I like the midpoint between Gardener & Architect, the road trip mapper. You know the beginning and the ending, and a few key places to stop in the middle, and discover along the way.

For years, I've leaned toward the architect, because I'm a bit of a control freak. Yet I could never finish a damn book. Every time I started writing, I stopped caring. Knowing the end of my book, the beginning of my book, and how my characters got to the end from the beginning, there was nothing else to care about that writing could teach me. I listened to your 2020 class and realized, however much I disparaged gardeners and their negligence, I was almost certainly a gardener. So I've been gardening a story for about four months now and it's going swimmingly, better than anything I've written before. Almost every day I sit down to write, I'm excited for the work. I'm constantly surprised by my characters and feel like they're really taking me places. Thank you.

I plan a garden, but grow nothing. I need to write more.

You just helped me realise my characters are wooden because they're bound by my plot while not really knowing who they are yet. Thank you. I need to go write in their heads.

I don't know if he has said this before, but I feel like having a purpose behind his writing is super important. "The purpose of a storyteller is not to tell you what to think, but to give you questions to think upon."

Last time I was this early Brandon was still writing mistborn 1

Drunk as hell but Always prepared for Sanderson's writing tips...

I’ve always felt like I land somewhere in the middle of plotter and pantser. I outline my plot so I don’t forget it and I have direction, but I let my characters do most of the driving. It’s validating to know Brandon does something like this too!

Doing the high Plotter experiment right now because I could never actually finish my stories. Finished the plot, began writing and all of a sudden my main character turned into the Antagonist/Villain!.... I'm Pantsing my Plotting

There are times where I think I'm "beyond repair" on things like writing cause I tried many methods, many plots and never ever had finished something. This hits me a lot since I'm already in my 31 per se. But one thing I never stopped was dreaming and trying and finally I have found on Sanderson's books and his way of thinking things some peace of mind that become the most productive days of work in the past week compared what I have had in years. I don't have hope on publishing anything tho. But I figured out that maybe (and I'm just saying maaaaaybe) I'll finally finish a story with Sanderson's help. These videos he posts, the content he makes and everything are true gold. I hope a lot of people who suffers like me may find him one day. They don't have to do anything but listen, he really helped me a lot with just that if I'm being honest. Thank you, Sanderson, thank you for being the person that I never believed it existed. Note: I'm not fluent in english so I'm really sorry for any mistakes, I really tried to put my mind out on these words.

I think both methods are driven by fear - fear of losing inspiration. Pantsers worry that planning will kill inspiration, while planners are worried that without guiderails they will flounder about, losing direction and momentum. As for me, I seem to be turning into an uber-planner. It feels great to work out what will happen in a chapter, without having to kill momentum by churning out the actual prose.

I'm not a writer but, I am a reader. Watching these videos creates an awesome perspective of what the author was doing.

This was very helpful. I myself take the "Pantser" stereotype to the next level, and I just write whatever pops into my head, like I'm watching a movie and writing down what I saw and heard.

loving these sessions. Really helping with my motivation :)

Can totally confirm the 'character freewrite' exercise is a solid one to do - whether you're a plotter OR a pantser. I used the Five Questions Interview one on my characters for my w-i-p, and far and away the question that brought the most surprises was "Tell me one thing about yourself that none of the others knows." Every character 'told' me something I hadn't thought of before, but one in particular said something so unexpected I was like "Whaaat? Where the hell did THAT come from?" But then I looked through the notes I had for his backstory, and some of his actions and responses to events in the story so far... and, amazingly, it was right there in front of me all along, all the ingredients to him 'telling' me what he just 'told' me. I can't tell you how incredible it feels as a writer when you experience something like that with your own characters.

Yep, your first bet was right: it's "On Writing" - he talks about how he was also given different advice, including that he should plan or he'd fail; but ultimately found that he was character-driven rather than (and in fact, opposed to) plot-driven. He has a bit where he talks about basically coming up with a general idea for the story, "what if...", and then picking the characters that go in that scenario, and then seeing what they do.

