A few years ago, I sat down to write a story with only a short scene in mind. In three months, I had a roughly 130,000 page manuscript written. Was it in desperate need of rewrites and revisions? Yes, of course. But the beautiful part was it was completely written. I had the chunk of marble ready for sculpting.

Flash forward to 2024, I was on the struggle bus with my writing. I had detailed outlines and had been studying the craft intensely. And yet, the book I was trying to write was just not getting done. I tried starting other project, maping out their fine details with methods like Save the Cat! or even my own style of outlining and prewriting. Everything kept stalling out.

Was writing a book in just three months a fluke? Would something like that just never happen for me again? Sure, I have more things going on in my personal life with a toddler at home, but I’ve been able to dedicate hours to my writing career, regardless.

After self-publishing my first book, I joined writing communities, studied the craft of writing intensely, and started a certification program to become a book coach. There were so many voices in my life telling me how to write a book and how much planning must be done on the front end. But while my skill at writing had greatly improved since my first novel, the ability to get things on the page had stagnated.

Not until I watched the first epsiode of Brandon Sanderson’s lecture series on Sci-Fi and Fantasy had any major voice in publishing acknowledge discovery writing as a genuine process. Come to find out, many successful authors are discovery writers. To paraphrase Sanderson, discovery writers to do the same amount of work on the backend that other writers do at the front it. It’s how we do our best work.

So what is discovery writing exactly?

Another term for this is “pantsing”, a short form of “writing by the seat of your pants.” This is the opposite of a “planner”, or one who has detailed outline among other prewriting exercises. Discovery writers go into a story with little to no plan and develop their characters and plot as they write. The focus of their writing is on letting their creative freak flag fly and relying on intuition.

For me, I always have a pretty solid understanding of who my characters are going into a story. The idea usually stems from a character forming in my head. Since I know who the characters are, that knowledge guides me through writing the story. I know what they would pursue, how they would react to things, and what their flaws to overcome would be.

Discovery writing definitely isn’t for everyone.

If you love exploring ideas organically, finding surprising twists, seeing natural character growth as events play out, and enjoy the adventure of seeing things take you, discovery writing might be for you.

But, if you hate the idea of plot holes or dead-ends, more revisions and edits after writing your initial draft, and possibly even needing to rewrite whole chapters (or possibly the entire book, like I did, if you wrote in the wrong POV), then discovery writing might not be for you.

Even though it doesn’t seem to be recommended throughout the writing community, I think I need to come to terms with the fact that I am a discovery writer. None of the cons of discovery writing bothers me (in fact, I’m one of those weirdos who loves the revision process), and I love for my writing to take me on an adventure with characters I empathize with and down twists and turns I didn’t expect.

If you are thinking about being a discovery writer, I think it is important for us to remember to trust the process and be okay with feeling uncertainty about where you’re going with a story. At the same time, we need to stay on top of our notes to keep track of key details so we don’t get lost in the weeds. But most importantly, we need to be open and loving to our messy first drafts. Give a big hug and then crack your fingers and get ready to tear it to shreds in the revision stages.

But regardless of your writing style, I think the one key lesson I learned in all this is that there is no “right” way to write. You need to find your own process and be true to yourself.

So, get out there and write that story!