The Miracle of Creativity

he just wanders into things, looking for something new, and good

There are, apparently, in the realm of fiction writers, two basic approaches to how a book gets written.

Some writers do meticulous preparation. They amass voluminous notes about each character, location, important furnishing, and the settings. They also plan their story, down to the smallest detail. They are called “Plotters”, for obvious reasons.

James Patterson is a famous plotter. He hands off very detailed 100+ pages “outlines” of his novel projects to his collaborators, who he pays well to fill out the details as he has provided for in the blueprints.

The other extreme are the “Pantsers”, who may start with one image, or line of dialogue, or particular bit of action, and build from there. They don’t know who is going to be in the story, or what is going to happen, or even where it will occur, until they write it down, and the story tells them.

Stephen King is an even more famous pantser. He sits at his desk with loud rock music playing, types out a first line or paragraph, and then lets the emerging story carry him to the next line or paragraph.

I have come to believe that for writers in either camp, or occupying space in the wide range of middle ground between, the material that emerges comes from… somewhere. The muses. The imagination. The unconscious.

I think it all bubbles up, from a deeper part of ourselves, where memory and experience and our basic “self” converse, and the conversation gets flowing, and we become aware of the flow, and start writing it down.

I am having great fun listening to Malcolm Gladwell and his friend Bruce Headlam as they interview Paul Simon. They recorded all the sessions in places where Paul could pick up a guitar and sing and play to illustrate what he wanted to say. There are also wonderful audio clips from his recorded music woven in at appropriate times.

The impression I get is Paul Simon does not “plot” his songs, or the larger projects of albums. He may begin with a sound in his head, or an idea, but then he literally “plays” until he finds something good. And then he works to refine, and build on the good bit.

At one point in the interview he was asked if he ever worried about running out of ideas, and he said that he wasn’t, that the ideas just keep coming.

What about you? In your creative life, whatever that may be, do you have it all sorted out before you start? Do you just dive in and start making and doing? Are you a bit of both a plotter and a pantster?