On Pantsing (Patreon)

Pantsing, also refered to as Discovery Writing, and "Are You <Bleeping> Insane?," is a method of writing where the writer knows little ahead of time as to what the story is about. At the extreme, the writer sits down with no idea of what they will work on, write and end up with a story. There are varying gradiant, with more and more planning coming in to play, heading toward the full on Planner (I’m leaving that discussion to someone more qualified thant I).

A Warning going forward, there will be spoilers for Stepping Up, Book 2 of the Dungeon Runner series, as well as The Broken Step, book 3 of that series.

Pantsing has its reward and pitfalls.

When left to my own devices, I am very high on the pantsing scale, although none of the stories I’ve written falls exactly in the same position there. I wrote one out of order, without any idea where I was going. I wrote others with a variety of points I knew I needed to hit.

The way it usually works for me is that I have an idea of what I want, it might be a sense of the story(A feel I’m going for) or a scene. I will often have the first scene of a story and everything will progress from there. Or a scene taking place somewhere in it, and everything leads to it. Once Broken, Book 6 in the Tristan series if the latter, there is a chapter around the ¾ mark that I wanted and I just had to write a story leading to it (That’s before the series was reworked into 6 book) Demons, book 1 of the same named series, had an opening scene and a feel I wanted to go for.

Bottom Rung (book 1 in the Dungeon Runner series) is a little odd in that it came as a reaction to other Dungeon Core books I read. They all had the “Hero” as this happy go lucky guy for whom everything went his way, and no one ever took advantage of. That’s always been the most difficuly part of those stories for me to swallow.

When the conscept for Bottom Rung struck, I had the sense of Tibs, and the knowledge his life would be a tough one and would resolve around a dungeon and the town being build to accommodate ewverythign needed for it. I didn’t have a story when I started writing it. I didn’t even know what the main conflict would be, the big battle.

One of the rewards of pantsing is starting from that and watching the story evolve. Before the halfway point I made the sedicions that the big battle would revolve around monsters attacking, possibly sent by a competing dungeon. In the last fifth of the book I discovered I had it all wrong. Those who had read that book know how that final battle went, if you haven’t read it, go do so: https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/36484/dungeon-runner

Stepping Up, book 2 if giving me one of the pittfalls of Pantsing. And this is where we’re falling into Spoiler territory. I want Tibs to comint a heist in the Guild building, More Specifically, in Tirana’s office. I know what I want him to take, although I’ve yet to justify the reason to my satisfaction.

Think on this, Tibs, who is at most, the equivalent of a Lambda Runner, will need to take on a Building with the kind of security on it set by people who will be multiuple ranks about him. Tirania herself is rank Beta, the highest in the guild since I’ve established there are no Alpha Adventurers.

I need Tibs to go in, get when he wants, take it to the dungeon for Sto to copy it, and return it to Tirania’s office before she realizes it was gone.

I have no idea how I’m going to pull that off.

In The Broken Step, Book 3, I have an even bigger challenge, because as the results of events in book 2, Tibs will decide to take down “the Guild”. Now, I know he’s making the mistake of not realizing how large the guild actually is, so ultimately, he’ll fail, but he will still take down something. And 1) I have no idea how I’m going to have that happen, and 2) the one Idea I have ends up with Tibs being a murderer… do I really want to do that? Can I find a way to make that death justifiable since it wouldn’t be someone directly involved in what starts Tibs’s vendetta?

Those are pittfalls the pantser finds themselves confronting. Those situation where a story turns into a direction they never saw coming, or saw and were helpless to change, and they have to trust in their skill and the characters to pull of the impossible.

When I can tell you from experience, is that when I do manage to pull that off, the feeling in indescribably.

And with that. I, will wish you a good day.