I was the OP so now let me end it. I clearly said in the very first post that I think a pantser is someone that starts writing (instead of outlining) but because a first draft is not any good (for most, not everybody) that during the rewrite phase the pantser and the planner are now the same. If you understood what I meant in the very FIRST post then it would not have evolved into whatever this evolved in to. Every thing has already been said so I don't understand the rehash. All I know is I was the OP but I'm out now. I like civil discussions.
Every story outlined or not, had to start from some kind of idea or inspiration. Why does having this fundamental concept from thought to page completely nullify the way a certain type of writer writes? It doesn't. Outliners make intricate frame work in some form that plots out every facet of the story in shorthand, and rarely deviates from this framework that is the foundation for the overall story from start to finish. Pantsers don't write with anything more than a small subset of ideas, and start writing and building the story from the ground up from scratch, instead of with the blueprints that an Outliner would have drawn up ahead of time. Meaning anything can happen, may happen, as long as it works within the stories established rules. It may seem like a chaotic, sporadic, and spontaneous (which it is). way of writing out an entire story, simply due to it's lack of per-desinged outline. First drafts are not outlines, and both types of writers have them (and sometimes many drafts afterward). First drafts are the rough version of the story, and not the final product (nor an outline). So no you can't say that just because a pantser and an outliner both have rough drafts, makes them the same thing in those terms. The outliner still used an outline, and a pantser did not. You can't say just because they come to a similar point in the process that is arbitrary to the method of getting there, makes them the same thing. It doesn't, they are two distinct ways of writing a story, which does not make them the same thing, no matter how much similarity they have in the overall process of getting to the final result. Besides, no matter a newb, or a seasoned author, they both go through the joy of first drafts, and have to smooth them out. I think only a tiny, tiny percentage of writers would ever use the first draft as it is written and consider it good enough.
However in that you are completely wrong since in the rewrite phase a plotter will continue to work from their outline, character sheets and so on, whereas a pantser will work soley from the first draft and their imagination
true - both of them are generalisations and its a spectrum between them for most of us. like Wrey said a lot of people are planters I wouldn't agree that a first draft is just a detailed outline though which seems to be the premise the op is talking from
It seems to me the definition of outlining is a pretty hazy thing. The entries in an outline could be completely hierarchical, or the top level of the outline could be thumbnails of events in chronological order. Subordinate levels could be parenthetical notes about what has to be revealed or foreshadowed, or other structural footnotes. Collapsing all but the top level would leave a storyline. Expanding, drilling down into the notes, could be explorations into details, or alternate supporting facts. On the last drivel I wrote, I made an outline. That doesn't mean I wrote a constitution for a new regime, it's just how I started shotgunning on paper. When I deviated significantly from the outline, I started making a second outline as sort of a scorecard. That second outline was an encapsulation of what I'd written, not a plan of what to write. Hemingway said the first thing to do every day was read everything you had done first. Not too bad for a short story, but when you're most of the way through an 80,000 word novel, do you want to reread every preceding word every day? Maybe that's one way to use the synopses in Scrivener. Once they've done whatever duty they can in planning, they could be rewritten with the high points of what was actually done. I think writing in compressed form makes a lot of sense as a first step.
You started a thread with a POV that many don't agree with. How is someone going to say then, no you are wrong, there are planners and pantsers and everything in between without sounding argumentative? Did you just want agreement or did you have a real question? I'm a classic pantser, and there isn't anything 'not really' about it.
I think it’s like the little girl arranging her tea party and some of the teddies go and sit on the wrong side of the blanket. She gets really cross with the teddy bears. Written in pants method.
I am a 100% pantser. I didn't start off that way, but as I progressed from one novel to the next, I had the same migration as Stephen King, insofar as I really do not want to know what is going to happen in my novels until I get to it. What I have found is that the more creative story, for me, comes from character, and any decent story will have the same ingredients in the mix, so it really serves no purpose to know what the full plot line is until that point in the process arrives. The most fundamentally important part of a novel is how you open it, and that crosses a couple dozen touch points, so I spend all my prep time considering what I want to do on the first page. If I succeed in a decent first page, the novel is as good as done, in my book. Over the past 25 novels, I've not had a start that didn't result in an average 100,000 word novel within the next six months. Know that any successful novel will have character arcs, voice, world, conflict, subplots, etc.. It isn't going to magically be better if you think of it ahead of time. Further, I almost never make major changes, once done with the novel. I do edit, lots and lots and lots, but not anything of major substance because the structure is constantly on my mind as I write, and thus there's not a whole lot to change in that regard. My first ten novels, or so, this was not the case. What I'm saying is that you find better continuity and structure as you write, making the job of editing entirely different and much simpler.
I set my story up like a treatment for the silver screen, but it has very little detail and usually is just one page. At some point, I believe the characters take over the story and it goes in a direction that they determine. Some of their reactions or actions surprise me. I know, I for one would have gone home with the girl and I wondered about my MC when he took a rain check for another night. Damnit, and it was just getting good.
