Erin Lodes

Question: If you’re a writer and you don’t participate in this discussion, are you even really a writer?

Hint: The answer is yes, of course, if you’re writing you’re a writer.

But I’m going to talk about it anyway. If you’d asked me two years ago, I would have told you I had no problem with plotters but that I was definitely a pantser through and through. The few times I had tried outlining, it had all gone wrong.

Then I started working with John. He had me outline. And he had me outline in a way I’d never tried before. By not focusing on the so-called plot points first, but by figuring out what scenes I wanted to write, and worrying about what order to put them in later. We fixed my first book together by starting that way.

And now, we’re starting my second book that way. With an outline. With notecards tacked onto corkboards. By figuring out scenes first and then figuring out what order they go best in.

I’ve got a good portion of the outline done, and now we’ve agreed it’s time for me to start writing. I work well that way. Figuring out the characters and their feelings through drafting. But before, with my first novel, I was drafting myself in circles, unable to write my way out.

Now, as I set out this morning to start writing, I was hesitating. Looking at my unfinished outline, wondering if I should finish it first. And I realized I’m just putting off starting my first draft—which is something I never thought I’d do. But it’s a bit scary now, to move into the writing.

So, with all of this information before me, I have decided where I fall in the pantser vs plotter debate. I fall on the side of do whatever the fuck serves your process best as long as it doesn’t prevent you from making forward progress, as long as it doesn’t prevent you from finishing.

Don’t draft yourself in circles and don’t use outlining the thing to death as an excuse to not start writing because writing is scary.

Anyway, that just happens to be how I feel about it? What do you think?