"You can't do both of these at the same time, in the same book" *Proceeds to explain that he does just that* xD

I thought I was a discovery man, but I realized I’m more of an outliner. For me the discovery part comes in my characters.

One thing’s for sure. “Pantsers” suck at branding if they embrace a term that sounds like either a prank or a fetish.

I got an idea from Frazetta. He almost always finished his paintings. Like he didn't say this isn't working and quit. He'd make it work. He didn't really do thumbnails. He'd usually use all his sketches if he did an illustrated book. He used one of them for the cover and he'd watercolor it to get the colors. He'd always overwork the rough drafts of his paintings to get them perfect.

I would love a video on outlining. Not just from the perspective of getting a good book out of it in the end, but more about, that a lot of times (especially if its a job) you have to submit an outline to convince the publishers or your employer. But because I'm structuring my writing a lot like Brandon. Meaning, I plan and outline the plot but discovery write with the characters, my "outline-characters" often feel stiff and less interesting than they do in the final book. What are your ways to work around that?

I definitely lean heavily towards discovery writing, myself, though I do find that a very basic outline does help me. The way I described it to a friend of mine is that I work best when I start with a "skeleton", and fill in the "meat" as I go. A broad, flexible framework within which my characters and world has room to grow organically, so to speak.

Game of Thrones is an example of a gardener. It’s written so well, but it’s impossible to untangle such a mess without having an outline.

I don't know how to describe how I write. On the one hand I plan to such an insane degree that I have a mind-map of how all my stories link up (I genuinely feel sorry for the theoretical agent/editor who I pitch this to...assuming it ever happens). On the other hand it's best described as "I know the beginning, I know the end, it's everything in between that can change while I'm writing it"

Like King, I too feel like I've already written a book when I outline first - which is why I do it, it takes a lot of the stress out of drafting. Plus it comes out close to right the first time instead of needing massive revisions.

2:35 "You can't do both of these things at once." Then Brandon explains how in a roundabout way he does both of these things at once. Character-driven books probably are written mostly by pantsers, but plot-driven books, mostly by planners. Genre may play a role. I doubt any John Grisham book is character-driven, but as Stephen King says, all of his are. Excellent video, Brandon. The only thing keeping me from my "It was a dark and lonely night" is not knowing where to start.

I can't outline to save my life. Don't know how my book will end till I write the last line. My tip for fellow gardeners: edit, edit, edit. Edit from the early stages, the first chapters, so that any mistake/ plot hole whatever doesn't grow to be catastrophic.

I don't really _write it,_ but I do have an outline; in the sense that I need to know what the story is _about_ before I write it. It helps inform the symbolism, but I also use it to make characters who are narratively significant. The outline is in the form of a dialectic between a number of ideas.

I am not even writer just an enthusiastic fan of Brandon's work and I love getting the incite on how he writes and create the wonderful stories we all enjoy

I'm closer to a discovery writer. I rarely write an outline, and if I do, I only outline a few chapters ahead if I hit a point where I'm really struggling. However, I almost always have a general mental idea of where I want the book to go. The farther along I get in the book, the more the ending solidifies in my mind.

I always thought I was a pantser. But then I finally gave outlining a real shot and it was way more fun and definitly works for me.

Probably one of the most important "tools" a budding author needs to learn about.

I've always been a bit of both but more of the pantser. I have a rough outline on where things will go but it's mostly I just see where these things take me.

I've almost always written in the "discovery" style, and frankly I just don't think it's right for me. I "completed" one 500 page draft (it really didn't have an ending, it just "ended") using that methodology about ten years ago, and actually just rediscovered said draft recently. It's downright awful. I still think a lot of the characters and concepts are great, but writing by the seat of my pants really led nowhere. I just recently started a completely new project and I'm really leaning into outlining and planning, and I think that's the way to go for me personally. I still haven't gotten a ton down on the actual draft document (only about 6000 words after three weeks or so) but I've got detailed summaries, character write-ups, worldbuilding documents, and an entire freaking glossary. It's by far the most planning I've ever put into a book and I feel like it's gonna actually result in something halfway decent. At the very least, I've got what feels like a more fully realized WORLD than anything I've ever written before. The question for me now is, do I continue to obsessively plan the whole story, or do I start from where I'm at with a solidly planned foundation and just start writing and see where it goes? I don't know the answer yet, honestly. But that's kind of exciting, in a way.

