Are you an outliner or do you wing it?

I'm still trying to figure out which I am.

But what about you folks? And how did you find out what worked for you? I'm going to guess trial and error.

Writing an Outline, not really.

I've actually had my world in my mind for years, so I can comfortably wing it just fine.

My process is very messy, at this point, so I really can't say either of them.... I write and plan simultaneously and often draft multiple drafts without finishing any of them before I actually shove through and finish an entire draft. And by that time, I also have everything pretty much planned, too. So it's both at once. Sort of.

Yeah, trial and error. I haven't finished any big-ish books, but I've finished several moderate sized ones (50,000 to 60,000), and written quantities on unfinished stories, so I've had some time to figure out how I work kind of.... I expect to change a lot more, though, over time. I hope I'll get more efficient.

I actually experimented early on. I would write one book in a plotser way, then another one in a pantser way, just to see what they were like.

Lord Herobrine: That certainly helps a lot.

Mistress Rwebhu Kidh: I've finished a 45,000 word story (3 years ago now?! ), but I'm still working on my second which I hope to be 80,000 or so.
I think I'm going to do that too. I'm just not sure if I should pantster or plotster first.

I've made up stories on-the-fly in my head for years...so fortunately when I actually sat down and wanted to properly write a novel, I knew that if I just winged it, I would end up with a huge convoluted mess of coincidences, plot holes, and everybody being related to each other. Though my first novel ended up that way anyways. These days I plan to some extent - I don't outline, but I keep a general plan of what will happen in my head, and might occasionally write down notes. As I do chores and school and so on, I imagine scenes from my novel and think about the characters and plot, and then often I run into interesting details or twists I could add. So I just leave it percolating for a while, you could say.

I've never planned out an ending, though. With my current novel, for instance, I know how my MC's character development ends...but I don't know how the actual events end! I figure that once I've written all the way to an ending, I'll have a good sense of what should be in it...so I just foist the ending off on my future self, really.

I have completely pantsed short stories, though. Two times, I suddenly thought of an interesting opening line, and then I just sat down and wrote from there. Both of them turned into allegories full of Symbolism and Meaning...the kind of thing that always happens when I write on the fly...

That's awesome.

Maybe a particular story idea would work better or worse with one or the other style, and you could decide based on that?

I've never been able to get very far with the sea-of-the-pants method. I seem to need to know basically where I'm going, both with the whole story and just with the next scene.

You might want to have a look at Randy Ingermanson's Snowflake Method of outlining: http://www.advancedfictionwriting.com/a ... ke-method/

I do both, really. I almost never outline in the beginning, but once I get about 3/4 - 7/8 through the story, I start outlining - though often, those outlines still differ from the end of my story. I also tend to outline only one chapter at a time when I do that - and even then, it's a rough outline that I often ignore half of when it comes down to actual writing.

How's that for confusing?

I figured out that's how I work best by trial and error. The sheer excitement of starting on the adventure on page one of my draft with the endless possibilities of what might fill the stack of pages below... One of my favorite things to do...

Indeed.


I can understand that. It's fun going on the adventure with my characters.

Some day, I'll learn to explain it better.



Aye, that it is.