Depantsing

[samhasstories]

For short stuff, I've published 0th drafts with little more than line editing. In fact, all my stories here so far, including the 6 chapters of Aces were more or less that. I think Last Summer went from idea to published in a day or so.

Same, I don't bother with outlines or that "planning" business for short stories or the quick erotica pieces I post here. If the pantsed story goes somewhere I wasn't expecting and needs a little more setup, that can usually be achieved by some quick revisions, or at most rewriting the beginning.

 

[desecration]

all with no outline

Writers have different approaches. "Outline" just means some kind of plan, and often it is informal. Sort of like how premeditated murder does not always involve a checklist, but there is often one on the evidence table. Some of the literary greats started just as you did: with a concept, then just "going for it" and seeing what comes out. After all, you can always edit later.

 

[intim8]

It's like someone on a cooking thread asks "Do you put fresh pineapple or tinned pineapple on your home-made pizza?

It's more like, there's a book or a video on how to make great pizza, and it's centered around which kind of pineapple to use, as if a pizza without pineapple isn't even a real thing.

Almost all writing tips and how-to kinds of stuff you see out there discusses how to do outlining if it mentions process at all. Not whether or not to do it, just how to do it. It would be less resentful if they at least said that they do it that way and that their tips will be about that, but they don't even do that. Pantsing is treated like it is beneath contempt, unworthy of even being acknowledged by "serious" writers.

I called out Moreci specifically because she makes that implication very, very explicit. But I still like her videos.

 

[lustychimera]

Is there really a clear divide between the two camps anyway? To me, this seems like a continuous spectrum.

Even if you are writing by the seat of your pants, you still have some idea about the characters and the setting. If the story is set in the realistic here and now, for example, you probably won't start adding dragons and Nazgul when you are 30k words deep.
And if you like to sketch your plot in detail, you still won't foresee every circumstance that arises when you actually sit down to write it. After all, the only plan that has all the detail is the finished story.

So it's a bit like the Blue Team and the Green Team arguing where exactly does the turquoise color end.

I agree that it's a spectrum. But it's a pretty big one.

I have an ending that I want to hit and hopefully visit different way points along the way, but it's more like pointing a transatlantic ocean liner in a general direction and hoping i hit the continent of Africa. Or at least Europe. If straights get dire enough, sometimes I'll even settle for Australia.

 

[desecration]

I always will be a "discovery writer", or pantser.

 

[intim8]

I have an ending that I want to hit and hopefully visit different way points along the way, but it's more like pointing a transatlantic ocean liner in a general direction and hoping i hit the continent of Africa.

The key to pantsing isn't the "winging it", it's the discovery. It's pointing the ocean liner toward the ocean to find out what contenents are on the other side, and who you'll find there, and along the way.

 

[TheRedChamber]

It's more like, there's a book or a video on how to make great pizza, and it's centered around which kind of pineapple to use, as if a pizza without pineapple isn't even a real thing.

Almost all writing tips and how-to kinds of stuff you see out there discusses how to do outlining if it mentions process at all. Not whether or not to do it, just how to do it. It would be less resentful if they at least said that they do it that way and that their tips will be about that, but they don't even do that. Pantsing is treated like it is beneath contempt, unworthy of even being acknowledged by "serious" writers.

I called out Moreci specifically because she makes that implication very, very explicit. But I still like her videos.

I'm only vaguely aware of Moreci - I think she's the one who had a list of words never to use in sex writing that was shared recently. I'll watch some of her videos and form an opinion.

I suspect that if you are planning on making a career telling people how to write, you have to say more than "Write, then write some more - don't worry, it'll all sort itself out, does for me anyway."

This is all getting a bit serious, so here's some fun.

 

[intim8]

I suspect that if you are planning on making a career telling people how to write, you have to say more than "Write, then write some more - don't worry, it'll all sort itself out, does for me anyway."

My whole OP is about how it doesn't sort itself out. About how it isn't just winging it. That sounds like creationists claiming that evolution just makes a giraffe appear randomly out of nowhere.

The thing about emergence is, there's not much money to be made from the process. It's true in all kinds of things. Teah, if you're trying to make money giving advice, in anything, you're going to do better if you focus on the most intricate and involved way of doing whatever it is you're advising about.

That's not even a claim that they do it intentionally, it's that the ones who don't aren't around to be part of the sample size. It's a pattern that emerges from market selection.

