Plotter or pantser?

I have learned a new word. A couple of weeks ago in one my writer groups I heard the word pantser for the first time. I did not know what that meant but I do now. A pantser is someone who writes by the sit of their pants. I did not know there was a word for that. I just thought is was crazy or something. So I thought that in this week's post I would write about both of them and how I use or not use them.

I love to plan. I love writing out plans. I love when a plan comes together (haha!). I love to write my outlines and chapter outlines and to have a very clear idea about where I am going and how I am going to get there. That said I do not do that has often as I should. Right now the story I trying to write other than the chapter I am working on right now I do not have an outline. So to some extent I feel lost. I am not sure where the story is going, I have a general idea about how I am going to get to the second book but I am not really sure. The second book is the first one I started writing. I know weird but in my defense I did not know that I was writing more than just one story. I thought that I had one little story but I don't. I have one story that wants to be told in three parts. So back to the lost feeling. I now am writing outlines for the chapters as I come to them. Meaning before I start chapter nine I wrote about a three line outcome for this chapter. These are things that I would like to happen in the story. Now my characters sometimes like to do what I think they should not always. Sometimes they like to have fight where I was expecting just a little campfire scene. You know something with some talking and little heart to heart from character to another. Nothing too big but the story is a life onto itself. That is when being a pantser comes into help.

The first novel I finished I had no outlines, no characters that I just had to write about, nothing like that. All I had was a five line short short from a flash fiction course that I thought that I could work with. Here is the short-

At the head of the bus was a man, at least she thought is was a man, but under all those robes she could not tell. The man had knocked the conductor out and he was bleeding terribly.  Georgie realized that no one was going to stop him or do anything. That is no one but her. She knew that unless she stopped him they were all going to die.

That is what I based my first novel from. Not much but it bloomed into something that I am never going to let anyone read. Ever. It is a first novel and so it  needs to be hidden away in some dark corner, never to be seen or read again. I was a pantser for it. I think that is part of the problem. I had no idea where I was going or how I was going to get there. But my first novel taught me many things and the most important one is this. I can write a novel. I can do this. It is not an impossible dream like I thought is was for far too many years. If only I had been a pantser ten years ago I could have written ten of the novels that are floating around in my head right now. But I was too scared too. I was afraid of failure and I was afraid of success. I was afraid of trying to make a dream into my reality. It was easier to have the dream than to try and make into something more. But I have now. That sad, little novel do that for me. Being a pantser for NaNoWriMo did this for me. So it does not matter whether you are a plotter or a pantser but be what will help you get your dreams out of your head into your reality!

See you next week.