I found a cure. The school of hard knocks. The 43,306 words that survived. I am only pansterish enough now to write this post without an outline. Even that thought gives me pause. All my beautiful scenes lying there pitifully... too weak to cry...too ugly to mourn...too valuable to part with. *sob* They're all dead, for now.
I just finished gutting my novel. The same one you all heard about a year and a half ago that was getting to be 110,000 words long. Well, I looked through it... and realized that 43,306 of them were good enough to stay in. The rest had to go.
Why? Because they were inconsistent. Because I had decided certain characters were being written out and they contained them. Because they were badly written. Because of a great many reasons.
**Why not panst?**
Pansting is like a child's imaginary play. It runs from an unknown beginning to an unknown end with a lot of other people's ideas mixed together. The result is cute, beautiful even... but not a professional work of literature.
Pansting is faster... until you guy 80,000 words of it. For example, all that will survive in recognizable from from my first drafts is a few paragraphs and the ending. Hundreds of pages of pansting represent time with almost 0 pay-off. With a strong outline or progression of events in mind, many hours of work would be refunded.
Pansting is how you do individual scenes. You should panst, on a small basis. Start at section 1A of your outline and panst clear to section 1B. Then stop, make sure if fits, and panst your way to 1C. Pansting to Q2, however, is impermissable.
Take my word for it. Pansting is cool, fun, maybe even a bit flashy... but it ends kinda badly. My situation was compounded by bad writing in the first place, but the point remains. I should get a bumper-sticker that says "I pansted my first novel, and I'm sorry" (except that might look really weird). I am reformed.
**
Today or tomorrow I will write an outline for this revised book (though I have a nebulous one in my head). Then I will write the scenes in it. Then I will revise, and I will be done. Here's how I am going to make it fun. I'm gonna be done this summer.
My guesstimate is that it will take me 145,000 wordsish of more drafting to re-fill all that, since I write in greater detail now. I still want to have the drafting done this summer... and there are about 90 writing days before I get to college. That means 1611.11 words per day to get through the drafting, more if I want to begin revisions before summer. If I want to have 14 days for revising, that leave 76 days of writing (counting weekends as writing days, but not summer camp or mission trip) 1907.89 words per day. That's 300 more words per day than NaNoWriMo.
Who thinks I can do it? I am thinking of making a blog to follow this crazy endeavor (you can only write the blog of yourself doing something special while you are doing it, anyway, and I will need one eventually). I am becoming the career writer I have dreamed of... and it is not nearly as bad as I thought it might be.

Word War anybody?

I've had this problem. Most of the novels I wrote when I was younger (a.k.a about 8 months ago ) were like this, with only a faint plot in my head to how the plot would go.

I'm glad you stopped! It certainly helps to have a plot written out beforehand. I might recommend this site, if you haven't heard of it. It's for things similar to this, as well as other things such as fractalling characters.

*heartily applauds Reiyen's post*

I have had a similar experience, and can testify to the truth of his words.

*has more to say, but must go make dinner now*

I commend you for only needing 100k words to learn your lesson.

I've more than that sitting and rotting in my docs folder that I have yet to dare go through and find something salvageable. Now I plotter along my novels.

*seconds Vace's recommendation* Also, I know what saying "When I was younger," and realizing the time you are talking about was less than a year ago feels like. XD We're at a stage where every physical, spiritual, and mental part of us grows by leaps and bounds and becomes "older" quickly.

Sometimes I go back and read the stuff I wrote so many months ago. It's terribly written.

Took me well over a quarter million before I wrote something worth publishing.

I'm a pantser. I won first place in a novel contest with a 114,000 word thriller that I wrote entirely without an outline in less than four months, and barely edited. Does it need work? Yes. I'm going to completely rewrite it because I'm a better writer now. Was it worth it? Most certainly yes. Not only did I win a $16,000 college scholarship, but both professional writers who judged it said, independently of each other, that they expect to see me published soon. In hardcover.

My more recent books don't even need to be rewritten, just edited. Although they say the best books aren't written, they're re-written.

Bryan Davis and Ted Dekker are pantsers. They don't like outlines, don't use 'em, don't need 'em. At least, Bryan Davis is...I don't remember for sure but I think Dekker said something about that too.

It depends on the person. Here: http://lukealistar.com/2011/12/30/outli ... -pantsers/ Notice that paragraph near the end where I explain why every writer should outline their first two or three books.

*applauds both Reiyen's and Matt's posts, devours, chews, and swallows priceless information, stores it in a safe place and scampers out of thread*

I don't fall into either camp. I outline some things that need more structure, and panst the stuff that needs free flow. I think both systems have issues.

Well see... an outline is like a road map.

Let's say you're taking a road trip, and you just get in your car and start driving. You don't know where you're going, so you just figure you'll drive around and see where you get. Or else perhaps you know where you want to get, but not how to get there, and so you just start randomly driving and hope you'll eventually get there.

Yeah, you might get there EVENTUALLY, but you're going to waste a lot of time (and gas ).

On the other hand, let's say you are going on a road trip, and you have the whole thing completely mapped and scheduled out. You know exactly what exits to take for the entire trip, you know just where you are going to take your bathroom breaks, you know exactly when you will arrive at each place.

Now, this is very good, yes? Well... what if you are driving along, and you see a shortcut? Or, let's say you see a beautiful scenic route that you really want to go on? Or an interesting state part you want to visit?

But NO! You must stick to the PLAN!

Well that's gonna be a boring trip.

