Is there really such a thing as "pantser"

Discussion in 'Plot Development' started by EBohio, Oct 31, 2018.

  1. EBohio

    EBohio Banned

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    Yeah, I'm new, don't know the rules. I thought I asked a question that would start conversation with no right or wrong answers but I was told my opinion was wrong and I was ill informed. I have won contests in my field, screenwriting. Short Stories/Novels must be different (a topic of it's own).

    Wow, you guys are sensitive.
     
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  2. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    But you're the one decreeing that your answers are right...? (And also mocking someone in a pretty incoherent manner.)
     
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  3. Steerpike

    Steerpike Felis amatus Contributor

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    When you ask about how other people write, then tell people it can’t be true they write the way they say even though you can’t possibly have any personal knowledge of their writing process, you’re essentially trolling people. Being new doesn’t prevent one from understanding that.
     
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  4. Iain Aschendale

    Iain Aschendale Lying, dog-faced pony Marine Supporter Contributor

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    I've been pantsing on my novel for two years. Trying to figure out the antagonist was about the first question I asked on this site, and I just got the answer last week. Now I've got 20,000 words, many of which will still be useful, and finally enough information in my head to begin planning so that I have goals to my writing, not just mooching around on the keyboard. I think anyone who is pantsing will reach a point where they finally know enough to finalize a plan, but I wouldn't say that makes them transform into planners. Likewise, a planner needs brainstorming time to figure out where their story is going to go. It's all a matter of if your brainstorming is done in the form of paragraphs, pages, and chapters or outlines and character sheets, IMHO.
     
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  5. Paneera

    Paneera Banned

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    I need a road map. I don't use written outlines or character sheets though. It's all in my head. I make written notes to myself along the way.
     
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  6. Edward M. Grant

    Edward M. Grant Contributor Contributor

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    Yes, they are. Screenplays, at least those written to the Hollywood model, have to be far more structured than short stories and novels, so pretty much everyone outlines before writing one. And when a feature screenplay is typically around 1/4-1/5 as many words as a novel, rewriting is much easier.

    (I started out writing screenplays and switched to novels, which is how I know)
     
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  7. Ashley Watters

    Ashley Watters Member

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    From neither here nor there.
    I am a pantser who has tried to be a planner. I can't work that way but it doesn't mean planners are a myth. I guess like many people, I end up blending the two.
    As an accidental Romance writer, I know how the book has to end but I have no idea of the specifics. My plan is to get to the end. My characters show me where to go.

    It's not what you say but how you say it. I have found modesty works so much better than arrogance. @EBohio when you post to a forum, try to accept you might learn something from the response. Being respected in your field is great. It doesn't mean you have the only right answers.
    One of my mentors has tv screenwriting credits for successful shows and has sold 100k books self published. He writes his blog with modesty. He teaches his publishing course with confidence. He has never said there is only one way to publish books.
     
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  8. EBohio

    EBohio Banned

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    I was just the opposite. I switched from novels to screenplays. I want to tell the story without describing everything a character is thinking. Actually, I don't outline per say, I just start typing but like somebody else said, and I tried to say but got jumped on, It's in my head. Therefore, I guess I am not a planner or a pantser. I just write after I have a story in mind, keeping structure in mind as I go. I start with an end in mind but have to admit by the time I finish, the ending (not the theme) changes. I don't know if re-writing is easier. If it were everybody would be selling screenplays. They are hard to sell.
     
  9. EBohio

    EBohio Banned

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    You should read the entire thread before you take sides. I never once said anybody was wrong. I opened the discussion thinking there are no right or wrong answers. I didn't jump on anybody for their opinion but yet someone jumped on me, clearly said I was wrong and il-informed. To me they took things way too personally and are thin-skinned (as a lot of writers can be, admit it). The only person I mentioned directly was Stephen King. He can be mad at me.

    Thanks for making a new person to the forum feel free to express their opinions. Like Trump, I didn't get sarcastic with anybody until they attacked me first.
     
  10. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    Maybe you could explain what you meant by the following. Because they certainly sound like a mocking attack.

     
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  11. Steerpike

    Steerpike Felis amatus Contributor

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    :rofl:

    This explains a lot.
     
  12. Edward M. Grant

    Edward M. Grant Contributor Contributor

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    I was meaning in terms of time required, not quality. The latter is probably just as hard for either market, but a typical screenplay is about 20,000 words vs 100,000 for a novel.
     
  13. EBohio

    EBohio Banned

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    Sarcasm, dude, sarcasm. But not until AFTER I was attacked.

