Why Discovery Writing Works
Sometimes excavation is as important as blueprints.
Hey y’all, it’s KimBoo! I’m an author who is also a librarian, text technology historian, and former I.T. project manager. I write about a lot of interesting things, I hope you agree! Please consider supporting me (and my dog!) so I can keep throwing errata & etcetera into the Scriptorium!
For some reason, several writers I know all independently started reading a craft book published in 2016.
I don’t take such coincidences lightly.
The book is Story Genius by Lisa Cron, and I’m sure my writing about it now will lead more writers to seek it out. It is worth seeking out. Her insights on story development are fantastic.
My favorite quote is about something I’ve been arguing as a genre writer for a long time, and she nails it perfectly (where I usually fumble around for hours trying to explain the same idea):
We put our faith in the power of the beautiful words themselves to lure readers, thus mistaking the wrapping paper for the present.
The story is far more important than pretty words, which is proven over and over again as mediocre writing finds bestseller lists and transcendent prose ends up in the resale bin. Yes, everyone should strive to write very well, but good storytelling can make up for a lot of sins. Cron’s method of plumbing the construction of a great story is an incredibly useful tool for building strong stories.
She has a rhetorical device she uses a lot in her work, which is to debunk myths about the writing process. They are usually insightful, for instance, she points out that pre-outlining and/or writing to beats is often a stand-in for understanding the plot and character dynamics and leads to a story with a paint-by-numbers, artificial feel. I think we all know that is true.
But when Cron goes wrong, she goes right off the cliff.
She believes that discovery writing (a.k.a. pantsing) is one of the worst things a writer can do, and explains in detail why that is. What is very clear to me is that she’s either never talked to successful pantsers, or she’s ignored everything they say when she has talked to them.
She bases her belief that “pantsing leads to failure” on the idea that creativity needs a leash in order reach its full potential. She’s right, but she falls for the myth that discovery writing is writing without any control whatsoever, akin to free association writing.
In her mind, discovery writing only ever leads to a “sprawling, aimless frolic…random romps all over the place.”
I, and plenty of other authors, have many stories to our names which prove the opposite.
Cron also claims that if you are a discovery writer, you are not creating a past for your story or characters: “The past determines the present. And when you pants, there is no past.”
I was honestly floored when I read that.
Again, the statement itself is flawlessly logical, but it is one of those logical statements that is based on a fallacy, which is “when you pants, there is no past.” The truth is that someone who uses discovery writing techniques is usually excavating that character’s past, like an archaeologist with a trowel.
In fact, I find discovery writing to feel a lot like I’m uncovering secret treasures. No, I don’t know why that character flinched when her best friend tried to hug her, but I need to find out why. I’m taking all the clues and letting my intuition assemble them into a plausible theory. It might lead to a big reveal or it might end up in a cut scene, but that doesn’t matter. It is my curiosity about it driving me to figure out how that one little piece of evidence fits into the story.
Cron is more like a building contractor, carefully assembling blue prints and laying down the bones of the building before wiring for electricity and adding in walls and flooring and doors. It makes sense that she sees someone putting together a rickety shed from found items as a writer who is simply off the rails, free associating a big mess that will likely have to be torn down and thrown away, if it doesn’t fall down first.
That is the major fault line in her argument: equating discovery writing with free association writing. She calls it word vomit and believes that the only way to leash creativity is to plan what you are going to write before you start.
But here’s the thing: discovery writing is NOT free association writing.
This misunderstanding leads her to believe that when a pantser writes themselves into corners or messes up the story along the way, that there is no recourse. That once you start a story, it must already have all the structure in place to build from, because how else can you possibly fix the story otherwise??? Without that structure to support the work, there are no techniques to fix the problem short of a complete re-write!!!! Oh noes!!!
As logic goes, that makes sense, but only if you are confusing discovery writing with free association writing.
What is the difference, then? And why doesn’t Cron (and so many other writing instructors) understand that difference?
It’s pretty simple, actually:
Free association writing is a technique involving writing continuously without pausing to edit or review the words for a limited amount of time (e.g. three pages worth, a twenty minute session, etc.) in order to bypass the conscious, critical mind to better access subconscious thoughts and ideas.
Discovery Writing is an exploratory technique where the writer allows their subconscious intuition to guide the writing process with the specific goal of creating a cohesive story.
In both techniques, the writer lets thoughts and words flow freely, often leading to unexpected results. However, free association writing has no specific goal other than the immediate expression of thoughts and feelings, sometimes leading to deeper insights or creative ideas that might not emerge through more structured thinking. For this reason, it's often used as a therapeutic or brainstorming tool.
On the other hand, discovery writing does have a goal, which is to create a story. Discovery writers often start with a basic idea, scene, or character and then allow their curiosity to discover where the story takes them. The focus is on letting the narrative and characters evolve naturally during the writing process, often leading to surprising plot twists or character developments that were not expected. Experienced pantsers end up creating plot and character development organically as the story unfolds, rather than being pre-planned in detail from the beginning.
If it’s that simple, then, why does discovery writing get such a bad rap from instructors like Cron?
Because they often work with inexperienced writers who launch into writing a story based on a concept they love but without the skill set to hold it together. It is logical to assume the problem is the (lack of) technique and that the solution is to tell them to stop, drop, and roll before their entire rickety shack of a story goes up in flames.
They have come to associate discovery writing with inexperienced writers, so label it a waste of time at best, actively harmful at worst. Students need to learn structure!
And, yes, of course we do. We all do. It’s an ongoing process for writers who take our craft seriously. Nothing can substitute for purposeful study of writing and literature! But simply throwing out a great technique like discovery writing because inexperienced writers unintentionally use it is counterproductive.
So, yes, oftentimes they are building rickety structures that need to get torn down. On the other hand, experienced pantsers use discovery writing to unearth amazing treasures. The rickety shack everyone sees is just providing shade over their work space! In time, they will put together something amazing from all the bits and bobs they uncover, the same way paleontologists recreate whole dinosaurs or archaeologists reimagine ancient temples.
My opinion is that discovery writing is, by and large, an advanced technique. It leans heavily on a writer’s experience and intuition, which is why inexperienced writers end up flubbing their stories when they jump in with both feet before they have put in the work to develop their skill set. That said, discovery writing can help new writers discover how their creative process works, if it is approached in a deliberate way.
But we will never figure out how to help writers learn the technique if we are always denigrating it, misrepresenting it, and dismissing it. 😕
As a plotter, I adore Story Genius, but I really appreciated hearing this view of it as well!