Pantsing? Yes, pantsing

When I was a kid, I just wrote. Hours upon hours of reading Dungeons and Dragons type books, I just wrote whatever cool idea came to me. Way back when, I had no idea about the writing process. I just wrote. It was great fun. Nothing was holding me back. Ideas just flew onto the page or onto my trusty old Commodore 64 so I could see my words printed up on my dot matrix printer. So much fun.

Nowadays, one can’t help but constantly be made aware of all the writing rules, the different processes, the grammar police, the Oxford comma… all of it. It’s everywhere. But here I’m talking about plotting versus pantsing.

First starting out, so long ago now, I didn’t know I was pantsing. But I guess I was. The information didn’t bother me, move me in any way, or discourage me from doing what I was already doing—creating worlds of epic fantasy and gruesome monsters buried within mountains. I don’t remember when I learned about plotting, but I’m thinking around my time in community college. That fits with around the time I just stopped writing.

I was told, “you should plot your stories, so you know where you’re going.” So, I did… for a while. Something happened during that process of trying to write in a different way. Instead of writing, I was plotting. And because I was plotting, I was seeing what was going to happen. So, picture this with me. You know how in Star Wars, Luke had no clue what was happening, what was going to happen, or what he might lose if he continued on? I was in that theater, way back when, feeling like I was in Luke’s shoes, being a part of his Hero’s Journey even though I had no idea what the Hero’s Journey was at the time. None of that mattered. I was Luke. I was stepping where he stepped, swinging the lightsaber right along with him, not knowing if I’d land a blow or not.

Let’s circle back to plotting to make my point. With plotting, I was mapping out where Luke stepped. I knew whether Luke’s lightsaber would strike true or not. And… I didn’t like knowing that. The epic battles? I already knew it was coming, play by play. And the ending? It ruined it for me. So, I stopped writing altogether. What was the point of watching the movie if I already knew the ending? I didn’t write for a long while. Years in fact.

I came back to it later, but I don’t think I truly learned why I stopped writing until even this new adventure stalled as well. I hadn’t learned the lesson. I can’t plot. I can’t know the outcome. So, even that adventure ended, dead in the water. The manuscript, written out on an old school composition book, was put on my bookshelf not to be touched again… until roughly three years ago now.

What happened? I retired from state service. New chapter in life. We were going on a cruise as a family. The itch to write hit me again, but this was a quite different itch. It was like a compulsion. A command. A new mission. And armed with the knowledge of what writing I could not engage in any longer, plotting, I told my wife, “I need just one day on that cruise ship, alone, with my pen and paper.” Of course she said yes. I’d brought my latest manuscript with me, dusted it off and threw it in my backpack, and brought along a new composition book. And the pantsing came back. Not only did the pantsing come back, but The Animal In Us was born again. And as I pantsed my way through it, piece after piece fit perfectly together… as if each was meant to be there, locking one another other in place. I had found my way again.

And now, The Animal In Us is out in the world. My first published book! I steamrolled through the days and months writing it, watching the movie play in my head as my fingers feverishly wrote what I saw. I bled with each character, bonded with them. I suffered the same fear and anxiety they felt as they saw the horror that was Desolation’s Child. I cried with them. I sobbed with them. Pantsing is a cathartic experience for me. This is why I write. This is why I pants.