Martin Detwiler

Yay superheroes! 😀 Great article, Martin. I especially appreciated this closing thought. “The better you know yourself as a writer, the more intentional you can be in crafting your stories. Lean heavily into the strengths of the method you gravitate toward, and strive to avoid the weaknesses you’re prone to.” 🙂 Great advice right there.

Tabitha,

I don’t know for sure.

Both pantsing and plotting cultivate artistry in the final product; they simply take two different routes along the way. Plotting is much more intentional on the front end before creating a manuscript, while pantsing ret-cons the intentionality into the story on the back end of the creative process.

I think it would be shortsighted to say that these methods have absolutely no effect on the emphases of the final product. But I’m not willing to say that there is a direct correlation from pantsing to character-driven stories, or from plotting to plot-driven stories. I’m of the opinion that those methods (pantsing and plotting) reflect the personality style of the author far more reliably than the focus of the story.

With that said, it’s quite easy for me to imagine a pantser simply following their characters around and ending up with a character-driven story. And vice versa, it’s very easy for me to imagine a plotter coming up with a complicated and engaging series of twists and turns that leads them to write a more plot-driven story. So it may reflect a tendency, but at the same time this is based on our stereotypes of plotters and pantsers.

There is nothing that prevents a plotter from becoming enamored with a character and building a story around them. And pantsers have a way of happenstancing upon the most brilliant and sucessful of plot twists almost by accident – leading to a stories that could be very, very plot-oriented.

At the end of the day, I think there’s something of a connection, but I wouldn’t rock my baby in that bassinet. I definitely wouldn’t want to box up my creative output in only one direction or the other.

Lots of words, no conclusion. Sorry! I really enjoyed the question, though.

I’m so glad I was able to make this topic feel important to you! Thank you for your kind words. 🙂

This is so helpful! I will definitely be coming back to this as I go through serious editing on my WIP in a few months. I especially like the first point about using details as more than details. A very interesting concept and one I will try to be using in my writing. 🙂

Wow. This is such a thought-provoking and important article! It takes such a balance. On one hand, we need to be extremely careful with our stories, specifically in the three areas you highlighted. On the other hand, we can’t become so scrupulous that we stop writing altogether for fear of making mistakes; we have to trust that God in His goodness will help us if we make a sincere effort to portray truth.

I am curious: what was that confusing scene in the Last Battle? I haven’t read Narnia in a while, but I’m interested in going back and seeing which scene you referred to.

Thank you!

A thought-provoking article, certainly. There are some ideas in here I need to chew on and stew on a little. Though, I particularly enjoyed the last portion and found it highly encouraging. The call to prayer and immersing ourselves in God’s word, to leaning into Christ, knowing truth, and growing in our understainding and faith is strong. And it will infect every aspect of our lives, including our writing. Thank you so much for sharing this with us!

This is so true! Is it not absoultely amazing to take in the very many sides of our awesome God?!

Lilly,

The verse I had in mind particularly was Proverbs 18:1, “Whoever isolates himself seeks his own desire; he breaks out against all sound judgment.”

This was really encouraging and full of truth. Thank you for writing this and sharing this with us. I really appreciate it.

Wow, I’m a little late, but this was really an amazing article! I especially love how you pointed out ways we can work on our mistakes in this area instead of simply showing where we go wrong. It’s both helpful and comforting.
There was so much good stuff in this article. I’ll probably have to keep it open on my laptop for a while to glance back at while I’m writing! :’D Thank you so much!

Thank you so much for this, Martin! I clicked on it right away because one of my characters is the Apostle Paul, and for a while now I’ve been deathly afraid of putting words in his (and therefore God’s) mouth, and making him a puppet of sorts or mouthpiece to get my personal thoughts out there. This has been extremely helpful!

No problem, Lilly!

Excellent post. 🙂 I’ve never liked Thanos, and this post made me realize why as well as giving me some new interest in developing my villains. (I’ve been stuck in a little bit of a pit with my WIP).

(Also I think in the Bible, the shepherd status was more often than not a positive thing).

Great article! Thanks! I should comment on more of these. All of your articles that I’ve read have been very informative and helpful!
I would question what was said about Moses though. 🙂 Hebrews 11:27 says he forsook Egypt by faith, and also, he didn’t receive his calling to deliver Israel until after he left.
But everything else is great!