In the past I’ve talked about Plotting vs. Pantsing as the method of writing you (or I) may do. Simply put a Plotter has a plan and
knows their entire story before they ever begin to write the first draft; a
Pantser simply begins writing with a (sometimes) vague story idea and
characters. Both methods have their advantages and disadvantages. In the end,
your method is entirely up to you and is your own personal choice, typically
made by what works best for you. And sometimes you may even be a little bit of
both.
Personally I’ve gone both ways. I’ve sat down and written
entire short stories without ever having any idea what was going to end up on
the paper.
I’ve begun large writing projects with little more than
ideas derived from a song or based on a dream.
Other times I’ve dreamed the entire story in specific,
explicit detail from beginning to end, written a synopsis to get the basics of
the story line down on paper and done more extraneous work (timelines, character
descriptions, setting info) to get all the story details out of my head and
written down.
