting. Then she got into the "answering the questions" etc part of things.

I just write. Maybe it's to my detriment. But I like the way I feel when something happens in my story that I didn't expect. I like the feeling when a question/motivation/conflict resolves itself. 

For me, that is one of the purest joys in writing. It may take me a while to get there (6 years on y novel and counting) but when I DO get there, it's one of the best feelings I have ever known.


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## Greimour (Jul 4, 2014)

T.S.Bowman said:


> While I appreciate the article, the writer's advice isn't really close to the process I use.
> 
> The writer started with a character...but she also knew something about those characters before starting. Then she got into the "answering the questions" etc part of things.
> 
> ...



Yeah, doesn't match me either - I didn't actually thoroughly read that particular article, I just found a random persons method of pantsing and used it as example... but the main point I was making was that pantsing can be done. There is no determinable definition for pantsing beyond that which states you do not use a practiced and preached method of 'planning' ... 

If you dont use a pre-determined plan or any writing aides, then it is pantsing. A predetermined plan would be written, drawn, outlined etc... not simply thoughts in your head. Aides would include said written plans and also be story structuring techniques such as the 25 ways to plot by Chuck Wendig, or the Snowflake method by Randy Ingermanson.

I am the reader of what I write, like you. I learn as I go. I don't know what my characters are going to do until they do it. I don't add Bobby George because I want to or decide to, Bobby George walks into my story and says hello. No plan before his appearance. A character comes in and it's simply "Oh, Hi there..." from my point of view.

^_^


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## garza (Jul 5, 2014)

Now that 'pantsing' has been defined, it's clearly not my way of writing. As with my computer, a start button is required even if I must install it myself. I must have a place to start - an idea, a word, a sentence, something, anything that can provide a prompt. I rarely plan in the sense of writing an outline or summary or scene sketches, but if there is no spark then there is no story. 'Flying by the seat of the pants' means having no visible point of reference. My story can't start without a visible point of reference even if it's only one word.

With coding, the spark must be whatever end result is intended. I can't start ( or couldn't, back in the day when I wrote a lot of code out of self defence) without knowing what the code is supposed to accomplish. Seems strange to me that anyone could do what was suggested in an earlier post - sit down and start writing without any idea of what the code was supposed to do. How does that work? You write a few thousand lines and then say, 'oh, now I see what this is supposed to do.'


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## Greimour (Jul 5, 2014)

And we're off topic again. 

I tried in my last post to include types of planning, as the OP asked for methods so I included Snowflake Method in the post, which clearly falls in that category. But a lot of our posts keep falling into pantsing vs planning. We need to keep the replies on topic or take the discussion to the appropriate Thread.



garza said:


> Now that 'pantsing' has been defined, it's clearly not my way of writing. As with my computer, a start button is required even if I must install it myself. I must have a place to start - an idea, a word, a sentence, something, anything that can provide a prompt. I rarely plan in the sense of writing an outline or summary or scene  sketches, but if there is no spark then there is no story. 'Flying by  the seat of the pants' means having no visible point of reference. My  story can't start without a visible point of reference even if it's only  one word.



And there it is. Think of a Pilot - he still needs the plane. An engine. Flight Lessons. The Horizon. There was a Pilot who flew from America to Ireland in 1938 by his own judgement as there was little technology in planes at the time to help him with his Navigation. That's pretty much when the term was created. Douglas somebody (i could google it but I have only just woke up and I am lazy)

Then think to what shadow said: A photo, a place, a character a sentence....

Sure you need that spark in the first place... but lets not get pedantic. A PC hardly counts as a mechanical aid; did the Pilot not use landing gear to help him land..? .... that's not really the point or issue, is it? It's the navigation process mostly - getting from A to B... you are already at A (idea, no matter how you got it) and possibly B (where you're aiming for the story to end - or else land this plane of yours) ... without planning how to get from A to B - your story navigates itself. Pantsing. 

You can even have connecting flights, so again, let's not get overly concerned with minor details.

Anyway, as it seems people either don't want to listen or don't care - I will end my involvement in this thread here as there is nothing left for me to contribute to the OP's _actual_ questions anymore.

~Kev.

[Edit]
Just to recap:

*Seat of Pants*
Pilot needs flying lessons, we need lessons to write
Pilot needs plane, we need tools to write (pen, paper - PC/printer)
Pilot needs to start the flight from somewhere, we need a beginning
Pilot knows where he hopes to land but has no set flight path except his own judgement, for this he may use certain geographical landmarks or the stars - equally, we might "think" _character will do this, this, that, and this on his journey_... but by the end result_ I hope to finish here_. And that would be basically the connecting flights I was on about. or else partially describe Bowmans method. 

