Famous Pantsers

Astro Pen

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I confess I am a total pantser. Plotting just won't work for me . I think that structure is actually intrinsic to the story telling process. It will happen naturally as the story evolves. I know others hold an opposite view, writing tutors are probably the worst for this.
Anyway I thought I would look up "famous pantsers" and see what company I was in, if any?
Pleasant surprise...
 
We writers are a funny bunch. I mean, do painters do this sort of thing?

I'm a sketcher! No, I'm top-down painter. Me, I just toss buckets of paint.

Or musicians? Sculptors? AFAIK, writers are the only ones so obsessed with this division between planning and diving headfirst.

Which reminds me of the wise saying. People can be divided into two groups: those who divide everyone into two groups, and those who don't.
 
It's just a guess, but John Scalzi might just be a bit of a pantser.

From his blog (June 6th 2024):

Email today from one of the folks at Tor, saying, hey, we’re doing in-house stuff about Old Man’s War #7 next week, can you give us a couple sentences on what it’s about? And I was all, sure, here’s what it’s about, and also, here’s the title.

This was, I will note, how I learned out what it was going to be about, and also, what it’s title is. Welcome to my creative process!
 
Which reminds me of the wise saying. People can be divided into two groups: those who divide everyone into two groups, and those who don't.
There are 10 kinds of people in the world: those who use binary and those who don't.
 

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