Red Green Repeat Adventures of a Spec Driven Junkie

Writing Styles: Pantsers & Plotters

I found an old article discussing the difference in writing on the last season of Game of Thrones. Pantsers vs. Plotters.

Great article - the summary:

  • In general, there are two types of writers - pantsers and plotters.
  • Pantsers: “write by the seat of their pants” - just write and write. The result is writing.
  • Plotters: “outline every plot point from beginning to end” - outline, outline, then write. The result is outlining.

This made me think about my own writing styles.

When I posted articles weekly, I would spend the whole week plot. I might be plotting so long that only hours before my (own set) deadline, I would start writing. I would say each article I wrote would be ~10 hours of total effort. Maybe even as little as three hours.

Since I started writing daily, I don’t have time to plot. As soon as I have a moment, I would just write from whatever is on my stack of ideas. I would spend ~20 minutes each article.

Next, I talk about over plotting.