My Weird Fiction Outlining Technique

Both a Pantser and a Plotter Be?

Anne Marble
6 min readMay 31, 2024

Some writers are “pantsers.” Some are plotters. Yet is it possible to use both processes? Can some writers squish the two processes together? Yes, we can!

A Caveat: Many articles on writing fiction try to tell you that this author’s process is the crown jewel of all writing processes. They insist that their tip works for everyone and that you should ignore all the other writing processes. This is not one of those articles. I don’t know if this process will work for anyone else but for me. It doesn’t always work for me!

White letters on a window. The letters read “YOUR IDEAS MATTER” and then “Write them down :)”. The reflection of stone buildings can be seen on the window.
(Source: Photo by Mika Baumeister on Unsplash.)

Lured by the Need to Write This Darned Thing

Just weeks ago, I got an idea for a Gothic romance story. An old school Gothic, like the ones remembered by the My Love-Haunted Heart blog. But my Gothic romance would have a modern twist or so.

The idea was inspired by a recent horror movie — but also (ahem) sad yet sexy fan art of the villain. (Note: It would be a major spoil to mention which movie because the villain’s very existence is a spoiler.) The darned idea was haunting me.

Wait… Write a new story? When I should be editing the ones I had? (Except I wasn’t ready to edit the ones I had.)

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Anne Marble

I’m a writer and a copy editor with experience in editing science and engineering articles. Click Lists to find my most popular articles. And hidden gems.