Photo by S O C I A L . C U T on Unsplash

Today’s guest post is by writer, editor, and book coach Karmen H. Špiljak.

At the beginning of my writing journey, I learned there were two groups of writers: the plotters and the pantsers. The plotters like to flesh out the story structure before they start to draft and the pantsers prefer a wild ride, discovering the story as it unfolds on the page.

The thing was, I enjoyed both. Some manuscripts I wrote without a plan, while for others, I made an outline, sometimes even a detailed one. Most of the time, though, I sailed somewhere in between the two, making a rough plan then winging my way through the first draft.

So what did that make me? I settled for a plantser, but I was never fully satisfied with the label, mostly because it didn’t help me understand my own process or how to improve it.

I didn’t get my lightbulb moment until reading Anne H. Janzer’s brilliant book, The Writer’s Process: Getting Your Brain in Gear. Instead of treating the process as a single unit, Janzer breaks the writing process into seven steps, starting with research and ending with publication. For the purposes of this blog post, I’ll (unfairly) condense them into three key phases: preparation, drafting and revision.

Reading Janzer’s book made me realize that the whole plotter/pantser divide was based only on our approach to the first phase, preparation. Some writers embrace uncertainty and enjoy playing around with a blank canvas, while others prefer to understand a bit more about their story before they commit to writing it. Not unlike the difference in learning styles, some prefer reading the instruction manual while others enjoy learning on the go.

Then, it was less of an identity and more of a method?

This realization completely shifted my understanding of what the writing process is and how it works. For starters, preparation is so much more than outlining. What’s more, how we prepare can depend on the story, our preferences, our experience and our need for novelty.

As I looked back at my own preparation, I could discern a wide range of attempts to warm up the story and myself before drafting, from a rough outline with key turning points to character notes and a handful of discovery scenes that let me feel the story’s shape. Not to mention the invisible preparation that happened in my mind, checking in with the characters and allowing the idea to grow and develop. Surely, that counted as preparation too?

Equating preparation with outlining underestimates the sheer amount of work that goes into crafting a story. Even writers who balk at outlining rarely meet the blank page stone cold without giving their idea some thought. Most importantly, though, preparation is only the first phase and all it reveals is how we like to warm up. I like to compare it to swimming: some jump into the water, while others like to feel the temperature first or splash some water onto themselves before going in. Yet, we aren’t calling them jumpers and splashers. Then why do we do it for writing?

Dividing writers into plotters and pantsers redirects our focus from the process to a single detail, so that we end up either wondering what camp we fit in or worse, arguing which one is better.

What if instead we thought of preparation as writing the invisible draft, whether that involves pondering the story, making notes, playing with the idea, creating mood boards, whipping up a rough synopsis or creating a scene‑by‑scene outline? Rather than limiting ourselves to using a specific method, we could grant ourselves permission to explore, experiment and observe what kind of preparation works best for us.

The more I learn about the writing process, the clearer it is that it is not a rigid system, but something that evolves with stories and experience. Some stories might call for heavier preparation than others, or sometimes the writer might do it to mine for ideas. Neither of these approaches is better or worse than the other: they are simply different. Most importantly, using one doesn’t oblige you to commit to it for all your stories. Even when you find one that works for you, you might want to try something different to keep things fresh or to flex your writing muscles.

A more flexible view of preparation takes away the shame we might feel when we break away from our usual method, because it might feel like we’re “cheating” on the rules of our camp. Instead, we get to pick tools from a much larger toolbox and grant ourselves permission to have fun, explore and learn. Sure enough, sometimes that learning will result in learning how things don’t work for us, and that’s okay.

At least this has been my experience. Letting go of fixed ideas about plotters and pantsers allowed me to approach each new project with curiosity and enthusiasm knowing that each story offers a new ground for discovery.

If that got you curious about the writing process, you can grab my free resource that gives you a brief overview of the key phases, a guideline to map your own process and a tool starter pack that helps address a few common areas of friction.