The Satisfaction of a Completed Story Plan
I had no concept of how writing from a plan would be this fulfilling.
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Last year, I started a new goal.
As a professional writer, I determined I needed to do more writing. Among other goals I set for myself — I set out to write a minimum of 1500 words of fiction Monday-Friday.
That could include both actual novel writing — and plotting and planning for books.
Additionally, I decided to try plotting and working as a planner rather than a pantser in the creation of my Forgotten Fodder series.
Over a month or so, I plotted out 4 novels. With the plan in place, I wrote them all over the next 5 or 6 months.
I find having a completed story plan just as satisfying as completing a novel.
To that end, a new idea came to me. At the end of February, I began to create the background and start world-building for this new idea — which would come to be called Savagespace.
In mid-April — almost 2 months later — I started to lay out a new story idea. For the next 5 months, I worked at creating — chapter by chapter — the plan for the plot of this new sci-fi adventure series.
On Thursday, September 23, I completed my story plan. It was almost as satisfying and cathartic as completing a novel.
I didn’t know being a planner was just as inspiring and empowering as being a pantser.
This has proven to be a fascinating study of my writing process.
Definition — Planner vs Pantser
Even though I have written about them before, I still want to clarify it.
When it comes to writing, in my experience there are 2 primary types of writers: Planners and Pantsers.
Planners do a ton of world-building — plotting, character creation, and outlines to a greater or lesser degree — before they ever write a word of the story.
I know planners who are so detailed that they even create some of the dialogue that will be in a scene.
Pantsers, on the other hand, sit down with a pen and paper or at their keyboard and start working…
