Are You a Plotter or a Pantser?

By Erin Cashman

I am a pretty organized person. I love my to-do lists. Sometimes I write things on my to-do lists that I’ve already done just to cross them off! I love the immediate feeling of accomplishment. I also make to-do lists for my husband and children, which largely go ignored. In high school, college, and law school I was the queen of outlines. I felt in control, knowing what I needed to know. Everything was boiled down nice and neat, with bullets, highlighting, and Roman numerals.

So when it comes to writing, I want, no I yearn, to be a plotter. Each time that a new story idea pops into my head and won’t go away, filling my mind with dialogue and settings and characters, I sit down with a crisp, clean pad of paper, and start my outline. I make a list of characters with brief descriptions, and I write not one, but two outlines -- one of the entire book, and then I outline the first five or six chapters in detail. I keep this notebook next to my laptop, and then I start to write.

And then I never look at the outline again. The characters hijack my brain, and I follow them down dark and twisty paths that lead me into unchartered territory. My villain is actually just a bit of a rogue. The nice, milk-commercial cute guy has a dark side.  My main character isn’t flawed in the way I thought. And secondary characters evaporate. New ones pop up. I dream about these characters, their voices fill my head during quiet moments, and months later I have a draft. A terrible, awful, messy draft. I have not followed my neat outline, or even glanced at it. My story arc is more of a zigzag.  But I know my characters better.  I know what their deepest desires are, and what they are trying to hide from me.

So I revise, and revise and revise some more. I write huge amount of back story that I cut. I write tangents that I cut. I write endings that I cut. I write and write and write, and I cut and cut and cut. But with each draft my characters reveal more of themselves, and I learn what makes them tick. Right now I am actually on my eleventh draft of a novel! But I’m not sick of it yet, and with each pass I like it better. By the time I’m finished I am pretty sure I will have cut as many words as I’ve saved. It is a very time consuming, inefficient, torturously painful way to write a novel. But it’s the only way I can.

So, I have come to realize that in most areas of my life I’m a plotter. And I really want to be a plotter when it comes to writing. I love the orderliness of it. I love starting on page one and knowing where I’m going to end. But try as I may, I’m not a plotter.  I’m a pantser.  The only way I can really know my characters is by writing about them. It’s everything I don’t like – messy, unorganized and chaotic. But it’s just how I write.

What are you?


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Erin Cashman is a YA author. Her debut fantasy novel, THE EXCEPTIONALS, was published by Holiday House in 2012 and named a Bank Street College of Education Best Book of the Year. You can find her at the group blogs The Enchanted Inkpot, BookPregnant Blog, and on Twitter,Facebook, and her Website

Character Interviews

by Erin Cashman

Some writers fully outline their book before they even put a word on the page.  Each chapter is detailed.  The cast of characters is set. A friend of mine who does this spends a long time on this process, and then writing the novel comes fairly easily to her.  Others start writing, and have no idea where they are going to end up.  I’m somewhere in the middle.  I usually know the beginning and the ending, but I like to let the characters tell me how I should get from Chapter One to The End.  I have conceptualized my main character and important secondary characters, but often around page one hundred or so, they have much more distinct voices and personalities.  I stop there, and go back to the beginning, adding depth and layers. This has worked out really well for my writing process.

When I finish my first draft, I put it down and walk away for a couple of weeks, and when I go back to it I take stock and really look at my main characters and their journey.  Usually their transformation – whether it be small or significant, is apparent. But sometimes my characters can be a little cagey.  It sounds strange, but I feel like they are holding something back, and I don’t know them as well as I could.  And so I interview them, as if I was a reporter, and I knew every detail of their story.  Here are some of the questions I ask:

• What is your deepest desire? 

• What has shaped and influenced you?  How has the tragedies and traumas in your life effected you? How does it influence how you see yourself, and others?

• How do you view yourself?  Within your family?  Within your peers?

• Describe yourself in three words. 

• Define yourself.  When all of your fears and doubts are stripped away, who are you?

• At the end of your journey, where you proud of yourself?  Did you accomplish your goal?  What would you change? How could you have done better?

As I play interviewer to my character, I am often surprised by the answers.  But once I write them down and review them, I have a much keener understanding of my character.  I use this information to drive my revisions, and hopefully, by the end, I have a much more developed character.

Erin Cashman is the author of the Young Adult novel The Exceptionals