NaNo terms explained: Plotter vs Panster

In Nano, there are two extremes in methods of writing your story. This will be my third year of hosting a Write-In. And the majority of writers that i have witnessed, lean one way or the other. Very few have ever fallen in the middle. I have seen great stories produced by both sides of the spectrum, so i can honestly say that i don't believe one way is better than the other. It's all up to the writer. 

Plotters- These are the folks that need to carefully lay out their plotline before a single word of the story ever gets written down. It's their map, blueprint, whatever you want to call it. The story is not ridged and boring when done this way since even the outline comes out of their imagination (or memory if the genre calls for it). If you think of it like a building...they know when they lay the first brick what the structure will look like when they're done. 

Pantsers- These people find plotting everything out before hand too restrictive. They write by the seat of their pants the whole way. Most often, they know a few details about their story (like the main characters) and a general idea of some bullet points that they'd like to have happen along the way, but the rest is a mystery at the beginning. Often times, somewhere, the story will take a turn that the just did not see coming and they'll follow it to completion. I've heard this type of writing called "Organic" before. It might seem like this method would just lead to rambling on for 10k words, but it also makes for some really interesting tangents. 

Think about it this way: if you're in a park or a garden, and you're not required to walk on the path, can you still reach the same destination? Of course this bars any unforeseen lava pits or rabid bunnies that will pelt you with nuts if you leave the path. 

My point is: Don't let anyone tell you that one way is better than the other.  You need to try which ever one seems more natural for you. Maybe you fall somewhere in the middle  or closer to one way or the other. But don't force yourself to follow a set path if it doesn't work. You're not like everyone else, so why would your writing be?

Me? I'm definitively a Pantser. The one time i tried to plan out a whole new world and a story that would fit into this one idea i had...i was miserable the whole time. I have never come so close to quitting. I kept realizing that my characters would never behave the way i needed them to, and the story just wouldn't work, no matter how much i tweaked the alien planet they were on. It was frustrating beyond belief. In retrospect, if i had followed where the story would have gone instead of where i wanted it to go, i think i could have salvaged the story. 

However the first time i did NaNo, i was so limited on time that i wasn't able to plot. My main goal was to reach the 50k line before the deadline passed. I had 2 characters, and a two sentence description of the overall story arc. So my story just grew. I'm not saying it was easy. At Thanksgiving dinner, i seized my cousin by the shoulders and frantically told her i had NO climax what-so-ever. But thanks to help from several people, i passed the goal early and even, for the first time in my life, FINISHED the story. It was a thrill like i had never experienced before. It kept making me want to go back for more. 

This will be my 4th NaNoWriMo and i cannot wait for it to start.