Beyond Plotter and Pantser

Maybe it's time to work with the grain of your brain?

by SDG Morgan

“Raise up an author in the way that he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it.”

Perhaps you’ve heard the terms plotter and pantser? They describe two ways of writing. One writer plots out ahead of time, and the other writes by the seat of his pants, hence “pantser.”

I am neither. For many years, I felt quite guilty about this and so I kept my very idiosyncratic methods to myself. I knew how I write, and I knew it was the only way my brain worked. But my creativity wasn’t unlocked by plotting or “pantsing.”

After two MFA programs and countless writing conventions where I only heard about plotters vs. pantsers, I figured my technique was pretty much unique to me. (In fact, I’d never heard another writer describe it until I joined The Habit decades later.)

So I tried to shove a tetradecagon-shaped process into a square-shaped hole. I thought I had no other choice. After all, I’d heard umpteen lectures from authors I respected that described the same structure: wake up early, write for an hour before the day starts, etc.

And I did it. And it didn’t work. So I tried harder, and it worked less.

Recently, I gave up, because now that schedule is virtually impossible. As a primary caregiver, stay-at-home-dad, steady schedules of any kind are a luxury. An oasis mirage. Put simply, I don’t control my own schedule, no matter how much I would like to. But that’s been a blessing in disguise because it’s forced me to analyze my own brain and study my own creativity.

I’ll call myself a Phaser.

I write in phases. I have always written in phases, like seasons. There will be long fallow stretches like winter. There will be a spring time of optimism and an explosion of so many ideas I cannot contain them or write them down fast enough. Then there is the grueling summer of steady, boring heat, where these scribbled dozens of pages of notes sit in my brain, marinating, some wilting, others growing roots that go deep into my soul, and then there’s the harvest where I can sit down and write thousands upon thousands of words quickly, pulling on the slowly grown tap roots deep down in my subconscious.

Do you know your species of writer? Take the poll below!

Often, during a spring phase, I will wake up slowly (my brain always wakes up incredibly slowly since I was a toddler) and pray with my Father in these quiet gaps in my half-awakened state. Often, as I pray—*BAM*—a huge plot problem is solved, and I’ll wake up in a burst of ideas and scribble down all the scattering ideas on a legal pad before they’re all gone.

Usually in a summer phase, I am writing in my head. It will seem to an outside observer that I’m doing nothing, but my brain is on fire. It will look like I’m staring at the wall, but I’m not. A story is bouncing around in my mind hitting dead-ends, then circumventing them, then creating bridges over chasmic plot holes. Sometimes, two entirely different threads, paths of notes from two different eras of composition, will meet, merge, and connect into a more complex plot than before.

Of course, the harvest phase is my favorite because I will look like a writer to everyone else, and I will feel like a writer to myself because I write quickly in these phases. This isn’t on purpose.

I used to dread the winter phase and sometimes misdiagnose it as writer’s block. But it’s really not (unless it lasts too many months). And it used to be that during particularly long winter phases, I would despair of being a writer at all. (We writers do like to be overdramatic, don’t we?) But recently, God’s been showing me that spring, summer, fall, and winter, I’ve been a writer the whole time.

I learned I can do other forms of creativity that are more logistical during winter phases that access different parts of myself (recently, it’s podcasting).

This is simply how I write. I write in phases. I can’t not.

I certainly don’t recommend it unless your brain is already doing it. Then, I would recommend acknowledging the kind of creativity you’ve been given.

There’s already too much envy and shame in the creative process. One way to root out those insidious weeds is to just let the native flora of your mind grow. You have permission to write the way your brain works.

I’m certain that most of you aren’t Phasers. It just isn’t how you write.

I’m glad. It’s a pretty odd process, but it works for me.

God made you a very specific kind of writer. And you will need to identify and develop your species of creativity. You will, of course, need discipline, and you will need practice, feedback, failure, growth and community. These are non-negotiables.

However, the way these look in practice will be very different for each species of writer. Every plant needs sunlight, soil, and water, yet they will not all grow the same, look the same, or create the same fruit. The same is true with writers.

Tend your own field, then perhaps God will entrust you with more. Perhaps not. Either way, He knows exactly what he’s doing, and God never wastes a gift. He made you a writer for a precise purpose.

I like what Addison Bevere wrote in Words With God:

An anti-response is not usually the right response. Merely running in the opposite direction of a lie does not necessarily lead us to the Father’s house of Truth. The question we must all ask ourselves is not ‘Is it wrong for them’ but ‘What must I do?’… As Paul instructed Timothy, we should possess or take care of our own souls; once we do that, the Father has a way of entrusting us with the souls of others.

So, what are you?

Are you a Periodically-Perennial? Panicker? Pandemoniumator? A Peregrinator?

Or even something else that doesn’t start with a P?

If you are another species of writer altogether, then share it in the comments below!

July 17–20: Sponsor Table at the CiRCE National Conference in Charleston, SC
July 15–31: Open submissions! More info to come.
August: Red Rex release (preorders open this week!)
November: Above, Not Up release (preorders open in September)

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The real question is *how* Millie Florence is powering the Withywindle Machine. Is it through delight and cheer? Or by bicycle? Or just with words?

In any case, this is a delightful interview and we commend to you the 7.8th episode of Withywindle from Goldberry Studios.

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