*Planning*
Where as a planner decides the entire path of the flight and using tools, devices, plans and techniques or methods - follows that path as closely as possible with little deviation. 

*Conclusion*
I think I have covered it enough at this point to at least prevent some of the confusion. I get an idea and sometimes have a vague idea for the ending, but beyond the thoughts in my head, the PC (and/or pen & paper) there is little else involved in my writing process. 
Idea/thoughts - begin. 
Pretty much all there is to it for me. So I am kind of on the extreme side of pantsing and I am not the only one on the forum who writes this way, as clearly ShadowWalker has stated that she does pretty much the same thing. And as many of us has seen in her writing, she is very capable of doing it to high standard. There are others on this site who are published authors using the same 'no planning' method/s. Simply winging it from start to end with nothing more than an idea.


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## garza (Jul 5, 2014)

'Flying by the seat of the pants' has nothing to do with navigating to a destination so can have no relation to planning or not planning a piece of writing. If a pilot executes a fully co-ordinated turn using ailerons, rudder, and elevator, the seat of his pants will tell him that he is flying straight and level, and if he has no visual reference to the outside or fails to properly interpret his instruments he could be in a spiral headed for a crash and not know it. The relation to writing could be that the writer feels hat each sentence is properly written, though it may not be headed in the right direction. The expression cannot properly be used in relation to planning or not planning a story. 

The expression 'flying by the seat of the pants originated soon after the Wright brothers demonstrated the practicality of heavier than air flight. Flight instructors used the expression to tell the student how to know if he is co-ordinating his controls properly in a turn. ⁭If you take flying lessons today you will be taught how to know by the seat of your pants you are making a co-ordinated turn.

Douglas 'Wrong Way' Corrigan knew exactly where he was going. He was near-sighted with the same level of myopia I have. He was licenced for domestic but not for international flight. Nevertheless, he was determined to fly the Atlantic. So you see, 'flying by the seat of the pants' has naught to do with planning but only in execution.. Corrigan planned his flight carefully. So the term 'pantsing' is not a correct term to use for a writer who is not planning his writing. The term 'freewriter' might be applied, but that could mean having no plan along with no eventual destination.

My novels and my sketchbook _Seven Miles on a Dirt Road_ have been carefully planned. My short fiction, all the way up to _Harry_ at 45,000 words, are not planned, though after beginning _Harry_ I did stop and draw up a rough outline because of the complexity of the temporal changes - multi-level flashbacks. 

Shorter fiction I do not plan, but I do start with an idea and know pretty well how the story will end. That _initial idea_ is what I believe is essential. How can a story be written without such an idea? I can't, and I'd love to know how others can, just as I'd love to know how Asimov and Bradbury did what they did.


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## Greimour (Jul 5, 2014)

I am going to respond only because I can just about justify it with the OP questions:


> Now I am not turning this into a debate about the nature of art versus  science...but I am curios as to what everyone thinks the pros and cons  are of each approach.



Your arguments against what pantsing is highlight parts of the pro's and cons, so by that as my justification for it being in this thread, I have decided I will respond. I have been reprimanded for going off topic one time too many already. I have no intention of arguing this point further so if the topic deviates any further I will be unable to respond even if I want to.


First I would like to say: wow. 
Not in the sense of being awed, just that once again you come out with a pedantic attitude. 

I can do it too you know... take a term and focus on only one aspect of it. Or break down an example to turn it back against the one giving it. Focusing on minor details can easily let you do such pointless things ceaselessly, letting you argue a non-issue indefinitely. I only wished to explain to you certain aspects because you can't seem to grasp the notion of what pantsing is and refuse to accept it at all. Sure you pretty words don't directly state that pantsing does not exist, it simply argues against every point of what pantsing is or what debaters claim it to be.

People have been debating over pantsing vs planning and what each entails for years. I hardly expected my point to be agreed and the case dropped, but I at least expected you to get the point I was making. Which was my only real intention. To let you understand the point I was making. As it happens you refuse.

The term 'Flying by the seat of your pants' did not begin with the wright brothers. It first started in 1930s, though the exact date can't be positive, it was first widely used with Corrigans flight to Ireland in 1938. Considering Wilbur Wright died in like 1912 (or there abouts) and they realized there dream of flight in around 1903 - there is a substantial gap between their beginning and the phrase of flying by the seat of your pants.