How about this, instead: You plan out your route, leaving yourself some room detours and explorations. Then you start driving, keeping to the plan, but when you see something interesting or that looks better, you can take a detour and check it out. Explore it.

The key, is that when you are done with that exploration, you have a plan to return to. Or, if this detour changes your plan so drastically you can't return to it... well, no problem. Make a new plan. Maybe you even have a new destination. So you stop and plan how to get there, and start driving again.

That's how I see it. Sure, some will tend more towards sticking to the plan, and others will deviate more from the plan. But it is always helpful to have a plan there to return to.

One problem though (for me at least)... That assumes you have the slightest notion of where you're going... And even when I do know where I'm going (usually something pretty close, or something that has to happen eventually, but who knows when and where and how) I sometimes change directions completely because a new idea strikes me as I write. I suspect that, should I ever successfully outline and write a book (and I'm sure I should try sometime), someone reading the outline would quite possibly be surprised to find out that it was the outline for the book. I could even try outlining my current story, but given the troubles I have planning ahead, I think I'd need to talk it over with someone. And my brainstorming partner is very busy right now. Anyway, as I said, I'm sure I should give it a try, preferably soon, to find out whether it works better for me or not.

You're all right...

Anybody CAN use an outline. Just to varying levels of success. Some will depart from it early on. Some will work much better with a detailed outline. Even though I prefer not using them, and in many cases do better freewriting, the first half of The Unseen was outlined, because I was going to cowrite it with a friend. She wasn't able to so I took it over (yeah, now you know the great secret behind the cryptic dedication page.) Also, I have a planned trilogy of 200,000 word fantasy thrillers that I'm going to outline because the stories are so huge.

The reason I say that every writer should outline their first few books is because I didn't...and it would've been a lot better if I did. In case y'all didn't want to read the article to find out, the reason I say you should is because all the other stuff you have to keep straight as a beginner can get really overwhelming. When initially learning how to write a novel, you need some sort of structure or it'll take you several novels to learn what you could potentially learn with just one (like what happened with me.)

It depends on the person, Luke. I panstered my first few novels and imagining as I wrote had no effect on the plot or the character development. On the contrary, for me, outlining often takes away from both plot and character. Panstering lets the character and plot grow as a shrub grows, bent and twisted with the wind or straight and tall from being sheltered in a gully... outlining builds them as a machine is built.

That said, I dream twice as much about character and plot than I write, and usually have an end fixed in my mind so I know where I'm going, even if I've no idea about either beginning or end.

Yes, one good point is that some people are organized and/or practiced enough to be able to outline in their minds. That's a bit like going on a road trip and knowing the roads thoroughly...

So you do outline, you're just one of the rare few who can keep that straight in your mind.

Outlining doesn't take away from the plot or character, even for a natural pantser, IF you use it right. It can be a very effective tool.

*chuckles* Yes, I sometimes outline mentally, but I also just panst.

Same.

You and I can't really know what would've happened if we'd outlined our first few books. I've been observing beginning writers for some time now, though, and I've noticed that even the ones who prefer freewriting wrote much better first novels than I did when they were required to outline.

*nods and understands*

You see, though, I've outlined ('really' outlined ) only one successfully. And it turned out nothing like the outline. All the others either never progressed beyond the outline because they had no life, or died early in the first draft for the same reason.

Yes, perhaps I would have progressed quicker if I'd outlined the first few. I certainly learnt more in the one I DID outline. Then again, perhaps that was because it took three years and ten drafts to write As you said, rather impossible to tell.

Yeah, that's normal, to end up departing from the outline a lot. Especially for freewriters.

*loves the discussion going on here*

I am not sure what I am... * laughs slightly * I do not plan everything out before hand, but the story goes faster through my head then it does through my fingers. I have to 'outline' sometimes, because otherwise I would forget it all before I could write it out in a novel. But other than that, I do not know that I plan. I think one of the reasons is because I do not get very good plot ideas at all. So if I planned, I would have nothing to work on. It's the characters that give me the plot ideas (when ever I actually do have a plot ).

I know I'm late to the game, but I wanted you to know, David, that I read this post when you first made it and really enjoyed it. To summarize, I'm proud of and very delighted for you. On the outlining issue I shall not comment at the moment, but irregardless of your methods of writing, it is so amazing that you successfully gutted your novel. The process of cutting and revising, especially when it involves killing darlings, can be painful; add the fact that it takes a lot of work, especially when you're dealing with a large book, and it becomes an extremely involved process. Many writers do not make that far, and of those that do, even fewer pull through to finish the novel. You've done well and are being a wonderful example for other writers. Pull it through. You can do it, with His strength.

Here's how I see it.

You're going to spend x amount of time on a novel. For me this is two years, provided I actually work on it, and nothing else, for two straight years. Which I never do.

I can either write my novel in three months and then spend the next 21 months rewriting, or I can spend a year working on outlines, and another year actually writing from that outline.

Outlining takes time. In my experience it takes just as much time as rewriting afterwards.

I typically get a vague idea, write my first draft, then outline and tidy up from there. Outlining is a very valuable tool, I just think there are a myriad of ways you can use it.

I'm outlining my new series. This is extremely unusual for me, but I want to save time on rewriting. with any luck I can write the novella, and then tidy up a few inconsistencies, proof read it and be done. Does this mean I've converted to a planner? Heaven forbid! The horrors! My imagination is all the planning I need, thank you very much.

(You see, I "panst" my outlines.... it's just a lot easier to edit and tidy up a five page outline than a 100 page novel.)