Pantser or Plotter: How I Discover a Story

Writers are often divided into two mysterious species: plotters and pantsers.

Plotters build the road before they travel. They know the turns, the bridges, the dangerous cliffs, and probably where the nearest coffee shop is. They outline chapters, map character arcs, plan reveals, and often know the ending before the first page is written.

Pantsers, on the other hand, walk into the forest with a lantern and a questionable amount of confidence.

I am a pantser.

That means I usually do not begin a book with a complete map. I begin with a situation, a character, a question, or sometimes just a strange emotional spark that refuses to leave me alone. Then I follow it. I write to discover what the story is trying to become.

For me, the joy of writing comes from not knowing everything.

I want to be surprised by my characters. I want a quiet scene to suddenly reveal a wound I did not plan. I want a side character to step forward and become more important than expected. I want a line of dialogue to open a door I did not know existed. When that happens, the story feels alive.

This does not mean pantsers write without care or structure. At least, not for me.

A pantser still needs instinct. A sense of direction. A feeling for theme, tension, and character. I may not know every event in advance, but I usually know what kind of emotional weather I am walking through. Is this scene about fear? Family? Betrayal? Hope? Is someone trying to hide pain behind a joke? Is someone trying to be brave because they have no other choice?

That is where the real story lives.

With Echoes of The Past, I have discovered that my books are not only about time travel, artificial intelligence, war, or broken timelines. Those things matter, of course. They are the engine, the storm, the impossible machinery humming in the dark.

But at its heart, Echoes is about people becoming family while time itself falls apart around them.

That is why writing as a pantser feels right for this series. The story grows through the characters. Their fears, their bonds, their arguments, their little moments of humor, their desperate choices. I do not want the plot to drag them toward a prebuilt ending like pieces on a board. I want them to fight, stumble, surprise me, and sometimes refuse to go where I thought they would.

There is danger in that. Of course there is.

Writing without a fixed outline can feel like jumping off a cliff and building wings on the way down. Some days, the wings appear. Some days, you are just falling very artistically.

But that uncertainty is also where the magic is.

A plotter may know the destination before the journey begins. A pantser discovers the destination by walking the road. Sometimes the ending I imagined changes. Sometimes the book becomes larger than the plan. Sometimes a character tells the truth more clearly than I ever could have forced onto the page.

When that happens, I listen.

Because to me, storytelling is not only construction. It is excavation. It is finding something buried under the soil of imagination and brushing away the dirt until a shape appears. Maybe it is a fossil. Maybe it is a dragon. Maybe it is a broken clock still ticking underground.

The only way to know is to keep digging.

So yes, I am a pantser.

I write into the unknown. I follow the characters. I trust the questions. I let the story breathe before I tell it what it must become.

And if I get lost?

Good.

Sometimes the best stories are found exactly where the map runs out.

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Chrono verse | V.P. Blackwood

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