Revisiting the Planner vs Pantser Debate

It’s not that simple for writers and never will be

Photo by Josué AS on Unsplash

Because we’re living in such dark, punitive times, I’m acutely aware of how much negativity surrounds the creative writing community at large. Like many of you, I’m feeling raw and anxious every day, and so any energy that isn’t positive and supportive feels like the opposite: as if everything and everyone out there wants to tear me (us) down.

To be sure, there are loads of creative people working relentlessly to lift others up, offer encouragement and support, lead with generosity, and so forth. I try to be among them and to keep their company as often as possible.

But still, writers, in particular, are continually surrounded by a cacophony of well-intentioned advice and opportunities that imply (however gently) that we’re doing it all wrong, or that we need to get a whole lot better, or that until we unlock the secrets to the “right” approach, we’ll never do justice to the craft.

I admit that we voluntarily signed up for one of the hardest jobs—learning to write well. But there are many days when it feels as though that’s more of an idea than a goal, and that our real job is to be open to hearing again and again how little we know and how much we still have to learn.

Which brings me around to an age-old debate (so-called) that, like so many debates about writing, masks more important and perhaps more subtle processes underway.

I’m talking about the famed Planner vs. Pantser debate.

Quick summary: A “planner” is a writer who tends to do a lot of prep work before they actually begin writing a book. Planner makes notes, create character backstories, sketch out story arcs and act structures, write world-building story bibles, create visual mood boards, do research, and so forth. “Pantsers,” on the other hand, sit down and write (by the seat of their pants, so to speak) with little more than a vague idea to go on, at least initially. They’re guided more by intuition than premeditated thought.

Any negative vibes associated with planner/pantser discussions have more to do with peer pressure and FOMO than with writing itself. Pick a lane, right? Or be left out of the conversation.

But in reality, either approach is dandy. Combining approaches is dandy.

This isn’t an honest debate about whether one approach is better than the other, and yet everybody has weighed in on it, from Publishers Weekly to Reddit, from writers posting on YouTube to scads of writing blogs and forums.

So what is the planner/pantser conversation really about?

I think it reflects, at least in part, our desire to impose labels on confusingly opaque creative processes. If you readily accept one label or the other (planner vs. pantser), does it fit because that’s how you write naturally—or how you think you should write?

Have you been unconsciously swayed to one camp or the other based on who’s in each camp (e.g., a writer you admire)?

Do you choose the label that best suits your general personality—or the type of person you wish to become or to be seen as? For instance, do you claim to be a planner because you’re goal-obsessed Type A with a neat house? Are you a pantser because you don’t like planning ahead and you’re just fine with a messy house?

I’m imposing ridiculous stereotypes to make a point. Perhaps we choose these camps not based solely on the evidence of our approach to writing but because the category reflects our values in some way—and not entirely consciously.

It follows that we impose such a label upon ourselves as part of a narrative we’re constantly constructing to describe, or figure out, who we are as writers—not just as parents or citizens or spouses, etc.—but as humans engaged in a specific and often lonely craft.

There’s nothing wrong with that in any grand sense, but the planner/pantser debate gives us an out: it’s easier to discuss these concepts, which lend themselves to plenty of humorous interpretations, while avoiding any real talk about the pain, uncertainty, anger, and frustration that also comes with writing.

These labels also create a false sense of neatness: Whether you’re a planner or a pantser, you’ve got a path to tread and so off you go…You may even begin to feel locked into leaning one way or the other, based on your diagnosed “type.”

But writing is anything but neat and there’s no such thing as “locked in” when in the throes of creation.

This topic has come roaring back for me as I embark on writing my first new novel in over two years. For me, lots of advanced planning for a book enables me to do more on-the-fly writing.

But that’s beside the point.

Neither planning nor pantsing relieves the difficulty that goes with starting something new. Exhilaration and despair alternate in rapid succession. I’m clear about the story—until I’m not. I’m firm as to the tone and the genre—until I’m not.

I engaged in extensive planning before I began writing.

And then I realized I needed to start over, as the writing was flat, the dialogue wasn’t serving character, and the plot was entirely too creaky.

All the normal aches and pains of starting something new.

And the thing is, planning or pantsing has nothing to do with this process.

My willingness to feel uncomfortable as I tear up early pages…

Reminding myself that discarding early superficial efforts in order to dig deeper is a huge plus, not a “false start”…

Carving out unbroken hours from a busy week to focus exclusively on this project…

Holding lengthy conversations entirely in my head about characters and what they need and how they behave and how the book ends…

These are the steps and stages that matter most in the early going. Labeling my “style” as planner or pantser won’t get me where I need and want to go. It’s not illuminating.

Writing is messy. It resists labels although humans love to impose them, anyway. For now, I will resist and simply say, I’m writing. And that’s enough of a description.

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