Pantsing It

In the writer world, there are two types of people: plotters and pantsers. Plotters are people who need to know what’s happening in their story before they sit down and write it. I had a friend once who was a plotter; when we tried to co-author a book together, she asked me how many chapters were going to be in the book so she could make an outline.

I never know how many chapters are going to be in a book that I’m writing, because I fall into the second group: pantsers. This term comes, I believe, from the expression “fly by the seat of your pants.” I have no idea how that particular group of words came to mean “enter a situation without a set plan and make things up as you go along.” But that’s what I do. Typically, when I sit down to write a book, I know how it starts and how it ends, and maybe a couple of important things that happen in the middle. But I don’t know everything.

And you know what? It’s kind of fun.

Take the fantasy book I’m working on. I took a while to build a world filled with my own rendition of humans, dwarves, and elves. Did I know everything about these races? Nope. When I started writing my opening scene (a rather temporary affair, as I usually change my first chapters quite a bit before publication) I learned that my dwarves have a coming-of-age party whenever a boy gets his first pair of boots. More recently, I learned that the elves (the most powerful and technologically advanced society) have a Foreign Aid Administration.

There’s not much point in coming up with a strict plan when you’re writing, anyway. Characters can tend to have a mind of their own. So far, most of my characters are “obeying” me pretty well. But when I get to the halfway mark, I just know I’ll run into a character who surprises me. Maybe someone who was supposed to be cool and collected turns out to have a strong sense of humor. I know what you’re thinking–“It’s a fictional story. You can make the characters do whatever you want to. You created them.”

No. That’s not how it works. Why? How? I have no idea. Fictional characters are like imaginary friends. Sure, I created them, but they’re still their own people. I’m only partially in charge of them. And sometimes, they do things that I didn’t plan on them doing. Like Rys in Where Arrows Fall. I knew that she was going to be blunt, but I had no clue that she was going to love children. It makes sense for her character. But did she let me know this beforehand? Absolutely not.

Well, my cat has broken one too many drinking glasses, so I’m off to Walmart to see what they have in the way of Roscoe-proof drinkware. Have a blessed day, dear readers, and don’t forget to review us on Amazon!