Pantsing is a major thrill for me. The fun in discovering the story is why I love to write, and finding how characters emerge from those painted-in corners is a blast. this episode nails it.
All through school I did not consider myself a writer because I could not, for the life of me, brainstorm and outline as my teachers instructed. I always wrote as fast as I could so I knew what I was writing so I could change my outline to match what I wrote before my teacher noticed. It wasn't until well after college that I learned the term "pantser" and finally understood my identity as a writer.
You're reminding me that everybody outlines. It's just that some do it beforehand, some do it as they go, and some do it after, during the editing process.
I wrote all of my first few books without an outline, but I do tend to write so much that never ends up in the final products. I've learned to write a few bullet points to capture main plot points - like a page worth, and then do a lot of daydreaming - playing the story out in my head, before I start writing. I will also write a few sentences before a chapter to know the setting, characters, the emotions, and the end goal of the chapter before I start writing. Thanks so much for sharing these tips!
I'm personally such a pantser I pratically wear them on my head. /j I always get scenes in my head first. I write them down at the best of my ability. If they are within the same "story universe", I try tie them in together. If it's impossible I keep the core idea, but rewrite the whole scene with the characters. But I try to teach myself how to consciously write and do outlines. Hopefully I get good one day.
I used to write with an outline. Last year I stopeed writing thanks to some personal problems and now I want to go back to the habit and trying to sit down and just write is helping me a lot. I've already bought the Pantsing book (alongside the Old Dark Trilogy!) and really enjoyed it. Thanks for the useful advice and congratulations on the great books! Its a perfect proof that this method works. You talk the talk and walk the walk.
I've actually taken the Tolkien route when writing my stories. I've spent upwards of a few years doing an extensive outline/time-line of crafting my universe. I've detailed key events in every age/epoch. Wars, summits, political shifts, founding of kingdoms etc over the course of several hundreds of thousands of years within universe. I've done nearly all the world building first and am now writing stories that take place in certain spots of my pre-established time-line.
I do both. I write my thoughts first, outline a section and once I know the end of the story, I go back and rewrite the online, adding script notes. After that, I use those parts, along with drawings I have created for the world and its standout scenes to begin shaping the narrative. Thank you for your time.
Thank you sir. I am a new writer who only knows that I don't like outlining. I am trying writing into the dark now with a new story. I don't know where it is going exactly or even what genre it is. You are one of the few channels on RU-vid that says that not outlining is just as okay and valid as doing it and does not make pantsers feel like less than writers or outsiders.
This was really helpful, thank you. I haven’t enjoyed writing in a long time because I’ve relied on having a perfect outline first. This kept me from writing anything at all. Going to try your way.
The best way to write for sure. As I watched this video, a story sprang to mind. Took me 15 mins to outline it. Simples. You get a feeling about how long the story will be. Just go with it. Type it, and smooth out it later.
I love world building, but in what little writing I've done, anything more than basic world building has been problematic inasmuch as I feel obligated to describe the world/setting rather than focus on characters/action. The world unveils itself more organically. Same with plot - it changes so much as I go. Cool tips, thanks.
You know, with the hero/villain archetype books by Tami Cowden, you can think of this as Dungeons and Dragons without the guide. You can create anything by writing and get into the character's head and shoot off like Ray Bradbury said.
Wow, what stops me from writing a book is the outline part. I get so hung up on plotting that I lose hope in the writing book part. But thank you for showing your excel spreadsheet, that’s a great tip. My only question is, you write and edit your own book? This is a really great video, thank you
Thanks for the video Michael! This has been super helpful, particularly the world building demonstration. I switched over to writing into the dark pretty easily, but ironically got tripped up by worldbuilding. The stories I write are pretty heavy with it. I'll try out your detail tracking method. Another good tip I might add is one that I picked up from 'creating characters' by Dwight v swain. He talks about deciding what you want your characters to be like and then rationalising why they are like that. It is a pretty lean method, but you only end up developing them as much as your story needs. This method is equally as applicable to worldbuilding.
My dawg dropping gems.. free game. I like pantsing as well. This will be my first time ever writing a novel and it is thrilling and scary at the same time. So let's see how it goes, but thank you for this game
Very familiar with Writing Into the Dark (read the book and took the course with DWS) but I still appreciate your first-hand, fresh take on the process. I’ve tried to outline and it never worked for me.
