I have attended a number of Author interviews with The London Writers Salon, The Society of Authors and The Guardian Live and they all discuss whether they are 'plotters or 'pantsers'. I thought you might enjoy doing the quiz I found online.
The plotter is someone with a plan and sticks to it, working methodically through it ensuring there are no unforeseen problems. They are risk averse and wary of last minute changes to a schedule. Flexibility is not 'their middle name' so to speak!
A pantser is one who 'flies by the seat of their pants' . They go with the flow, take changes in their stride and have a more general broad brush idea of what they have in mind.
Although I write non-fiction, I am a pantser in that my ideas flow thick and fast about my overall intention but the details get fleshed out along the way, often with structure forming much later in the process.
When I thought about what kind of writer I am, I wondered if the principles also applied to life in general. Are there plotter parents and pantser parents perhaps?
The plotter is someone with a plan and sticks to it, working methodically through it ensuring there are no unforeseen problems. They are risk averse and wary of last minute changes to a schedule. Flexibility is not 'their middle name' so to speak!
A pantser is one who 'flies by the seat of their pants' . They go with the flow, take changes in their stride and have a more general broad brush idea of what they have in mind.
Although I write non-fiction, I am a pantser in that my ideas flow thick and fast about my overall intention but the details get fleshed out along the way, often with structure forming much later in the process.
When I thought about what kind of writer I am, I wondered if the principles also applied to life in general. Are there plotter parents and pantser parents perhaps?
I am pretty sure I was a pantser parent, feeling my way, day by day and focusing on more general things such as 'is my child happy' but over breakfast this morning my hubbie was talking about an article he read about parents struggling with getting their children to bed and ensuring they had enough sleep. The article said that they were surprised to find that having a routine made all the difference. He commented that this was amazing that they didn't realise this and that we had always had such a routine. So clearly my perception does not quite match reality. We did indeed have a very specific and military bed-time routine even to the extent of lowering our voices, slowing our movement and using a monotonous tone to imply that staying awake with us was the most boring thing they could do. We would choose books to read that offered a gradual slowing down and less and less action based read, with fewer funny voices so they gradually succumbed to sleep as our voices reading the stories became more and more soporific.
Other aspects of parenting were more pantser-like though as we tended to be quite flexible about activities depending on whether it seemed the children needed to let off steam or whether a more arty crafty activity would fit their mood best.
So this got me thinking. Maybe we simply need to be aware of the two ways of being and have the discussion with our co-parent, as to which we should be plotters about and which we should be pantsers about because I imagine co-parenting with someone without having had these discussion would lead to a very confused child.
Also, on the basis that our children tend to pick up our way of being, it might be better for them to have that flexibility to decide which approach best fitted what they needed to do. Because having a 'pantser' approach to homework, revision and so on would probably not be the best approach, a 'plotter' approach to making friends may be a bit restricting.
I'm now thinking about dating...... well not me personally of course! But any of you who are.... are you plotters or pantsers on the dating scene? Do you make a list of attributes and plot to date someone who fits as many of these as possible or do you fly by the seat of your pants and date more by intuition and hope you'll connect with someone you enjoy being with?
Sooo what do you think?
Other aspects of parenting were more pantser-like though as we tended to be quite flexible about activities depending on whether it seemed the children needed to let off steam or whether a more arty crafty activity would fit their mood best.
So this got me thinking. Maybe we simply need to be aware of the two ways of being and have the discussion with our co-parent, as to which we should be plotters about and which we should be pantsers about because I imagine co-parenting with someone without having had these discussion would lead to a very confused child.
Also, on the basis that our children tend to pick up our way of being, it might be better for them to have that flexibility to decide which approach best fitted what they needed to do. Because having a 'pantser' approach to homework, revision and so on would probably not be the best approach, a 'plotter' approach to making friends may be a bit restricting.
I'm now thinking about dating...... well not me personally of course! But any of you who are.... are you plotters or pantsers on the dating scene? Do you make a list of attributes and plot to date someone who fits as many of these as possible or do you fly by the seat of your pants and date more by intuition and hope you'll connect with someone you enjoy being with?
Sooo what do you think?
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