Lesson 4 of 7 Free account 4 min read
Outlining vs. Discovery Writing: Find Your Method
The real trade-offs between plotting a book in advance and discovering it as you write, plus hybrid methods that work for both fiction and non-fiction.
Key takeaways
- Outlining and discovery writing are both legitimate; they move the hard thinking to different points in the process.
- Most writers end up somewhere in between, planning key turns and discovering the rest.
- Non-fiction almost always benefits from an outline, because the reader needs a clear path through the material.
- Choose a method by how you work, then adjust it after your first draft shows you where you got stuck.
Writers love to argue about this. Plotters say you cannot build a house without a blueprint. Discovery writers, often called pantsers because they write by the seat of their pants, say an outline kills the life of a story. Both camps include writers who have finished many good books, so the argument is less important than the question underneath it: where do you want to do your hard thinking?
What Is the Difference Between Plotting and Pantsing?
An outliner does the structural thinking first. Before drafting, they know the major turns, the ending, and roughly what each chapter does. The draft is then a matter of execution, and it tends to need less structural repair later.
A discovery writer does the structural thinking during and after the draft. They start with a character, a situation or a voice, and find out what happens by writing it. The first draft is often looser and longer, and revision does more of the heavy lifting.
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