okay writers I want to know if this happens to you or if I am weird:

when you& #39;re drafting, does your story live in your head?

does it feel like you have too much story in your head, so you have to write it down to save it?

also, are you team pants or team plot?

Me:

When I& #39;m drafting a story. the whole experience of the story is in there, and it& #39;s too big to fit. I& #39;m obsessed with it. I am impossible while I& #39;m drafting because it utterly consumes me. I find it hard to focus or talk about anything that isn& #39;t my story.

I like to pants the first quarter of the book - just write what& #39;s in my head until I come to the transition between the setup and the middle build. Then I go back, figure out what I& #39;m setting up, and then write future scenes, what happens in the middle, what happens at the end.

I can write a detailed, scene by scene outline without draining the experience of the story crowding my head. I suspect this is what some pantsers mean when they say the magic of the story dies if they outline it.

(I didn& #39;t say I would stick to the outline.)