 

[lustychimera]

The key to pantsing isn't the "winging it", it's the discovery. It's pointing the ocean liner toward the ocean to find out what contenents are on the other side, and who you'll find there, and along the way.

I don't think I've ever tried writing to discover what happens once I start putting words on a page. I always have a beginning, waypoints, a sense of who the characters are, and an ending. Just, I'm really flexible

To me, creativity comes from restrictions rather than an open worldmap. The side tangents are me trying to figure out how to make this specific thing happen, and then just straying father and father from the path.

 

[samhasstories]

I've never been 'taught' outlining. Nearly every writing class/workshop/whatever I've taken has involved generative writing prompts, with the advice to just get started and see where it goes. Maybe online videos are different, I haven't watched many of those. But in my experience people haven't tried to teach organizational practices - those are different for everyone, and what works for Bob probably won't work for Sue.

 

[intim8]

@alohadave wrote this in another thread, and I think it applies here:

"If I don't have a solid ending, I probably won't finish the story. I need to know where I'm going to be able to get there."

I think it speaks to a key point here, that in the purest kind of pantsing, you don't know that you will get there, or there, or this other place, you let "there" be discovered in the story.

I don't think I've ever tried writing to discover what happens once I start putting words on a page. I always have a beginning, waypoints, a sense of who the characters are, and an ending. Just, I'm really flexible

Yeah, that sounds like a hybrid approach. If it works, it works.

But if you've never tried it, I'd suggest trying it. Just as an exercise. Start with the bare minimum, a situation, like two people are in an elevator. Then get into the heads of the people - starting with what gender they are - and the implications of that, and of that... Watch how they react to whatever happens next and interact with each other. Your subconscious does the work, you just write it down.

I do that often. I see a person IRL and I start imagining the story of why they are there, what they are up to, using the most superficial clues of the location, their appearance and body language, etc, and sometimes it just takes off.

 

[lustychimera]

@alohadave wrote this in another thread, and I think it applies here:

"If I don't have a solid ending, I probably won't finish the story. I need to know where I'm going to be able to get there."

I think it speaks to a key point here, that in the purest kind of pantsing, you don't know that you will get there, or there, or this other place, you let "there" be discovered in the story.

Yeah, that sounds like a hybrid approach. If it works, it works.

But if you've never tried it, I'd suggest trying it. Just as an exercise. Start with the bare minimum, a situation, like two people are in an elevator. Then get into the heads of the people - starting with what gender they are - and the implications of that, and of that... Watch how they react to whatever happens next and interact with each other. Your subconscious does the work, you just write it down.

I do that often. I see a person IRL and I start imagining the story of why they are there, what they are up to, using the most superficial clues of the location, their appearance and body language, etc, and sometimes it just takes off.

I actuality have tried it. Way back when, I was really into reading Asian web novels. I was wading through some shitty machine translated one, enjoying the hell out of it, and it was like, "I can do that."

So for the next month or two, I had a blast just writing whatever came to mind. And it was absolute garbage. 100k words of it.

A lot of that was inexperience, but it meandered so damn much that I can't chalk it all up to that.

So the hybrid approach, as you call it, works for me. I still consider it pantsing since it's never remotely the same characters or story when I'm done, but I do need those restrictions.

Pure pantsing sounds like a DnD campaign the way you describe it.

I've talked about it in another thread, but I think the real story comes out in the details, when you start honestly addressing questions like "the fuck happens to a baby when a pregnant werewolf shifts?" When stuff like that is hard to even think about during the macro planning stage.

 

[desecration]

Pure pantsing sounds like a DnD campaign the way you describe it.

(heavy breathing)

 

[intim8]

Pure pantsing sounds like a DnD campaign the way you describe it.

I'm not a gamer, so I only half get the analogy. But I think what is missed is that in pantsting, all the meta stuff is being done, just subconsciously. At some point, either a revision stage, or the after the fact outlining, as I describe, it has to be brought to conscious analysis, but initially, it is done under the hood, the only way I know the result is to read what my fingers typed out.

 

[TheRedChamber]

It's more like, there's a book or a video on how to make great pizza, and it's centered around which kind of pineapple to use, as if a pizza without pineapple isn't even a real thing.