    Off Topic:
    Writing is my hobby, Psychology is my career. To any psych students out there this is a good example of Cognitive-Dissonance theory being displayed here.
     
  14. EBohio

    EBohio Banned

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    Yeah, but there are well known screenwriters out there who took years re-writing a screenplay before it was accepted and produced.
     
  15. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    No. You were not remotely attacked. That's ignoring the fact that your sarcasm made absolutely no sense. I'm not even sure what you were being sarcastic about.
     
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  16. Edward M. Grant

    Edward M. Grant Contributor Contributor

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    And, at that rate, they would have spent decades rewriting a novel.

    Besides which, most people who spent years rewriting a screenplay were working on other things at the time. I could say I spent the best part of twenty years rewriting my last novel (which was originally a screenplay), but the reality is I spent maybe six months actually changing words and the rest of the time it was sitting on my hard drive while I worked on other things.
     
  17. EBohio

    EBohio Banned

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    deadrats said: "Your opinion is wrong which I usually wouldn't say about someone's opinion, but your opinion is that people can't do something that writers do all the time. I don't understand the point of saying something just can't be possible when it completely is. You come across as both arrogant and uniformed..."
    Okay, he didn't attack me, he was just rude. But ChickenFreak, I find it interesting that you have made this about YOU.
     
  18. EBohio

    EBohio Banned

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    Not neccessarily, it depends on what has to be re-written.

    An example is the movie "Castaway" with Tom Hanks. Test audiences hated the ending. They just added a scene (didn't fix it for me though) to try to get audiences to accept the ending.
     
  19. ChickenFreak

    ChickenFreak Contributor Contributor

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    I'm gong to need support for that diagnosis.
     
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  20. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    Actually, I think Tolkien was some way into writing Lord of the Rings, and he still didn't know what was going to happen at the end of it. He had to stop writing for a while. It was very black at the time, and he wasn't sure the good guys would win. In a way, I think that enhanced the story, because it never felt like a given, that Mordor would be defeated. In fact, there were times when the cause seemed quite hopeless.

    WW2 was still happening while he was writing LOTR and Tolkien couldn't see the end of that either. And it apparently affected him. In a way, you can see how the parallel of the real war taking place and the fantasy war he was creating would have been difficult to separate at times.

    Having lived here in the UK for the past 32 years I have become aware of how different the war experience was for the British than it was for the Americans. The British got bombed nearly every night for several years running, so they were always under direct attack. And for so many years, the news just kept getting worse and worse. There was a very real fear that the Nazis might actually win and overrun the UK the way they did the Channel Islands and so many other European countries.

    Americans of the time were certainly worried, and feared attack. But they never were actually attacked, except on bases outwith the continental USA. It wasn't something that went on over their heads every night.

    I can easily understand how a person could be writing a story while not knowing how it would end. I wasn't sure when I wrote mine, until I was very near the end. Even so, the actual end surprised me a bit.
     
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  21. EBohio

    EBohio Banned

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    I can understand that. I have always started with an ending in mind but by the time I am finished it has changed. Things happened that changed it.
     
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  22. jannert

    jannert Retired Mod Supporter Contributor

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    Sometimes I think a writer starts out thinking up some characters, puts them into a setting and then makes something happen to these characters. That's the point where they start writing. They don't always know where what happens is going to lead. That's kind of what I did.
     
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  23. peachalulu

    peachalulu Member Reviewer Contributor

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    I usually pants short stories. I did a couple on here for contests one is Not Pink about a robot who gets beat by his owner. I literally had no idea what it was going to be about when I started it. In fact the character's age and profession came as I was writing which is why he sounds a bit older than he is.
    Novels I have pantsed as well -- one I tried for Nano called Pecking Order and I only had one plot idea -- a meteor crashes on a farm and starts growing hideous creatures in the field. No ending and only one set of characters a pair of twins that inherited the farm.
    Pantsing for me is having some details -- no real clear direction and or a flimsy plot or inciting incident. I've never found that it's harder working this way. Because
    even in the most planned of writing you can run into hitches just the same way as unplanned writing. I think it all depends on how you react to the hitches. And also
    how clean your writing is in the first place. I can write a pretty okay first draft either way.
    Writing is always personal. What works for you may not work for anyone else.
     
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  24. MusingWordsmith

    MusingWordsmith Shenanigan Master Contributor

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    This sounds like more of a 'panster' to me. Honestly though, planner vs panster is not an either or it's more of a spectrum. No shame in leaning to one end or the other.
     
  25. Carly Berg

    Carly Berg Active Member

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    I'd guess most do a mix of planning and pantsing, really.
     
    Last edited: Feb 9, 2019
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