Storytelling for Pantsers is for all those writers who can’t do outlines, don’t plot their narratives, and just let their characters wander through forests and cities to see where they end up. And isn’t this just how we live our lives, wandering our forests and our cities? And that’s what is so great about Storytelling for Pantsers. It helps us write like we live, by wandering, by learning, by growing a little at a time.

So often we teach that creative writing is prescriptive. First, create a character. Second, create a plot. Third, create a setting. We turn our art into write-by-numbers until we’ve stolen the magic from it. Storytelling for Pantsers brings the creativity into creative writing. It teaches us to write organically, to follow our muse, but to follow it to the very end–a beautifully written book.

In Storytelling for Pantsers, Annalisa Parent writes a book designed for all those writers the other craft books don’t work for. Those other craft books (and I’ve written them) are designed for outliners, for folks who see their books from beginning to ending. But what about the rest of the writers? They should read this book. Its examples and ideas and illustrations and analogies will help them complete their beautiful novels.

Whether you are a pantser (like Annalisa) or an outliner (yup, me), Storytelling for Pantser is for you. It’ll help you start and finish your novel. It’ll help you think about how and why. It’ll teach you ideas and the science behind those ideas. It’ll allow you to explore while also moving forward toward that beautiful novel you have inside of you.

One of the things I love about Storytelling for Pantsers is that it allows us to be human as we write. It allows us to fail, to struggle, to second guess ourselves. But while we’re being human, Storytelling for Pantsers is guiding us toward successful writing, toward creating and completing the novels of our minds.