# Planner or Pantser



## LoganGreypaw (Apr 21, 2018)

Question; for the stuff you guys contribute to FurAffinity, are you a "planner" or a "pantser"?

As a refresher, this is to do with how much you plan before writing.

An absolute planner would meticulously plan every part of their work, perhaps even going so far as to have sentence describing what's going to happen in each paragraph before they get going.

An absolute pantser is the opposite, they just _start writing_ with zero plan whatsoever, and put it together as they go.

In reality, almost no-one actually conforms to these extremes; they form a continuum where you can peg yourself somewhere between.

Historically I'm a bit of a planner; however, for the erotic fiction I post on SoFurry, I'm trying out being a bit more of a pantser, in that I only have a rough idea of what's going to happen before I launch into it.

What about you guys?


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## BahgDaddy (Apr 21, 2018)

I'm very much a pantster. I start off with very little idea, and just in my head, about what I want to write and what I want to do about it. The story sort of just unfolds and if sections aren't quite what I want them to be, I do back and edit them to change them.


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## LoganGreypaw (Apr 21, 2018)

BahgDaddy said:


> I'm very much a pantster. I start off with very little idea, and just in my head, about what I want to write and what I want to do about it. The story sort of just unfolds and *if sections aren't quite what I want them to be, I do back and edit them to change them.*


Admittedly, this is meant to be one of the key differences between the two. Editing is important for both types, but generally planners do a _bit_ less as they did some of the "editing" before they even started writing. That being said, for even the best planner, scenes don't always work out how they expect, so rewrites often happen.


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## BahgDaddy (Apr 21, 2018)

LoganGreypaw said:


> Admittedly, this is meant to be one of the key differences between the two. Editing is important for both types, but generally planners do a _bit_ less as they did some of the "editing" before they even started writing. That being said, for even the best planner, scenes don't always work out how they expect, so rewrites often happen.



yeah, because planners are basically editing heavily before they even start. However I actually do a lot more planning than I let on - I generally know what I want to do for the beginning, middle, and end of the story. I start writing to flesh all that stuff out. And planners are in a way also doing what I do - they may be planning a lot, but they still have to invent the plan to begin with.


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## Simo (Apr 21, 2018)

Definitely in the middle here. I like to have a rough outline, but not one that's going to be too confining...and I tend to revise a lot. I suppose this comes from also writing poetry (narrative, non-rhyming), which is a very tight form, where any word that is not needed, goes. And so I have a tendency even in fiction to want it to flow smoothly, and not be overly wordy and flowery. As much as I might add to things, it seems to be that in revision, I spent a lot of time condensing. 

Also, I have based a good deal of furry fiction on various RPs I have done; not that they follow the narratives precisely, but as a general idea, or way to expand the 'canon' of stories about Simo, in various stages of his life. But the ideas that bubble up in RPs have been a huge help to me; though, even in RPs, I tend to edit my posts a good deal.


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## Takkin (Apr 21, 2018)

Very loose on the planning. My little thing I do for planning... consists of making a blank page for major plot direction, and changes, that I've preconceived that I make sure I hit on. So, about a sentence or two so I get my thoughts on the screen. 

After that... it's all on the fly from one scene/plot to the next. In most of my writing I get some direction from the requester, and this is how I like to space things out to fill it in. I rarely go back and edit; instead I seem to find myself filling in more to make adjustments... which isn't always a good thing for me to do.  *eep!*


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## zenmaldita (Apr 21, 2018)

im a planner but after playing a non-canon public RP i learned to let go and just let the people make the story flow.


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## Togo57 (Apr 23, 2018)

Takkin said:


> Very loose on the planning. My little thing I do for planning... consists of making a blank page for major plot direction, and changes, that I've preconceived that I make sure I hit on. So, about a sentence or two so I get my thoughts on the screen.
> 
> After that... it's all on the fly from one scene/plot to the next. In most of my writing I get some direction from the requester, and this is how I like to space things out to fill it in. I rarely go back and edit; instead I seem to find myself filling in more to make adjustments... which isn't always a good thing for me to do.  *eep!*


Same, though maybe with a little more planning.

Start with a rough skeleton draft (outline, phrases I'd like to include, species/name of the characters, etc.) and then pantsing all the way.


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## Moogie69 (Apr 27, 2018)

I haven't written anything for FA, yet! But I've done a lot of writing elsewhere. For proper novels, I like to plan meticulously, so that I have a good idea what my final wordcount will be. If I'm trying to hit all the specific story beats, it helps to have a full outline so that I can see immediately where the pacing might be off.

But for one-page fics or novellas, generally I'll make a brief plan and then pants it. There's less you have to worry about in terms of arcs and plots and whatnot, so there's more freedom to just write as the words come. I've seen a lot of happy accidents happen that way!


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## DaWaffleWolf (Apr 27, 2018)

This has noting to do with anything but a friend wanted me to spread the word
forums.furaffinity.net: The alien disclosure
Tell him the waffle wolf sent you


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## Gnarl (May 4, 2018)

I'm totally a pantser, so far have written many novels and novellas that way. A bit of a planner when it comes to short stories, they require a lot more thought and economy of words.


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## LuciantheHugmage (May 4, 2018)

Definitely a planner. I might develop a detailed description of a story's world before I start writing the story itself- _if _I write the story itself.


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## AthleteRaccoon (May 6, 2018)

I'm a hardcore pantser by nature, yet for shorter work I find myself planning a lot in my head. I just don't worry too much if when I put pen to paper something a little (or a lot) different comes out. I've been a writer for over 2o years and have lots of stuff out there, and all my self-published novel length stuff was all pantsed so hard the damn things caught fire. Even when I've tried to solve problems by adopting planner tactics it mostly didn't work for me, and it was just a case of keep writing until I get it right.


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## Tyll'a (Jun 10, 2018)

I haven't written anything for FA yet, but for the RP storylines I write in FF14 I am both.  I have a tendency to do a lot of planning - and then throw those plans right out the window once it actually starts.  But even though the storyline I'm currently working on is far longer than anything I've written before, it's also getting far less initial planning, because I know that if I do as much as I used to, most of that planning will end up getting thrown away anyway.


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