That would be arguing a non-issue though. As seems to have been happening a lot in this thread.

Point 1:


> Nevertheless, he was determined to fly the Atlantic. So you see, 'flying  by the seat of the pants' has naught to do with planning but only in  execution..


Erm... are you arguing your point or mine? Naught to do with planning, only execution... exactly! What the hell. 

Because Corrigan was so good at flying he didn't need instruments and radios and other luxuries that are common in today's most basic planes. 
Equally, writers are so good at their craft, they do not need to plan, plot, outline or otherwise use tools beyond that of their mind and a pen.

Point 2.


> 'Flying by the seat of the pants' has nothing to do with navigating to a  destination so can have no relation to planning or not planning a piece  of writing. If a pilot executes a fully co-ordinated turn using  ailerons, rudder, and elevator, the seat of his pants will tell him that  he is flying straight and level,



Navigation is always about point A to point B. By the very definition, navigation is in part "controlling the movement of a craft or vehicle from one place to another" Air Navigation is no different except the said craft is flying. In terms of writing, it would simply be that the 'craft' being moved is not a machine but the story itself.

Navigation on a broader definition (for this I will use aviation seeing as you are adamant on arguing that point simply because of a few bad choice of words on my part)  then 'navigation' includes the use of tools such as beacons, radar, air flight control, etc... and then you take Corrigan, who used the bare minimum.  

Pilot and writer aren't exactly directly comparable. It basically equates to removing tools use for 'planning' in the sense of writing a story.  
But this also includes what I stated with point 1. 
You said: "If a pilot executes a fully co-ordinated turn using  ailerons, rudder, and elevator, the seat of his pants will tell him that  he is flying straight and level"

Well, when a writer creates a sentence, he (or she) will know what that sentence is doing - just like a pilot would know what the plane is doing when he makes a turn. 
Get the comparison?

Point 3.


> So the term 'pantsing' is not a correct term to use for a writer who is  not planning his writing. The term 'freewriter' might be applied, but  that could mean having no plan along with no eventual destination.


Not even a little bit. 'Free writer"? I am sorry, but when I write, I have a topic, I care about spelling... in fact, everything that generally equates to free writer is everything I am not. Which is to say I do not write without regard to spelling, grammar, or topic which in turn produces raw, often unusable material. 

Not even a little bit. I am sure Sam's published work will be astounded to find out it was written by a free writer who didn't care for such things as spelling and grammar.

Point 3:


> Shorter fiction I do not plan, but I do start with an idea and know pretty well how the story will end. That _initial idea_  is what I believe is essential. How can a story be written without such  an idea? I can't, and I'd love to know how others can, just as I'd love  to know how Asimov and Bradbury did what they did.



An idea isn't planning. As that quote points out. 'I do not plan but start with an idea' ... That's the biggest point of all. Sure, from a technical standpoint you can 'make plans' in your head. But I can also 'fly a plane' in my head. Unfortunately I can't do that in real life. Equally, people can't write a full story straight from their head. They have to first write down a plan. Write an outline. Write a timeline. Draw maps. Write character Bio's. The list is huge... all of that is planning and plotting. 
A seat of the pants writer sits in his chair and writes. Everything comes straight from their head. Sure, a little research may be needed part way in, like knowing which is port and which is starboard on a ship - but does that moment then mean they are no longer pantsing? Of course not! They just had to check their facts - they didn't do said research ahead of time. They probably didn't even know they needed such information - where a planner may have foreseen the need for said information and researched it "ahead of time"

Are you starting to see what I am saying yet?
From your head such things like ideas, thoughts, conceptions, etc... are not planning. 
Not in the sense of what 'planning' is defined to, but in the sense of what 'planning' a story equates to. 
The two types of planning are different...

 If you plan to go make a brew (which is a thought in your head) that is a different type of plan to 'writing a plan/plot for your story' ...  the two are different. 
"Free" can mean 'costs nothing' ... and it can also mean 'unrestrained' .. and then there are more ways you can define free, such as with liberty. ... 
"Plan" too has differences. Plan (in your head) is not the same as Plan (write a plan for a story) 

Ugh, seriously, this is the end of my involvement on this thread. If you still don't get the differences it is beyond my ability to enlighten you - or it is beyond your ability to ever comprehend it. Or perhaps you just stubbornly refuse it like a man who just heard of carrot cake for the first time refusing to believe that carrots in a cake could ever be eaten.

