Pantsing: Trusting the Chaos

There’s a particular kind of thrill in sitting down to write with no roadmap—just a glimmer of a character, a flash of a scene, or maybe a question that refuses to leave you alone. That’s the world of “pantsing,” or writing by the seat of your pants. No outline, no detailed chapter plan—just you, your characters, and whatever strange journey they decide to take you on.

Some writers find this terrifying. Others find it liberating. For me, it's the only way I know how to tell a story that truly breathes.

What Is Pantsing, Really?

In the writing world, we love our binaries: plotters vs. pantsers. Plotters outline every scene, map out arcs, and often know the ending before they write the first sentence. Pantsers, on the other hand, dive in blind, hoping to discover the story as they go. Most generally know how it'll start and how it'll end—and that's all. It sounds reckless, maybe even foolish. But it can also lead to some of the most emotionally raw, character-driven storytelling out there.

That’s because pantsing, at its best, is about listening to your instincts, to the characters, to the world unfolding in front of you. It requires trust. It asks you to follow a thread, sometimes (most of the time) not knowing where it leads, and to believe there’s something worth finding at the other end.

Letting Characters Take the Wheel

If you write long enough, you’ll eventually hear some variation of this phrase: “My character surprised me.” Those that aren't writers might be puzzled by this—Aren’t you the one writing the story? But the thing is characters aren’t just tools in a writer’s kit. Done right, they become something more: reflections of truth, fragments of emotion, fully-formed voices that speak whether you like it or not.

Character-driven stories come alive when you let your characters lead. You might have an idea of where the story’s supposed to go, but then one of them makes a decision you didn’t expect. Maybe they fall in love with the wrong person. Maybe they walk away from the climax you’ve been building toward. In a plotted story, you might wrangle them back onto the rails. But in a pantsed, character-first narrative, you follow them into the wilderness.

And honestly, for me, that’s where the magic lives.

The Beauty of Discovery

There’s something inherently human about not knowing. We walk through life improvising—responding to events, relationships, and emotions in real time. When a story is written with that same sense of discovery, it often feels more immediate. More alive. The emotions hit harder. The turns feel sharper. You’re discovering the story at the same time your characters are—and your readers will feel that too.

When I start writing, I rarely know how it will end. I have a vibe, maybe a mood, a sense of something unresolved that needs exploring and perhaps perceptions of an ending, but not much more. Sometimes I just start with a voice—a character whispering from the dark. I chase them, and I write fast enough not to lose them. It’s messy. It's chaotic. It's glorious.

Of course, that also means I hit walls. Dead ends. Whole chapters that lead nowhere and need to be crafted into something else or even tossed altogether. But I’ve learned not to fear that. Even the missteps are part of the process. Sometimes you have to write the wrong path to recognize the right one.

The Downside—and Why It’s Worth It

Pantsing isn’t always pretty. You might have to rewrite more. You might realize halfway through that your first few chapters need to be scrapped or heavily reworked. You’ll get stuck. You’ll second-guess yourself. You’ll wish—at least once—that you had an outline.

But what you gain is something harder to quantify. When a story emerges organically, shaped by the characters’ choices rather than a rigid structure, it often resonates more deeply. It surprises you. It feels alive because it was alive while you wrote it. You weren’t dragging your characters through a script—you were watching them stumble, fall, and grow in real time.

That vulnerability—on the page and in the process—is worth every rewrite.

Not Always Plotless

When I was coming to the end of The Phoenix Cycle, and seeing Jericho's story come to an end, it was a struggle. Not because I didn't know the ending, exactly—but that I had spent so many years with Jericho in my head, I already knew the choices he would make. It was only ever going to end one way.

One of the biggest misconceptions about pantsing or character-driven writing is that the stories don’t have structure. But character-driven doesn’t mean plotless. It means the plot emerges from the characters’ decisions, not the other way around. It’s organic rather than imposed.

When done well, the result is a story that feels inevitable—but only in hindsight. You look back and realize, of course they made that choice. Of course it had to end this way. But in the moment, nothing was predetermined. That tension between chaos and structure is where character-driven storytelling shines.

Writing Is Trust

In the end, pantsing is an act of trust. Trusting your characters. Trusting the story. Trusting yourself. It’s messy, but so is life. It doesn’t always make sense while you’re in it—but later, when you read it back, you see the patterns. The echoes. The truth.

So if you’re a fellow pantser, embrace the chaos. Chase the voice. Let your characters get lost, fall in love, make mistakes. Don’t worry if you don’t have all the answers at the start—you’ll find them in the writing. And if you’re a plotter looking to break free once in a while? Try it. Sit down with no plan. Listen to the quiet. See who starts speaking.

You might be surprised where they take you.

Closing Thoughts

Whether you outline meticulously or dive into the unknown, all stories start the same way—with a spark. A what-if. A whisper. Pantsing just means leaning into that mystery a little harder and trusting your characters to help you find the way forward.

Writing isn’t a formula—it’s an exploration. And sometimes the best stories are the ones we didn’t see coming.