To Pants or Not to Pants: Knowing your writing startup style

Hi everybody! Welcome back to Too Many Books to Count! I’m so glad you stopped by. Last week, we started a new series, and I’ve been super excited to get into the thick of this thing. This month, as you’ll know if you joined us last week, we’re talking all about first drafts—about writing first drafts, I mean. It’s a topic we haven’t covered in a while, and I want to go a little bit more in-depth with it, this time.

Last week, we talked about picking a genre and truly defining your setting—things that definitely need to be done before you start writing—and today, we’re really getting into the meat of the matter.

To Pants or Not to Pants: Knowing your writing startup style

Me? I’m a seat-of-your-pants kind of girl. I prefer calling it deer-in-the-headlights… but I thought “pants” would be more fun in the title ;-)

Before you really start working on your manuscript, this is a big thing you need to decide on. Are you the kind of writer who’s like me, who prefers to not know what’s going on in the story and to discover it a little bit at a time, or are you the kind of writer who prefers to know anything and everything before they start putting words on the page?

Both are valid responses. Just because I don’t outline doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate those who do. I don’t know how they do it, if I’m being perfectly honest, but in a way, I do admire them for doing it.

But let’s get down to the nitty gritty, before we go any further.

Seat of your Pants/Deer in the Headlights

These are the authors who, like me, discover the story as they go. We might have a vague idea of what’s going to happen in the more immediate future, maybe snippets of information that will point us in the right direction for the long term, but we don’t have an outline and we don’t really know where we’re going with all this.

If you’re this style of writer, then the world is your oyster at this point! Just sit down and start writing. You already have your genre and your setting—usually, your protagonist will be the first thing that comes to you when you really get into the writing, and fortunately for you, they’re one of the first things you’ll need to know when you start writing.

Outliners

These authors, somehow, some way which eludes me to all ends, write the entire outline of their book before they start writing. They know what’s coming when, who’s going where, and what’s really going on at all times. They mold their twists and turns before they even start writing the book.

You might say that this sounds easier. After all, this way you’d have an idea of what you’re doing. And in a way, you’d be right.

If you’re this style of author, if you’re the author who needs to know everything before you start writing, then you’ll need to sit back and outline before you go any further. Yeah, it’ll take you a little more time to start out, but it’ll be well worth it in the long run, I promise.

For those of you who haven’t been around as long and don’t know why I can’t outline:

I get bored. Plain and simple. If I know what’s coming in the story, I don’t want to write it because I already know what happens. My brain is childish sometimes, I know. I don’t know what to do with me. I’ll just stick to being a deer in the headlights, okay?

[love]

{Rani Divine}