The middle path between plotting and pantsing that actually gets books finished.
“Once we really got into it, I actually found the outlining kind of annoying,” a client told me recently. She’d tried detailed plotting systems, character worksheets, and extensive planning documents. “It’s like, no, I guess I’m just going to sit down and write and see what happens.”
But pure pantsing wasn’t working either. She’d write 10,000-15,000 words, then get lost. Characters would change names mid-story. Plot threads would disappear. She’d lose track of what she’d written and where she was going.
Sound familiar? You might be caught in the same false choice trap that keep many writers stuck: they think they need rigid plotting OR chaotic pantsing that leaves them feeling like uncertainty drives them nuts.
There’s a third way.
The Hybrid Approach That Actually Works
“I think the way I prefer to write,” my client explained, “is I write a bunch of stuff and then I look and see what I’ve got. And then I outline a few steps ahead and say, OK, well, from what I got here, I think A and B and C need to happen next.”
She’d discovered something crucial: you don’t have to choose between plotting and pantsing. You can do both, but in the right order.
The key is outlining as you go, not before you go.
How to Pants with Scaffolding
Here’s the system that works for writers who find detailed pre-planning too restrictive but need more structure than pure discovery writing:
Step 1: Start anywhere. A character, a situation, a piece of dialogue. Don’t worry about having the whole story figured out.
Step 2: Write forward. Draft A, B, and C without stopping to perfect them.
Step 3: Create a working outline. Write 2-3 sentences summarizing what happened in each section you just wrote.
Step 4: Plan a few steps ahead—if you need to. If uncertainty is causing you worry, outline D, E, and F in basic terms, based on what you discovered in A, B, C.
Step 5: Write D, E, and F. Let the story evolve as you write.
Step 6: Update your outline with what actually happened (which might be different from what you’d planned).
Step 7: Repeat steps 4-6 with the next three chapters.
“I go back and write A, B, and C,” my client described, “and then look at it and go, okay, well, yeah, that D that I thought was D, that’s not going to work. So I’m going to have to get something different in my outline going forward for D, E, F, and G.”
This creates what I call “flexible scaffolding“—enough structure to prevent you from getting lost, but enough freedom to let the story surprise you.
The Breadcrumb System
The working outline serves a crucial function: it’s your breadcrumb trail back through the story.
I told my client, “Write chapter one, and then just write a couple of sentences on what happened in that first chapter. That’s the start of your scenario. Then write chapter two and write a couple of lines about what happened in that one. Keep going from there.”
This prevents the common pantser problem of forgetting what you’ve written. Instead of rereading everything (which kills momentum), you can quickly scan your outline to remember:
- What happened in each chapter
- Characters’ names, details, where they were
- What conflicts were established
- Which switches were opened and closed (see this post on Opening/Closing Switches)
“You’re leaving a trail of breadcrumbs,” I explained. “So you can look back and see where you’ve been, what’s happened, all the details so you don’t need to carry them around in your head.”
The Anti-Revision Rule
Here’s the crucial discipline: when you’re writing forward and discover that something in chapter 2 needs to change, don’t go back and change chapter 2.
Instead, write a note in your outline: “Revision needed: Chapter 2 – make the gun more prominent” or “To fix: Give Sarah a stronger motivation in early scenes.”
This way you preserve your momentum AND you’re setting up a punch list of revision moves to make when you’ve finished your draft.
“If I realize when I’m writing H, that something in B needs to change,” I told my client, “I don’t go back and change B, I just write it on my outline as a to-do item for B when I get to revision.”
This serves two purposes:
- You maintain forward momentum
- You create a revision roadmap for later
Why This Approach Works
Traditional plotting often fails because it tries to solve story problems before you understand the story. But stories are living things that evolve—that you get to know—as you write them. The character you thought was the villain might become sympathetic. The subplot you planned might turn out to be irrelevant.
Pure pantsing can be a challenge because uncertainty can drive some people crazy and our memories are limited. In a book length project, over say 100 or 150 words, you can’t keep track of every detail, every character action, every plot thread without some external system.
This hybrid approach lets you discover the story while building a map of what you’ve discovered.
Where to Stop Each Day
The real goal is to get to the end of the draft.
Each writing session builds on the previous one. You’re never starting from scratch because you always know what happened before and you always have a sense of what’s coming next (from your short-term planning).
And the important thing is don’t set yourself up to start any given day with a blank page (for more on that, see “Can’t Cook with Cold Grease.” Leave yourself just enough of a runway, even just a sentence or a part of one, that you know, you know, what you’ll write first. That’ll jump-start you into the day’s work.
Don’t go back and re-read yesterday’s page or—lawd forbid—edit them, just pick up whre you left off, with what you know, and go from there. Add words. Add sentences, keep going.
The Payoff
You don’t need to know where you’re going ultimately. You just need to know where you’re going next.
Writers who follow this approach finish the draft. They get stuck less and discover stories they couldn’t have planned.
More importantly, they find joy in writing process. They get the discovery benefits of pantsing with the security benefits of plotting.
This isn’t about becoming a plotter or staying a pantser. It’s about finding a sustainable way to complete your book.
Don’t fall into the goal of a perfect first draft. Instead focus on writing a complete first draft and set yourself with for direction on how to revise.
Sometimes the best writing advice isn’t about inspiration or technique. Sometimes it’s about finding the right balance between structure and freedom—enough of each one—to get you to the end.
Are you a plotter, pantser, or something in between? What balance of structure and freedom works best for your writing process? Take this quiz to find out.
