Parisian Phoenix Publishing

I hope I’m not too high up on my horse, but for years I’ve been irked by all the fascination and discussion about those who outline their writing and those who completely wing it.

Because honestly, isn’t most of writing a combination?

But a few days ago, I realized— this conversation bothers me in the same way it does when I hear that people “want to be surprised” by the biological sex of their baby. Because whether you learn about it in advance from an ultrasound or on the birthday, it’s still a surprise.

And giving birth has its own surprises, so I personally don’t understand the need to experience that particular surprise on that day.

I feel similarly about “plotting” vs. “pantsing.” In either case, you are writing a first draft. Some people write an outline, so that essentially becomes a skeletal original draft. The people who figure it out as they write the first draft merely have a longer first draft.

The conversation we’re really having when we talk about this difference in process is which version is more efficient for each writer. I will make a generalization here that the outliners can produce tighter drafts, faster. But how well those drafts are written, and how many more it will take to get it “right” won’t be determined by your process choice.