Whatever the case, if you have further issue with this and would like to engage me directly on the matter - I do not mind if we do so in another thread or in private messaging where it will not affect the topic of discussion here.


~Kev.


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## shadowwalker (Jul 5, 2014)

Greimour said:


> If you still don't get the differences it is beyond my ability to enlighten you - or it is beyond your ability to ever comprehend it. Or perhaps you just stubbornly refuse it like a man who just heard of carrot cake for the first time refusing to believe that carrots in a cake could ever be eaten.
> 
> ~Kev.



Just say it's the gremlins. Easier on everybody.


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## garza (Jul 5, 2014)

I have no idea what you are on about, Greimour, but I'm certain you are correct.


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## Morkonan (Jul 5, 2014)

kevingordon said:


> A sort of follow up to my last question.



PS - Love your thread title! 



> Do you plan what you are going to write? OR do you just start typing and see where the mood takes you?



I know where I am going and, largely, how I am going to get there. I also know, with fair certainty, where I'm going to actually end up. However, in-between, I leave plenty of room for creative moments and flights of fancy to be explored.



> In my day job as a software engineer I have learned that just bashing at the keys with a rough idea and hoping for the best just leads to patches, constant new versions, bugs and "Oh, I didn't think about that" problems. Well designed code just works better and has a habit of not falling down under slight pressure.



Accomplished writer/coders have made the same comparison. So, you're in good company.



> Now I am not turning this into a debate about the nature of art versus science...but I am curios as to what everyone thinks the pros and cons are of each approach. And to any other alternative approaches anyone else cares to share. ..



This is the Plotting vs Non-Plotting argument.

In general, if you're a Plotter, you'll have less revisions and a bit more structure to help you along the way. If you're a non-plotter, you can more easily take advantage of sudden inspiration, but you'll probably have a lot more drafts and dead ends.

In the end, a good balance is what most follow, though some notable authors are meticulous in their adherence to their chosen form. It's really up to you - Try both and see which you favor. It may also be that one style suits you for a particular type of story while another provides you with the better choice. 

For myself, I'm a loose plotter, but with certain emphasis on specific details that I want to cover and goals I want to reach. The rest is up to the spirit of the pen.


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## shadowwalker (Jul 5, 2014)

Morkonan said:


> but you'll probably have a lot more drafts and dead ends.



Depending, of course, on whether you edit/revise as you go, and/or think about what you've already written before you add something new or just puke out words and edit later. And frankly, those apply whether you plot ahead or not. Not to beat a dead horse, but non-plotters are not necessarily (or even often) _randomly _writing.


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## Sam (Jul 5, 2014)

> In general, if you're a Plotter, you'll have less revisions and a bit more structure to help you along the way. If you're a non-plotter, you can more easily take advantage of sudden inspiration, but you'll probably have a lot more drafts and dead ends.



There's absolutely no substance to this claim whatsoever. It's a canard bandied around by people who have some sort of gripe against non-planners (maybe they're jealous they can't do it) and sprout rubbish claims that are at best spurious. 

I had one draft and one edit of _Dereliction of Duty _and it was accepted for traditional publication thereafter. There were no dead ends and no "a lot more drafts". When will people stop trying to speak on behalf of thousands of writers whom they know nothing about?


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## stormageddon (Jul 5, 2014)

This is basically me:



J Anfinson said:


> I tend to think of key events and characters ahead of time, but rarely have any idea how it's going to get from A to B to C, etc, until I sit down to write the story. I like it that way, too. The eureka moments are what keeps it exciting for me.


I used to straight pants, but after spending three months filling a ~150 000 word notebook and finding at the end that only about 5000 words were salvageable, I decided to alter my approach; it wasn't working for me. Those three months weren't wasted - I learnt a lot about myself as a writer, and my writing was easily twice as good at the end as it was at the start. Which brings me to a fairly random point:



kevingordon said:


> That way I can get a sense of whether or not it will stand on its own to legs before I dedicate hours of my life to writing my tale.


No time spent writing is time wasted - you might get to the end of your novel, look back on it, and discover that it's the worst thing ever penned by a member of the human race. I know I've been there. But (for fear of stating the obvious) the more you write, the better you'll become at writing, and the chance of you coming out with something suitable for public consumption on your next attempt will improve all the while. If it makes you a better writer, it's worth the time dedicated (even if the end product is nothing more than word vomit).

