Every NaNoWriMo writer has heard this question more than a million times: are you a pantser or a planner?
The pantsers are those who go with what they got; may it be a phrase, a sentence, a picture, or even a word that covers the gist of their novel. They are known to 'fly by the seat of their pants', thus the name.
The planners, on the other hand, are those who...plan. They create outlines that include the story peaks and plot twists, character sketches from their history to their physical builds, world lay outs with rules and maps and secrets passageways.
When asked which corner I belong, my answer would automatically hover over the planner. After contemplating about it, I count myself as neither both. But someone in between, instead.
Usually a simple statement jump-starts my imaginative jet and like a pantser, I work with it, twisting it in a million different ways in search of the perfect bottom line to continue writing. And that's when I become a planner.
The blank spaces on my walls and half filled notebooks would be brimming with flowcharts, character blueprints, and printed maps. They layout my novel for me, answer some questions I have, serving as a history book in case I miss something. But these are just created out of...boredom and necessity.
So whenever I start to yawn every 30 seconds in class or mope around every room in the house, I bring out my notebook and just write. I write the story's end, excerpts from this chapter, conduct and manners of their home, where her name came from, and all that stuff. These prompt me closer to the characters, to their lives and their world, which is crucial in writing fiction.
I guess, one way or the other we are both planners and pantsers, because these characterizations depend on each other, in ways that we tend to not notice. I have nothing against specifying whether you're the former or the latter; this is just me, defining myself as both, 50% planner and 50% pantser.
What about you? How do you write?
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