Excuse me! You are great! InvaluablePRACTICAL tips with concrete examples! Love it! Thank you so much!!!!!Do you have a vid where you shop how you use excel? I have Scrivener but it's just too much for me.
Hi Michael, it's fascinating to see it done the opposite way around from how I do it. I would love to be able to try pantsing in hopes it keeps my story fresh and interesting for me, and yet I get stuck unless I plot it. Aha, still trying to find a balance. Turns out planner is one of my top 5 clifton strengths, along with others that make me more likely to be a planner I think. May I ask if you know your top five strengths and which might be the ones that make you a stronger pantser? Thanks for sharing your process. Always wonderful to learn more about how different writers write. Hope you are recovering well. Best wishes.
hi Rukia, id bet that if you pause your novel draft, to pants a short story with whatever interesting idea you begin with, and let yourself break rules youre following in your novel, youd end up having a disturbingly larger amount of love for the new story thats taken you 1,000% less effort and been 1,000% more enjoyable. but it is important to finish the one youre working on no matter what. just sayin! pantsing and short stories and giving yourself freedom to mess around can make you remember a few things about what makes stories great
Out of curiosity, how many books did you write before you started writing into the dark? I've written four stories to extensive outlines, and it's sucking the fun out of writing for me. And I'm wondering how much storytelling experience you need before you can write without an outline.
I wrote about five novels before I started writing into the dark. The first one I wrote into the dark was tough, but it got much easier the second time around.
@@AuthorLevelUp So, I've tried this method, and it's fun, but it does take a while for me to write 1000 words because I'm writing, cycling, doing research as it crops up, and outlining. Is it safe to assume that I'll get faster over time?
It got faster for me. Also remember that even if you’re slow at writing into the dark, it’s still economical because you spend less time editing, in theory. But everyone is different.
Do you have an idea of what book you will be writing when you start a new book or do you begin even at the idea level writing into the dark? If you do know ahead of time what you are going to write do you have an incubation period before you begin the novel where you internally mull over the idea or do you just jump right in? I always enjoy pantsing videos. I prefer pantsing, I am always pleasantly surprised where it takes me.
I have a story I've been contemplating since 2019. I started taking the time to actually write it last year. My only issue is I spent the entire year just trying to get an outline down. I have a bunch of ideas that seem to work together in my head but connecting it all to a cohesive theme is the part I'm struggling with. I tried to restart my outline with theme at the forefront but I can't really come up with anything interesting or thought provoking. It's all cliche and too derivative of existing work. I'm going to try pantsing a first draft because the outlining really isn't working for me. I'm hoping that as I write, the threads of the theme will become more apparent to me. I'm thinking that I just don't have the experience to outline a whole books. Every time I'm outlining I just end up with more questions and less clarity.
I have an important question for you, Sir. What is your position on the use of Chat-gpt AI technology in story writing? Are you for it, against it, or do you just not have an opinion on this highly controversial topic?
I have a video coming out on this next Friday. :) In short, I’m for it but believe we need to be ethical and respects others’s copyrights. I also think that AI for story writing isn’t there quality wise yet but will be eventually.
@@AuthorLevelUp - Thank you so much for getting back to me on this, Sir. The reason why I asked my question is because I just started using the hollo AI platform. This AI platform has turned out to be quite helpful to me in my writing. In fact. This AI platform has helped me to finish writing the latest science fiction novel of my TimeScape series. Personally, I think as long as the writer is expected to do most of the heavy lifting, when it comes to the actual story writing process, we won't have to worry about Infringing on the copyrights of other people. This is especially true when it comes to character names and place names. For example. Whenever I see a character name or a place name appear in my story that I don't instantly recognize, I immediately replace it with a character name or place name that I myself created with my own imagination. Thankfully, the hollow AI platform forces the human writer to do most of the heavy lifting when it comes to the actual story writing process. In other words, the AI cannot help you unless you help it first. It isn't designed to write the story for you. It can only give helpful suggestions. It's also the cheapest AI platform that I have found so far.
Prescriptive plot beats is total bullshit. They were invented for films as a gimmick and they don’t work for novels and, quite frankly, they’ve ruined movies! Readers want entertainment. As writers, we know good stories through the osmosis of being voracious readers.
