Are you a ‘pantser’ or a ‘plotter’?
Pantsers write by the seat of their pants. They may have a rough idea of the story in mind but generally fly where their imagination takes them, letting the pace be dictated by their characters.
Plotters like to know as much as they can in advance before committing to a page. They outline a great deal and can tell you in a flash their character’s favourite sandwich filling, should such an interesting question ever arise. (She likes cheese! Damn, outed myself as a Plotter.)
NaNoWriMo writers, those plucky folk who speed-write a novel in the month of November, probably employ the pantser method when building their word-count. There is something so free and delightful about letting your characters lead the way. A down-side would be the enormous amount of editing presumably needed to bring the story back on track, but some would argue that having something to edit in the first place puts them ahead.
Plotting allows for a tight-knit story but there is a danger of losing the excitement by being too tied to an outline. So I like to skip between both methods – I plot and follow a chapter plan, but allow a little bit of movement in order to let my characters sparkle.
How about you? Have you attempted NaNoWriMo?
Blog: http://jayneferst.blogspot.com/
Plotters and Pantsers: http://www.writing.com/main/view_item/item_id/817598-Writing-Styles-Pantsing-and-Plotting
NaNoWriMo: http://www.nanowrimo.org/
My blog: http://jayneferst.blogspot.com/
Hello Samuel. You sound like a very savvy pantser indeed!
Hi Ellen. Oh my – one of my stories has chemical elements too, how funny! I have never actually attempted Nanowrimo (yet, she says). I love the idea of it and the support given online though. More than likely, if I was to attempt it, I would have an outline already – also probably vague.
Hello Phil. Your link seems to have picked up the bracket ‘)’ as part of the URL but I found your page and see what you mean. A similar thing happened to me with an idea (a few times, actually) so I’ve morphed into a Plotter. And yes, that does make sense! It is fun when characters breathe on their own, isn’t it?