The planning vs pantsing thing just comes down to what does/doesn't work for you, as has been said. I have discovered that I need a little more direction than straight pantsing would give me, and have known all the while that I'm far too fickle for in-depth planning to work for me. I've ended up with a hybrid approach, as many (if not most) writers do.

Now Mr Gordon, I'm (perhaps incorrectly) assuming you're new-ish to writing, and my advice to you is simply that you don't settle on any one thing as right for you until you've tried a few different approaches. At worst, you'll have fun  and at best...well, as I'm sure you know, all Blackadder fans are programmed for greatness (as well as exceptionally good-looking, but let's keep this relevant to writing) <3


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## Kyle R (Jul 5, 2014)

Morkonan said:


> In general, if you're a [...]



I think this is where the arguments start (not from you, Mork, but from any of us who use these disclaimers). Generalizations, by definition, don't apply to everyone. So, when they're stated, those who are the exceptions tend to take offense.

Probably better to avoid generalizations when possible. Nobody (neither pantsers, nor plotters) appreciates being misrepresented. :grief:


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## J.T. Chris (Jul 5, 2014)

This is the biggest waste of a writer's time, arguing in this thread about Plotting vs. Not-Plotting. If you sell it, who cares how you made it.


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## Morkonan (Jul 7, 2014)

shadowwalker said:


> ...Not to beat a dead horse, but non-plotters are not necessarily (or even often) _randomly _writing.



I agree!

But, in general, non-plotters will "probably" end up with more revision steps and drafts than plotters. It's just a general tendency, all other things being equal. (An experienced non-plotter who has written many works would, as expected, be much more efficient than the most studious first-time plotter. Then again, those sorts of writers wouldn't have submitted the question to a internet forum.)


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## bazz cargo (Jul 7, 2014)

It is when the nitty gritty hits and I have to remove my pants and write by clenched buttocks that I know things are getting intense.


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## shadowwalker (Jul 8, 2014)

Morkonan said:


> But, in general, non-plotters will "probably" end up with more revision steps and drafts than plotters.



I'd like to see where you found your information on that. I have found that some writers, _whether they are plotters or not_, will have extensive revisions and numerous drafts; other writers, _whether they are plotters or not_, will have few drafts and they will all be very clean. The difference is _not _whether one plots or not - it's whether one feels they should get all their stuff down on paper and then sort it out, or if they take their time with the initial draft and sort it out as they're writing.


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## siliconpoetry (Jul 8, 2014)

kevingordon said:


> A sort of follow up to my last question.
> 
> Do you plan what you are going to write? OR do you just start typing and see where the mood takes you?
> 
> ...


I have done it both ways thus far out of two projects that I have some-what completed. 1 is a 100 cell comic and the other is a short story about the old west. The comic I planned out every detail about the characters from writing character bios, indicating what their voice was like, how they fit into the plot, how they don't/can't fit into the plot. The story was planned with plot points I called bounce points, they were dynamic parts of the story where such and such must happen in some sort of way. 

For the short story, I wrote a 1 page document just of poetic prose that I liked. I then formulated a character for the protagonist through just his first main interaction in the story(a plot point from the poem) and just started writing. It turned out to my approval albeit wordy and a decent length (3,500 words). Since I had the character fleshed out from the last writing session, I planned out just in my head the next chapter of the story after letting it sit for a long time. I then did the same thing with the third chapter. What I noticed is the more I planned without actually writing it down in some sort of systematic way the less I was able to write. IMO, there is a sweet spot in between too much planning and too little when it comes to story writing. But that is just my humble opinion.

I am now on a third project, that is sci-fi/fantasy based. I did the same process as the western. I just started with some poetic prose, thought about it for a few days and just started typing. In the first few pages, I came up with setting, a few main characters, the antagonist and the beginnings of a plot. Next I will flesh out the story and plot with the created characters and hopefully find the sweet spot that won't make me sit on my hands and allow me to write a longer 300 page novel. Fingers crossed.


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## Jeko (Jul 8, 2014)

> But, in general, non-plotters will "probably" end up with more revision steps and drafts than plotters. It's just a general tendency, all other things being equal.



Any writer who decides their method on what will 'probably' happen isn't engineering their procedure well. A writer should decide based on what suits and best helps them and what they want to do; so, 'probably' doesn't come into it, IMO.


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