How to Write a Novel: Discovery writing (or pantsing)
“If you surrender to the wind, you can ride it.”
—Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon
The term ‘pantsing’ comes from the term ‘fly by the seat of your pants,’ and essentially means that you write what comes into your head and work out the story along the way.
For some people, this means literally starting from the first sentence of the first page and writing until the story is done. For others, it involves writing out of order and stitching the story together later, which is my approach.
Let’s first address the term ‘pantsing,’ which is frankly terrible! It’s based on the American word ‘pants,’ meaning trousers, but I’m British, and pants are underwear. I much prefer the term ‘discovery writing,’ so that’s what I’ll use and perhaps together we can get rid of the term ‘pantsing’ altogether.
The benefits of discovery writing
It’s so much fun!
Many discovery writers feel as if knowing what happens or planning it all in advance makes the writing process boring, but if you don’t know what will happen next in your story, the writing process has the intensity and excitement of discovery. This can make the finished product just as interesting for the reader as it was for you in the writing process.
I also find these extraordinary moments of synchronicity happen when I discovery write and research as I go. They happen during the writing of every book, although I can’t force them to happen. There’s a moment where the story clicks, it all suddenly makes sense, and things that I invented cross over into the real world in unexpected ways. That feeling makes the creative potential of the discovery process almost addictive.
You need to have a certain amount of trust in your innate story sense, but that is also part of the enjoyment. We have all read so many books and watched so many movies and TV shows that we have a deep understanding of story as human beings. There’s a sense of ‘knowing’ how a story works, and in discovery writing, it’s about leaning into this feeling. Trust that your subconscious story brain will give you what you need along the way.
“Writing with intentional plot structure is not necessary for the story to be compelling.”
—Becca Syme & Susan Bischoff, Dear Writer, Are You Intuitive?
The difficulties of discovery writing
If you don’t know how the story will work, you can end up writing yourself into a corner. Many discovery writers discard words, scenes, characters, and plot points later. Some may have to redraft altogether to make a story work. Some consider that a ‘waste,’ but it’s just part of the discovery process.
You will also face the blank page regularly in your writing sessions, as you might not always know what to write next.
Dean Wesley Smith addresses this in Writing into The Dark: “Getting stuck is part of writing into the dark. It is… a natural part of the process of a creative voice building a story. Embrace the uncertainty of being stuck, trust your creative voice, give it a few moments’ rest, and then come back and write the next sentence.”
Reframe the blank page as the promise of unlimited possibility, rather than the fear of the unknown.
How to discovery write
“Story emerges from human minds as naturally as breath emerges from between human lips. You don’t have to be a genius to master it. You’re already doing it.”
—Will Storr, The Science of Storytelling
Write a sentence.
Then another one.
Then another one.
Repeat until done for the writing session.
You don’t have to tell the story in a linear fashion. You can jump around and write what the Muse wants to write and piece it all together later. That’s how it works for me. I never write in order.
When you sit down to discovery write, you need to trust that something will emerge from you somehow, even if it feels like you have nothing when you face the blank page.
Of course, you must learn the craft. There must be an element of understanding the principles of story.
But there is also something ineffable, something unexplainable, something magic that happens when you trust the discovery process.
You may not even realize what is in your consciousness until it spills out onto the page. As poet Ben Okri said, we are “magnificent and mysterious beings capable of creating civilisations out of the wild lands of the earth and the dark places in our consciousness.”
As Walt Whitman said, “I am large, I contain multitudes.”
You can do this. Trust emergence.
Authors who are discovery writers
Lee Child used to start writing his next Jack Reacher thriller on 1 September each year and continue writing until the book was done (before he handed the franchise over to his brother in 2020). In an interview with Marie Claire magazine, he said, “I just start somewhere, somewhere that feels good, and then literally think ‘Alright now what happens?’ So a million times in the process it’s a question of ‘Alright now what happens?’ and so the story tells itself.”
I’m a Jack Reacher fan and the storylines are linear and work well for this kind of writing style. Reacher arrives in a town, something bad happens, he must find and punish the bad guys, and there’s some fighting and (occasionally) some loving along the way. There is a clear protagonist, and the story unfolds in real time as Reacher experiences it.
But not everyone writes such a linear story and you certainly don’t have to.
Stephen King is a discovery writer and his books are usually sprawling stories with many characters, multiple points of view, and often a complicated plot. In On Writing, he talks about starting with a character in a situation and writing from there. “Stories are found things, like fossils in the ground,” which must be uncovered through the writing process. King does multiple drafts and revisions to deepen the story, but his first draft is all discovery. He says, “I believe plotting and the spontaneity of real creation aren’t compatible.”
Tess Gerritsen talks about her discovery process in an article on her blog: “Since I don’t outline ahead of time, I don’t always know the solution to the mystery. So I’ll wander in the wilderness along with my characters until I get about two-thirds of the way through and I’ll be forced to find answers. And then I can finally write to the end… I don’t stop to revise during the first draft. Because it’s all going to be changed anyway, when I finally figure out what the book is about.”
Nora Roberts says in a blog post about her method: “The first draft, the discovery draft, the POS (guess what that stands for) draft is the hardest for me. Figuring it all out, creating people I’m going to care about enough to sit here with hours every day in order to tell their story. Finding out information about the setting, the careers involved, and so much more. I don’t outline. I have a kind of loose mental outline, then I sit down, get started and hope it all works one more time.”