_On Writing_ is possibly my favorite book of all time, which says a lot, since it's not even fiction.

I find that I'm exceptional at structuring, outlining, and editing (it's my job, as a video editor) but when I actually have to _write,_ ideas subside. I'm so bad at free-writing that I almost can't do it without a writing partner to talk things through with. I have no aspirations of being an author, but I do have stories that I doubt will be told if I don't write them down. And I know that if I could write them badly, my editing brain would have endless field days picking apart how to improve them. But acquiring that content to pick apart is deeply unpleasurable.

I'm definitely more of a pantser and I have to stop myself going back and rewriting before I finish the story. I keep telling myself I'll fix it later. 😅

I definitely fall more into the King camp, but I write myself notes on where I and the characters are going, if I start slowing down or getting stuck. It can start to resemble and outline, toward the end.

In most of my stories, I am a total architect, I try to outline everything. In the last book though, I tried to go like King, facing the blank page and going for it. It kinda worked and I had a lot of fun. Now I am trying to mix both methods like Sanderson said.

Loving these topics and format and length of these videos. Thank you!

So good!! I’m finding I am a big outliner as well! Makes the writing process so much better and easier for me!!

I am an Architect. The only problem is my characters are fleshed out before I put them into the narrative. This causes a different problem, where my stories start warping around them. A short story I wrote about a soldier coming back from war went from being about how he was jaded and still had hope from his hometown to being about how the hometown cast him out by the end, with him holding on to a small trinket given by a child. The characters would make the story refuse their premise.

Would love to see a video about common writing mistakes and their fixes or something like that. It helps me identify my weaknesses!

My first manuscript was 100% gardening, making up the world, characters, and even the story as I went along. However books 2 & 3 (in the same series) were plotted down the the scene (of which there are approx. 100 in each book). These can (and do) change as I write and the story becomes more detailed, but I find this baseline really helpful in terms of motivation, knowing (for example) I have to finish a scene every two days if I want to finish the 1st draft by X date.

I don't write like an architect, I write like the guy who taught the architect everything they know.

Love that he turned his signature into a fantasy emblem

Are the classes being released on the channel? I really loved them, and even if they are almost the same as the 2020 one's, I would watch them all. If possible, it would be awesome. Incredible content, as always.

This was helpful, thank you.

Thank you for this!

In this respect I feel I am flexible. I feel I can be both a Architect or Gardner or at least somewhere in the middle like you said. I write an outline which I sometimes follow or sometimes don't. Though writing an outline does make it easier to write even if what I write in the outline is not applied. I feel it makes it easier to overcome writer's block if I have an outline.

I'm still working on figuring out my writing and planning style. The first book I wrote I had no plan whatsoever, and I finished it, but I look back on it with dread for how flimsy the plot was, there was no depth and it ended horribly. Then I tried writing a book with a very strict plan, I wrote for about five days before I lost all motivation completely. Now looking back I see that I need a mix of both, I need a good ending, a few key moments, some solid and life-like characters, and then, just maybe, I can begin the writing journey and find success. I don't know where I'm headed yet, but I'm trying my best and having fun.

I am such a discovery writer. I'm going to have to edit edit and edit some more, and work on my endings.

I have found your videos so helpful and have discovered that im a gardener but I do what Dan Wells does I have a rough outline with a well thought out ending. Years ago I was given advice to write the ending first and go from there. The first novel I seriously tried to write I planned it out but still haven't wrote more than about half chapter because I wasn't excited about it as much as the one im now writting ( the unplanned one).

Spoiled for content recently :)

I tend towards having a firm idea regarding the conditions that define the head (beginning) and tail (ending), then after a thorough investigation of initial causes and effects I will discover the bones that form the framework of the body, and by thinking more seriously about the connective tissues from bone to bone the necessary flesh seems to almost materialize on its own, and then it’s just a matter of writing it all down in a style that suits the story being told. So, definitely a plotter, but there is still that brainstorming (or barnstorming) sense of flying by the seat of my pants as I discover the trajectory of my plot.