Almost all writing tips and how-to kinds of stuff you see out there discusses how to do outlining if it mentions process at all. Not whether or not to do it, just how to do it. It would be less resentful if they at least said that they do it that way and that their tips will be about that, but they don't even do that. Pantsing is treated like it is beneath contempt, unworthy of even being acknowledged by "serious" writers.

I called out Moreci specifically because she makes that implication very, very explicit. But I still like her videos.

Okay, I watched four Moreci videos in a row (Pieces of Advice that don't work for Me, Things I learned the Hard Way, How to write Men, How to write Strong Women)

Rather hilariously, in the first two she explicitly says "Pantsers, shut up about Pantsing, it doesn't work for me." She makes it pretty clear that for her it results in unfinished books.

While I probably agree more than I disagree with what she says, I don't think I like her. I don't mind sass and attitude but the jokes have to land with it.

 

[intim8]

the only way I know the result is to read what my fingers typed out.

Before anybody complains, that is obviously an exaggeration. What actually happens is something like a movie running in my head, one generated subconsciously. I do occasionally stop to think consciously about something, like where to place a new scene or about external events, but mostly, I just watch the movie and try to keep up on the keyboard. But subconsciously or otherwise, the course of the movie is determined by who the characters are and how they would act given the situation.

 

[desecration]

I'm not a gamer, so I only half get the analogy.

In my view, everyone is a gamer, they just have different games, and not all of them are on computers or boards. Most of us just play solitaire on that Windows machine hooked up to the printer.

 

[intim8]

She makes it pretty clear that for her it results in unfinished books.

She rarely makes the "for me" caveat clear, and is often pretty explicit that she means it as an absolute. Pantsing does not work, full stop. She often cites the fact that Stephen King does it, then dismisses that with, "you're not Stephen King, so stop thinking you can do it too." As if he's some kind of freak that can just do magic.

And I get that she is intetionally being edgy and snarky. It's about the only way I can tolerate watching her. Her opinion on pantsing is not the only one of hers that grinds my gears.

 

[yowser]

I confess that when I saw this thread title, I imagined some depantsing deprogrammer type of correctional facility, somewhere in the Utah desert, where pantsers went to unlearn their abominable habit.

Pantsers being kidnapped by anxious parents, spouses or concerned friends, hoping that somehow their wrong-headed author would finally see the light and the value of a good well-organised outline.

But then my second thought was that the title implied something about the process of disrobing...

 

[intim8]

But then my second thought was that the title implied something about the process of disrobing...

I anticipated both thoughts in the opening sentence.

 

[pink_silk_glove]

I don't think there's any resentment whatsoever, from pantsers. All we're doing is pointing that not all writers plot, plan, outline, whatever - but I do think there's a default assumption from novice writers that that's what writers do, because most writers do it that way, at least here in the AH. I'd say its probably an 80/20 or 70/30 ratio, plotters to pantsers.

There is from some, depends who. There are a couple of snooty folks out there about their ways.

I actually think that plotters are in the minority on lit, but that's just a gut feel. I really have no idea on the stats.

What I do know is that no one is 100% plotter and no one is 100% pantser. If a writer is 90% one way or the other, I'd say they're pretty hard core. When in the middle of pantsing a scene one gets the idea to end the scene a certain way, then works towards that end, they just plotted. Likewise when one fleshes out the scene notes into proper prose and adds in those details, they just pantsed it. None of us should be kidding ourselves.

Personally, if a story is shorter (under 10k) I can usually plot it out 90% or more before I start but if a story is longer I'll end up plotting 75-80% by the time that I'm done, since I probably need to write a few scenes to inspire the rest of it. I don't need the outline to write - I can sit down and spew out a scene or three - but I'm just a stickler for tight plot and motive and plotting things out keeps track of all that.

 

[intim8]

When in the middle of pantsing a scene one gets the idea to end the scene a certain way, then works towards that end, they just plotted.

I fairly often, maybe most of the time, do not do that. And for a short story, say 3-5K, I don't go back and replot it.

Again referring to Last Summer, that is the initial draft, as it came out, with just line editing. 9K words.

Though I hadn't started using grammarly yet, and it shows.

 

[Paul_Chance]

I'm in the Hybrid camp, where I improvise within the scenes of a plot.

I was bitten by a Hybrid when I was at camp....

As for de-pantsing, LOL, I like the phrase to describe the process where you write what you want and then go back through it to adjust it into something coherent.