Plotter or Pantster: Which are You?

There have been a lot of recent discussions in many of my writing groups regarding plotting and pantsing. For those that don’t know what the difference between the two is, here you go:

A Pantster is someone who literally writes from the seat of their pants and has no idea where there story is going, they just write until they run out of ideas.

A Plotter is someone who plots out the entire novel before writing it and tries to the best of their abilities to follow the outline they provided. This is a hard thing to do because I think we all have a little bit of the pantser in us simply because we are writers and do have overactive imaginations.

I’ve decided to take my blog this week to let you all know exactly what my writing method is…
I’m both!

Yes, you read that right!

If I plot out an entire novel, by the time I’m done I no longer have any interest in the story to actually write it, but if I don’t have some idea of the different plot layers and subplots I want to hit on my way to the end then I end up writing myself into dead ends which I extremely frustrating for me.

You see I have a wonderful Novel Notebook to thank that helps me to do both methods. I’ve pasted the link below so that anyone who wants to check it out can. It’s extremely low cost 7 dollars at the cheapest 13 at the most expensive.

http://www.jeannieruesch.com/mywipnotebook.shtml

This notebook allows me flesh out my characters completely, figure out the different setting I want to use, allows me to set a timeline for my novel and also lets me flesh out each conflict, plot layer, and subplot that I want to hit in my story, it allows me to write out the black moments, the HEA, how each plot and conflict is resolved, what the characters learn from those conflicts, and I’m able to flesh out my characters GMC’s as well. This notebook is amazing and I’m so glad that I found it. It also lets you map out your novel chapter by chapter but I only plan on using that one chapter at a time.

Now that I’ve raved about the notebook, here’s my actual process(mind you the time line isn’t exact because I only do this stuff when I have time but this is the order I do it in)For me, I usually get the plot in my head before the characters so I go straight to the end of the notebook and map out all the different conflicts for the story that I have in my head(I add more later if I think of any, after all this isn’t concrete its just a map to go off of) while I’m writing out the plot layers and conflicts I get the ending scene in my brain and map that out as well as the HEA and black moment.

By this time I usually have my characters in my head and know what kinds of personalities I want them to have so I go online and I do a name search for my characters names. I usually ignore the setting aspect because that will come to be as I write.

Once I have the majority of the notebook filled out I’ll write and I usually won’t stop unless I’m at the end of the chapter. I then go back to the notebook and in the chapter outline area I will outline only the main things I want to accomplish in the next chapter this way I know where to start the next time I write. I do this until its finished and then I begin editing.

Seems like a long process I know, and it is, but I love doing it because I love writing and its what works for me.

Now I’m curious,

What methods do you all use?

Inquiring minds want to know!

You know you love me!