Behind the Writer #1: Plotter vs Pantser

There's no right or wrong when it comes to HOW one chooses to write (outlining or not), despite what some people try to say. Outlining a book doesn't make that book inherently better and nor does pantsing a book make it inherently worse. Skill of how one writes matter, not the ways in which the words get on the page.

Though it does seem like there are more plotters / outliners / architects out there than there are pantsers / gardeners / discovery writers, there are plenty of each and both ways, as well as everything in between is valid. You do you!

That said, I'm a PROUD pantser! An author friend (go say hi to them on my sidebar - Maggie Hemlock) suggested I try it when I started writing last year. Yes, I've only been writing just over a year now. Click here to discover how I started writing, so I gave it a try. Like my inability to pick out books to read ahead of time, it didn't go well. I ended up with a 32 word "road map" that I only followed about a third of. I just can not plan, at all. It's not in me.

Case in point was earlier this month. I sat down to do my editing of Book 2 and instead I wrote the opening scene of "A Discovery of BDSM". It was fine and I edited it, and then like 5 days later I decided it was too much of a scene and not a story, so I expanded on it, on the fly, no idea to do it before I sat to write it. I knew nothing of what would happen, except I knew the last line. That's the extent of my "plan". Funny enough, I knew the last line of Natural Exposure during the middle of writing.

With all three of my Books in the Bijou Basin series - Natural Exposure which is self-published, Book 2 which is 90% complete first draft (working on 2nd), and Book 3 which has 70% or so of fist draft complete - I discovery wrote each. After the first, obviously I knew the characters but I never set out with any direction or purpose, the story just spilled out as I wrote. DisBDSM came out of the blue as did "A Bijou Beginning" - though that one I wrote during Camp April of 2019 when I was first writing Natural Exposure.

I'd love to hear from you. Are you a plotter or a pantser? Have you tried the other way just to see what it would be like? How did it work out? Did you do one book one way and another book another?






My Books
Natural Exposure on Amazon
Natural Exposure on Smashwords - on $$SALE$$ for $2.40
Natural Exposure on Goodreads

A Bijou Beginning on Wattpad - FREE short story
A Bijou Beginning on Goodreads

A Discovery of BDSM on Amazon
A Discovery of BDSM on Goodreads