I used to be a ferocious outliner. Now I just note some plot bits and write.

I definitely NEED to plot everything to feel confident and move into writing. I used to write as I go, but never finished these stories. I am trying to plot and see if it works and I stick with this one?

I have to say this man is awesome😁😁

Yep, I am exactly like you Brandon. But I usually only outline a couple of chapters ahead, because my character discovery writing sometimes changes things enough that I would have to rewrite whole chapters of my outline. And I also sometimes have to go back to chapters that I have already written and add more to it, to explain things that my characters are doing in the current chapter.

I'm definitely in an experimental stage with my writing in terms of whether I use an outline or don't. I've got two 20+ chapter stories which I started working on at the same time. One has a fully fleshed-out outline, and the other ended up being pantsed because I was having so much fun freewriting the scenes; and despite knowing where I wanted to go with the story overall, I absolutely could not produce an outline. I suppose it's become my great writing experiment. Yet both methods are at work in both stories. I prefer to outline, but I've made far more progress on the one without an outline... because I'm forced to stay invested in it 90% of the time just to remember what I'm doing. I will sometimes outline a chapter when I get to it, and I have an end goal, character arcs, and basic plot points in mind--- but they're always subject to change depending on new ideas I get while writing. Meanwhile, for the outlined story, I come up with certain specifics as I'm writing it. So despite having a full outline that I'm not going to change, I prefer to work out the character moments and exact details of the events as I go. Some areas of my outline are black and white, while others are grey. I will even put multiple ideas for a scene on the outline. So, I'm mostly an outliner, but I'm never incredibly rigid. I just like to have an idea of where I'm going and the order of my events so I can sneak in as much foreshadowing and as many "re-read bonuses" as possible.

I write a sentence per chapter for an outline. A basic idea. Then I try to see where that idea takes the characters. Definitely a mixture of both

I tend to do a brief summary of each story I write. Enough to know where I want to go with it while at the same time leaving me lots of room to let my imagination run wild.

These are amazing. Will you be posting full 2021 lectures?

I've read a few books from an author who is a rigid outliner, and sadly her characters are very stiff and feel two dimensional. I've also realized about my own writing that I'm a little bit of both plotter and pantser. I call my first draft an outline, and my first draft is more of a second draft, I still am working on getting a book finished with this new writing style that I'm using.

I used to get way too much into planning and world-building, rather than actually writing the story/book.

I always love Brandon's writing advice... but the big problem I'm encountering with my writing is coming up with interesting things for the characters to do. I know what my broader conflicts are, but finding the way to pack in the empty space is difficult.

I always thought I was an outliner, it just fit my personality so much, but once I'm done with the outline the magic kind of goes away. Now I'm starting to think I'm a discovery writer and I absolutely hate it since there is so much of a lack of control that I kind of like to have, So I have gotten stuck in writing mud that trying to figure out where my feet are

I tried gardener first. Produced a lot of writing. Great quantity, terrible quality. Then I switched to architect. Now I noticed a billion errors, wrote a thousand pages of notes, and... can't get a single chapter finished. I'm starting to feel like the universe is trying to tell me something.. XD

Do we know if the lectures will be released in its entirety?

I thought pantsers was named after the phrase "by the seat of your pants"?

For one of my story. I created all my character years ago and now want to build a story around them. Not easy.

'Walking down the middle' implies you get part of the benefits of plotter and part of the benefits of pantser. It also implies you do not get all of the benefits of either, nor does it prevent the problems associated with both. But there is a way to get all the benefits of both without any of the drawbacks of either-Reverse Plotter. What that is, and it works well for 'pantsers at heart', is to first, draft like you're shot out of a cannon. Free write like a madman. Then go back and outline, or document synopses for what you have written on a spreadsheet, or use some method such as that to take a conscious 10,000-ft view. Do everything a plotter might do before they begin drafting, after you've done the drafting. It essentially is allowing your creativity to emerge unfettered from your unconscious mind, followed by evaluating that and fixing what might need to be fixed, afterwards. You get all the advantages of pantsing, followed by all the advantages of plotting, and the plotting fixes any problems that come up in the pantsing, while pantsing first, prevents the problems associated with plotting. He's right, you can't do both at the same time, and yes, they are mutually exclusive. But you can do both serially-pants then plot.

