What is Prewriting? Who are the Outliners? Who are the Pantsers?

Prewriting – it’s the everything before the actual writing. It’s the journey from an idea bouncing around your head to giving that idea a concrete form, establishing a structure, doing some relevant research, and then repeating the whole process until you finally sit down to write. Some call it procrastination; let’s dive into it together.

Greetings, Neophyte! Make yourself comfortable because today we’re delving into something many people either misuse as a procrastination tactic or skip altogether – Prewriting.

It’s a peculiar thing, really, considering how vague the term is for such a crucial element of writing. I’m genuinely curious, Neophyte, as I’ve heard there’s a rare breed of individuals who can just park themselves on a chair and start writing with little to no structure or preparation.

Reality often disappoints established methods, doesn’t it? As I always say, in writing, there are only proven patterns, not established dogma. Most readers won’t be concerned about how a finished book came to be; they’ll care if they like it and if it’s any good (and, by the way, these two aren’t mutually exclusive). So, let’s untangle this confusing topic.

So, you’re a rookie in the craft, armed with little resources, no contacts, but a marvelous thing called the internet. One day, you realize that if you stop using it to watch cat videos and other… things, you can use it to learn. Along your journey, you stumble upon the term “prewriting,” something involving setting the path your book will take—the themes, characters, everything. Only, it doesn’t really work like that.

For starters, methods don’t work the same way for everyone. Prewriting has no real form; it just means “everything done before you write.” The people I described earlier are called the Pantsers – those who can just write. They sit on the opposite end of the spectrum from the Outliners, who need to prewrite the beats of the story before turning it into a novel.

So, you’re bombarded with information and data, and you don’t know how to process it. You become overwhelmed, and like any other label in this age, you start to believe you are either one and that the prewriting process is some weird, set-in-stone thing you must fulfill.

I’m here to tell you to calm down, Neophyte, calm down. First, you are not a tag. Sad and pitiful are the people who are just tags walking down the street—souls who try to prevent the passing of time by setting their identities in stone through some concept or another. Repeat after me: in writing, there are only proven patterns, not established dogma.

Prewriting can mean anything to anyone. Some might invest a couple of seasons or even years crafting the very foundation of their book – from geological history to the minute details of towns and roads to the backstory of the characters’ great-grandparents. It might sound crazy, but there are people who enjoy it, revel in it. On the other hand, you have hard outliners – those who construct a detailed road map, investing an enormous amount of time and effort to fix it. Once they launch into writing the proper novel, they can do it without worrying about what comes next.

The other extreme consists of those who write by the seat of their pants, those who sit down and just write. No worries, no pre-established structure – just the craft.

And I’m here to tell you that there are very few pure expressions of either extreme, and most people fall somewhere in the middle. Most people can write by any means necessary, but we also need some kind of structure – I know I do. Moreover, most people can plan and pre-plan and pre-pre-plan all they like, but writing is an organic beast. At least in my experience, most works should change their nature a bit while being made, which means that no matter what you do during the planning stages, it will become undone as you work. This forces you to review what you have done so far and what it needs.

It is my hope that you understand this fact. Yes, prewriting is important; it’s the moment where you set the seeds of your tale, the themes, the more macro elements of it. However, it shouldn’t be your chains; it shouldn’t keep you down. Or maybe it should, depending on your needs.

I hope you’ve come to realize that this is a circular argument. Like pretty much everything, it depends on you—your personality, how you work, and how you perform better under certain conditions. Prewriting shouldn’t be an excuse to procrastinate, giving anxiety another name. You will never find how you work best unless you understand yourself. To understand yourself, you need to get out and write. The circle goes on and on.

Few things remain to be said here. We will delve into every element that goes into prewriting in due time. Let this be a warning not to use prewriting as a crutch to justify our insecurities. It can be as powerful as it can be useless.

Until next time.