For the uninitiated, Pantsing is a term popularized by the now defunct NaNoWriMo and it means writing without a plan. By the seat of your pants, if you will. No detailed outlines, no painstakingly crafted notecards, no Obsidian web, nothing.

All my life, I was under the impression that I was a dedicated Plotter in the great Plotter-Pantser War. I love an outline, I love knowing what’s happening next. I love making my own work a little bit easier. But part of my recent burnout recovery involves throwing out a lot of what I think I know works, and part of that has been examining the question: “How helpful is planning really?”

So I’ve been pantsing my current work, tentatively titled “Caged Birds And Other Victors,” a Victorian romantasy with dark academia trappings and sapphic yearning. It’s been a ball and I’m enjoying the process all the more for a lack of plan. Here’s what I’m learning from the pantsing process so far.

---

I Don’t Need To Know Everything Right Now

The eternal bane of the smarty-pants is the need to either know everything or at least not have anyone else have more of a clue than me. And I am Queen Smarty-Pants of the Kingdom of Know-It-All. Ask my tenth-grade English teacher; I’m a menace.

One of the pros of pantsing is that I get to let the story surprise me too. The first draft is telling myself the story, yes, and for once I am surprised by the twists. I get to learn the information right alongside my POV character, and that makes for a fun writing session.

What I Do Know Is A Guidepost

Well… I don’t learn everything with her.

Part of the process is getting from Point A to Point B. Anastasia has to get to the school. Anastasia and Diana have to meet. Anastasia has to learn the dark secrets. And while I know the beats, I don’t know them to the point where I’m reciting them in my sleep. In that way, my known beats are more like distant beacons guiding me down the path of the plot, instead of regimented streetlights that tell me where I’m going and at what time.

Pantsing Lets Me Get Weird

To that end, I don’t have to meet the beats when I think I’m going to.

Past drafts have had me saying that if Character A didn’t have Revelation X by 20,000 words, the book was failed no matter how well-edited I thought it was. I was saving too many cats, I was romancing too many beats. Like a poorly poured wine, I wasn’t letting the damn thing breathe.

But the understanding that there’s a beat to hit without a time to hit it means that I can wallow in the story for a bit. I can meander. I can explore the magic system, or the environment, or the cat. I have to move on from those details eventually— this isn’t a story about a cat— but I can indulge them.

Details Are Tough To Nail Down

That said, details may be the devil. I am repeatedly having to go back through my sparse, vague notes and the draft I already have in order to remember last names, locations, exact words, promises, and concepts. I do not imagine that any devilish detail will be consistent in my very first draft. Despite best efforts to remember names, I keep having to scroll up and say “What was your last name?” “What’s your hometown again?” Sitting in the kitchen with my partner, muttering into simmering sauce “What was the goddamn snake’s name?”

And these are just coherent details.

Editing Will Be Everything

As an indie author, I am entirely too broke to afford an editor (who are worth every penny I can’t pay them.) That said, it might be for the best that I don’t have an external voice on this one quite yet. I can imagine sending 50k+ words of brimming pride to an editor, who will respond with “Girl, What?” after they’ve read it. I’m going to have to throw on my waders and strap on some hedge clippers to do it myself.

And I can make that part of the fun.

If I expect motivations to change and characters to evolve— that is, if I accept that they’re just going to do that— I can make doubling-down on those characters part of the game. In the same way that carving a sculpture is fun when you get into details, so is sharpening a character’s presence in the narrative. Something that there isn’t a lot of room for in the meticulous workshop of the plotter.