This is a contradiction that’s taken me years to properly notice, let alone admit to in public. I’ve built an entire identity around being a committed Pantser: no outline, no plan, finding out what I’m writing as I write. And yet, the longer I do this, the more convinced I am that the Muse herself is nothing of the sort. She’s been plotting the whole time. She just hasn’t been telling me.
The Evidence Has Been There All Along
I’ve intended to write before about details that crop up early in a story (a throwaway line, a minor character’s odd habit) that turn out, chapters or even books later, to be exactly the detail the story needed all along. It’s called foreshadowing, and I use it consciously much of the time, especially during revision and editing to tighten the story and connect parts together. Besides, readers feel clever when they work out for themselves that they’ve caught you doing this.
I’m talking about the times when something was foreshadowed, and I didn’t realise it at the time. I used to think of this as a happy accident. I’m no longer so sure; it happens too often and too neatly to be a pure coincidence.
The Science Fiction Story That Gave the Game Away
The clearest proof was the science fiction story I never expected to finish.
It began life as homework at a Whittlesey Wordsmiths’ meeting. We had a choice of two possible storylines:
- At the end of an empty street
- The journey home
I chose the first one and wrote a science fiction story about a courier delivering a box to a strange house. The caretaker of the house persuaded him to stay the night, and the next day, he stepped through a doorway into another reality. It was a story in my House of Doors Cycle, intended to end with a cliffhanger: the man going through the door. Another writer from the group emailed me, telling me to finish the story. She wouldn’t accept anything less.
So I finished the story, extending its length by a factor of six, and writing it in the style of the Golden Age of science fiction in the 30s and 40s, you know, swords and blasters.
The thing is, something happened right at the beginning of the story that puzzled the protagonist as much as it puzzled me. I had no idea why I had written that sentence, but I let it stand. It was only at the end of the story, which, by the way, is nearly 15,000 words long, that I got an explanation for that. It was as though my Muse knew I was going to finish the story, or at least planned for me to finish it, so she knew what was going to happen at the end and how to connect it back to the beginning.
I found out what that was the same way a reader would — by reading the story. Somebody planned that story in its entirety, and it certainly wasn’t the version of me sitting at the keyboard.
And no, no plot spoilers; I’m not going to tell you what it is. You’ll have to read the story yourself when it finally gets published.
How I’ve Made Peace With This
I’ve decided the division of labour works roughly like this: the Muse does the plotting, somewhere out of sight, on a timeline I’m not party to. I do the typing, the discovering, the read-revise-edit-repeat that turns her secret outline into something a reader can actually follow. I’m not a Plotter because there is a plan. I’m a Pantser because the plan exists somewhere I simply don’t have access to.
Since my Muse is working on multiple storylines, this explains why I might suddenly stall while writing a particular story; she hasn't got around to plotting that part yet. That's okay, because I can switch to another story where she has continued. In other words, for me, writer's block is something of a myth.
Why This Doesn’t Bother Me Anymore
Early on, this contradiction would have unsettled me. Surely being a Pantser is supposed to mean nobody’s plotting at all. I’ve stopped needing that to be literally true. The Muse can keep her secrets and her schedule. My job is just to keep showing up and writing down whatever she’s decided to reveal that day.
I remember once reading an interview with Robert E. Howard, the creator of Conan the Barbarian. He said that writing the Conan stories was less like creating a new story and more like having Conan sit next to him, reminisce about his life, and dictate to him. I’m beginning to think that I have a similar relationship with my Muse.
So, I’m a Pantser. My Muse, evidently, is a Plotter. We’ve worked out a fairly good arrangement between us, all things considered.
I will add one more thing: the option I didn’t take could just as easily have been applied as the theme to my story. Odd that!
Or maybe she decided to combine them into a single story…