When it comes to writing, I’m definitely a pantser. I suppose this tracks, since I’m also a TTRPG nerd, and the entire game is just responding to what the gamemaster says and hoping things work out (spoiler, they do, but not until something jumps out and attacks your group).
At least, in a well-planned game, that’s the case. But what about games that are shot from the hip?
Well, turns out, I can talk about that too.
For one of my games last week, one of our players was late, very late, as in, we were sitting there, wondering if they were going to show up and hoping everything was all right. (It was.) None of us wanted to continue the game without everyone present, so there was a lot of “umm, well, now what?” going on.
Several weeks ago when the gamemaster was going to miss a night, I decided I’d run a “it was all just a dream” one-shot as a way for us to still play but have some chill-time. My character wound up watching her companions stumble around in dream-like trances, and it kind of became a thing.
So, this past week when we weren’t sure what to do, I jokingly just started narrating a scene. Everyone got quiet, and when I stopped, they said “well? We’re waiting?”
And so I came up with a 90-minute adventure literally on the fly.
It was the ultimate pantser experience, let me tell you.
And yet, at the end, we had something approximating a story, a series of moderately related events, and a satisfying resolution.
Which leads me to my recommendation based on this experience: If you at all get the chance to do so, try coming up with a story on the fly in front of an audience.
It will be stressful. It may feel uncomfortable. You will probably drop a random genie in there to keep people busy while you frantically search for the next thing of consequence that will happen.
But at the end, when you can point to your sloppy mess and say “but it actually has something resembling a plot,” you will feel very proud of yourself.
Bonus, you may just realize that writers block isn’t as scary as it sounds because you’ll know you have the ability to toss something together to fix later.
I’ve always considered myself a terrible perfectionist with a tendency to refuse to show anyone something until it’s absolutely flawless. After this experience, I am starting to wonder about that assessment. Not only was this the furthest thing from perfect, I wasn’t worried about it. Of course, it helped that my audience wasn’t expecting A Game of Thrones levels of storytelling. Knowing it didn’t have to be amazing took a lot of the pressure off. It was fun. I could just do something and let it go. It was a nice break from the type of creativity where everything needs to operate within the strict parameters I’ve laid out for a world and its characters.
And yet, it wasn’t. I still had game rules, a mechanic framework, details to keep track of, etc. Honestly, it was unlike anything I’ve experienced before. When I started this post, I thought I knew exactly what I wanted to say about it. But the more I write, the more I realize there is so much to unpack here about the creative process, the rough draft, the revision process, plotting versus pantsing, and so much more.
Creativity looks different for everyone, and that should be celebrated. No two people are going to brainstorm, write, edit, or publish the same way. And that’s fantastic. We should be rewarding that, not trying to convince people they need to fit their creativity into predetermined boxes of how things are done. You can stick to the plan but still do things your way. Just like you can stick to a genre but have room to play with what happens and how.
And if you want, you can even write a rather flaky blog post about all the ways you learn to understand creativity differently from taking on a new experience and getting through it, even if it wasn’t easy.
So, before I flake about this any more, I’ll stop because I’ve covered a little bit of so many things that are worth thinking about. Go forth and do some thinking. And if you have any deep thoughts, feel free to leave a comment or drop me a line through my contact page to discuss your creative process.
As you can tell, I love talking about this stuff. 😉
👋 Fair travels,
Mary
P.S. A big thanks to Pexels (again!) from Pixabay for the image.
