I was in Bermuda last week on vacation with my husband Rob, visiting with our friends Cathy and Stephen West. Yes, that Cathy West — author of Yesterday’s Tomorrow and Bridge of Faith — and newly contracted with HarperCollins. In between walks along the beach, swimming in a sea-filled cave, and watching the sunset during a sailboat cruise, Cathy and I talked story.

Two writers together for an entire week? Of course we’d talk about writing – specifically the story Cathy has just started writing. We faced one challenge: Cathy is a pantser – a writer who likes to be surprised and who writes by the seat of her pants. I am a plotter.

But after introducing her to what I called “My Book Therapy Lite,” by the time I boarded my plane back to the States, Cathy had a basic plot for her story – and a short synopsis.

I learned a few things while Cathy and I talked story. When you’re plotting with a pantser, remember to:

1. Give pantsers room to breathe. Seat of the pantsers like the freedom to follow their story wherever it may lead them. Plotting feels like you’ve shackled their creative muse. I talked Cathy through the basic steps of The Book Buddy, the work-text created by Susan May Warren, but I didn’t insist she follow it page by page.
2. Tell pantsers that yes, what you’ve plotted can change. Say this repeatedly. Pantsers want freedom, remember? When Cathy and I would plot out a scene, or maybe come up with a possible Disappointment or Y in the Road for one of her characters, I always assured her, “This sounds good and it fits with your character’s Wound, Lie, and Fear. But we’re flexible. If we talk tomorrow and want to rework this, we can.”
3. Encourage pantsers that plotting helps build a framework for their story. By developing our main characters’ Dark Moments and Black Moments and Disappointments (Ds) and spiritual journeys – all the things we talk about in My Book Therapy – we’re giving ourselves something to work with. When I helped Cathy plot scenes, I reminded her that we weren’t plotting every last little thing in her book. What we developed was a good foundation or framework. She could change it – yes, I said that a lot – and she would definitely add scenes we hadn’t talked about. But she had something good to start with.

When our week was up, Cathy had:
• 11 pages of notes
• a Story Question
• a short synopsis for her story – including a hook and a premise

I asked her if plotting had benefitted her at all. Her reply?

“Plotting with you got the wheels churning. It got the movie going in my head. My books start playing like a movie in my head – now I have an outline to line up with the scenes. I’ve never had that before. I’ve read so many books on plotting and tried to do it myself. It helped to talk it out.”

What about you? Are you a plotter or a pantser — or a little bit of both?