"You can't do both" I beg to differ. Personally I plan premise the end, perhaps a few plot points, protagonist and antagonist and then stumble into new things; subplots, foils/secondary characters, character features, etc. It lets you direct your story and saves you from the bad endings, but keeps the joy of creation. Then again, I'm not an author, so... Maybe take his advice over mine.

Can we see one of your world building outlines?

any plans for a 200K celebration? we’re fast approaching that mark lol

What do you think about writing a pretty vague outline and then you write off that. You have wiggle room but you know whether ur left or right

INTJ = planner. Play to your strengths!

I think Brandon Sanderson should really wrote a self help book. I'd read that more times than I've ever reread anything in the Cosmere.

I tend to discovery write, but if the story has no purpose and I don't know where I'm going, I feel terrible and think I am not a good writer. This is not true, however, when I write comedy. I first got into writing by creating an absurd story where I fitted as many jokes as I could. I had a blast writing that, but I struggled in style and narrative (it was mainly dialogue). Discovery writing is a great tool to brainstorm and to exercise imagination - the most ridiculous situations happen that way - and is very useful to create great scenes. It tends to feel like you are in the moment. Plotting, on the other hand, is great to have a sense of direction and purpose for the story. It's easier to communicate the ideas you want, to see what's more realistic or interesting, and to structure better the plot. You know when to introduce characters, where to put climaxes and you can mold emotional and story arcs in a more intricate way.

Taravangian is clearly an outline guy.

Most of the time, when outliners make mediocre characters, it's because the did not outline their characters. And because they like outlining, the best advice is to make them outline the characters too. Do you agree ?

I can't get over the fact that on his t shirts the boats from the original painting are missing.

I’ve only tried to write one novel and I ended up taking long breaks in between writing and then forgetting what was happening and where I was going with it. Forgot character names and such.. yeah I need an outline next time..

I like to world-build first. I'm not a writer but a mere lowly RPG campaign creator, lmao. But I start with the setting. I'm always fascinated by places and histories. And then I feel like I could think of what kind of people can live in those places, and how they interact with those geographies and histories, which then leads to cultures, traditions, religions and cults, manners of speech, street fashion, etc. And then characters who would be inculcated and born into these things, and how they interact with them. Then it's the magic system. In an RPG with rules, you just work with those. But in a story, I'd imagine I would then create the magic system. Well, in one scenario we had no magic system. There was rather magical events that happen which influences the campaign and setting, that characters have to react to, so in terms of the characters it was more a skill system. And then of course in a game, you'd have an event that gets the plot going. The ending, well, usually involves a final boss or two or 10, hee hee hee

I'm so bad at endings 😭

what about bonsai trees?

Why would a Dragon need a sword? Silly Brandon.

I love it when he mentions my fav author, GRRM.

If you get to pick a dumb name for us, I get to pick a dumb name for all of you They are now known as Pantsers and Glancers

I'm just here to ask for the Rythamist part 2. Brandon, don't let me down.

Shouldn't it say "Gardener"?

when is the 2021 lecture series going to be released in FULL!!!

HELLO THERE!

I personally need to not write anything in advance, or plan anything, because when I do, I don't want to write the story anymore, because I already have the story in my head

I can’t help note that after the pant-seer back end pun he continued with BUT or was it intended to be BUTT still funny. Trust an author to make a pun using a FANBOYS for, and, nor, BUT, or, yet, so all conjunctions. Hehe I got it even though it might not have been intentional and it was grammatically correct.

I call myself plotser cause I do both.

WHO TF DISLIKED THIS?

This was posted 20 minutes ago and somehow already has a dislike?

Total gardener. Don’t have any clue where the story is going until the end of the first draft

Wish you didn't promote the most homophobic sci-fi writer in the first minute 🥴