Dean Wesley Smith has written several hundred novels and shares his process in Writing into the Dark: How to Write a Novel Without an Outline. He talks about ‘cycling,’ where he writes a scene and then cycles back to read through it and make changes as necessary every time he sits down to write. He might deepen the character or add to the plot, or make other changes. Sometimes he might find a plot issue and have to cycle back further, but when he finishes the first full draft, the book is done. He has a proofreader check it and then publishes.
My process: Discovery writing with a touch of plotting
I have tried so many times to become an outliner. I’ve read all the books on structure and plotting and done lots of courses, but my Muse just won’t comply. It frankly makes me miserable to try and outline in any detail. My creative brain just doesn’t work that way. It sucks the joy out of the writing process — and what’s the point in that?!
I have written and published many novels at this point, so clearly my process works, even if it doesn’t fit neatly into the way many others say we ‘should’ write. This is how I discovery write.
I have various ideas mulling around in my head for a long time before I start a book. They might be ideas about a character, a setting, a story question, a theme I want to explore, or a MacGuffin — an object of a quest (all of which I’ll cover later, in Part 3).
I have a folder on my computer in my J.F. Penn drive with sub-folders labelled with broad-brush working titles. Most of the folders are empty, but they are placeholders for the Muse. As I write this, I have sixteen folders in my To Write list, but they are pretty nebulous. For example, Volcano Botanist Adventure, and French Gothic Stonemason. I have vague ideas about what these stories might be some day, but they take years to emerge. I move the folders up and down depending on how I’m feeling about what I might write next.
At some point, I settle on the story I need to write. That decision is driven by an urging from the Muse, or something external that triggers the choice, like a research trip where a story piece clicks into place.
I don’t write to a production schedule for my fiction and I have spectacularly failed to plan when my books might come out. I am incredibly organized in my nonfiction side as Joanna Penn and in my business, but my fiction self — my J.F. Penn side — cannot be constrained. This is why I don’t do long pre-orders on my fiction. I only ever put a pre-order up when the book is with my editor, as then I know the timeline for publication.
I’ll spend some time researching and, at the point of committing to a book, I usually have at least a character idea and sometimes a name, a setting for the opening scene, and ideas for what the plot might be about. But most of the time, I haven’t written any of it down. Sometimes, I draw a mind map in my journal. Sometimes I have the equivalent of an A4 piece of paper with thoughts, but it’s all pretty free-flowing.
I open a new Scrivener project and add some placeholders for scenes. These are just one liners. For example, in Destroyer of Worlds, my first place-holder line was: ‘Trafalgar Square bomb, something stolen from the ARKANE vault.’ I didn’t know what was stolen, but that emerged once I sat down to write.
I schedule first-draft blocks of time in my calendar. I turn up at my desk or the writing café or wherever I’m working and I write.
I don’t write in order. I write whatever scene comes to mind that day, or whatever is suggested as the next scene based on what I have already written. I might follow one character for a few scenes and then go back and write another timeline later. I add more placeholder one-liners as the plot emerges.
I research before I begin, but I also research as I write. For example, when writing a scene set in Cologne Cathedral for Tomb of Relics, I had the cathedral interactive site open so I could write as if I was actually there. I also check aspects of plot as I type. Yes, sometimes I end up down a rabbit hole during the draft, but that’s okay too, because there’s gold in the research process for a discovery writer!
I don’t do character profiles. My characters emerge from the discovery writing process. I’ll often write a scene to expand on character motivations and back story later in the process, but then insert it earlier in the story. This is why I love writing in Scrivener. I can drag and drop and reorder my scenes as I go.
When I get to around 20,000 words of a full-length novel, I often lose track of what’s going on with the different threads of the story. I usually stop and reread what I have so far, noting down open questions, character issues, plot holes, and anything else. This process helps me figure out what else needs to happen, and I can usually write to the end after this reread. I can also use dictation at this point in the process as I know more about what’s going on, but it doesn’t usually work for me earlier in the discovery process, as I only know what I will write as I type.
My first self-edit is when I structure scenes into chapters and find what I need to cut and add — often that leads to a major reorganization of the material. It’s all part of the discovery process.
* * *
There are as many different ways of writing as there are writers, but we all end up with a finished book regardless of how we get there. You have to find the process that works for you.
Questions:
• What are the benefits of discovery writing?
• What are the potential difficulties?
• Are you excited about the prospect of discovery writing? Does the empty page scare you or represent unlimited possibility?
• How do you think discovery writing might fit into your process?
Resources:
• Dear Writer, Are You Intuitive? — Becca Syme and Susan Bischoff
• On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft — Stephen King
• The Science of Storytelling: Why Stories Make Us Human, and How To Tell Them Better — Will Storr
• Writing into the Dark: How to Write a Novel Without an Outline — Dean Wesley Smith
• Mental Fight — Ben Okri
• Song of Myself — Walt Whitman
• Song of Solomon — Toni Morrison
• “Jack Reacher author Lee Child on why he never plots his novels,” Marie Claire, November 2018 — www.marieclaire.co.uk/entertainment/books/jack-reacher-author-lee-child-never-plots-novel-628396
• “Doing it,” Tess Gerritsen’s blog — web.archive.org/web/20150912064617/https://www.tessgerritsen.com/doing-it/
• “Here’s how I work,” Nora Roberts’s blog — fallintothestory.com/heres-how-i-work/
“If you surrender to the wind, you can ride it.”
—Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon
