Discussion: Are You a Plotter, Pantser, or Hybrid?

Photo credit: Innovation Lab on Flickr

So as I have frequently mentioned here on Writability, I'm a rather devout plotter—though I didn't start that way. When I first began writing, the idea of outlining my novel ahead of time gave me hives. I told myself it'd be boring and take the fun out of drafting, and I firmly stuck to that belief until I finally gave plotting a try.

Unexpectedly, plotting turned out to be a very effective method for me. I learned plotting ahead of time allowed me to write faster and helped eliminate most of my writers block, which turned out to be actually "don't know where to go from here" block.

While I don't necessarily stick 100% to my outlines while writing (as I've said before, I use them more as guidelines than rule books), I now don't start writing until I've fully plotted out the book idea. It's been an effective method for me so far.

That said! I am more than well aware that plotting doesn't work for everyone, or sometimes only works half the time, or only works up to a point for some. And if there's anything writing with the intent to publish for a decade now has taught me, it's that everyone's process is different. And sometimes one person's process is different book to book. And that's okay.

So since I haven't talked about this recently, I'm curious, and thus am making this discussion post: How many of you are plotters? Pantsers? Somewhere-in-between-ers? What do your first drafting processes look like?

Twitter-sized bite:

What's your first drafting process like? Are you a plotter? Pantser? Both? Join the discussion on @Ava_Jae's blog. (Click to tweet)