Developing your book from idea into a first draft for pantsers
You’ve got 20,000 words sitting in a messy first draft. How do you take that and turn it into a book?
Pansters have the unique ability to write in waves. The issue is making sense of the deluge and crafting it into a readable and engaging book. So many amazing stories are not shared with the world because a pantser can’t get it together enough to polish and expand on their first drafts.
By adding structure, it can help you finish the book. You can still be a pantser, but outlining what should go into a chapter and when, can help you sift through the wreckage of a 1am writing marathon and turn it into the next bestseller.
Think about your manuscript premise. Write it down.
How are you going to tell the story that differentiates it from other books?
Don’t get stuck on popular tropes even if your book falls under one. The idea is you are telling the story in your own voice. While popular tropes can help with marketing, it’s important to state why your story is different from well-known books.
Note down the rough arc for the story.
Note down the rough arc of the protagonist.
Note down the rough arc of the villain. Sometimes the villain is the protagonist on a psychological level, or it can be someone, or something external. Something to think about.
Note down things about your world that could impact the protagonist.
Now you want to take the baseline and map out each chapter, starting with the beginning, middle, and end. A good baseline is calculating roughly 2000 words per chapter, so if you plan on writing an 80k word book, that’s forty chapters in total. This is a loose guide that has helped us go from first draft to finished book.
After you’ve done that, take a look at the story arc. We often find that a visual graph of the story arc helps here. You can draw one on a piece of paper by mapping the rising action or plot twists over the course of the 80k words. Does the story arc fall flat anywhere?
Are you sticking to the plot? It’s easy to go off-plot when you’re writing and new developments arise. That’s normal, and your plot can change, but try and keep the overall premise if you can. This will help you reach your goal of a finished manuscript.
Next steps
1. Based on the steps taken above, create a new document and add chapters with notes on what the chapter is about.
Try and include:
Characters in the chapter
What the characters are doing in the chapter
The character goals
Plot point
World positioning - the location they are in
Time periods
Weather
It can be a bullet point list like the one above, or a rough paragraph explaining the chapter.
2. Fill out the chapter with the relevant parts of your rough draft
3. Once you’ve done that, go through the chapters and fill out the text based on step
4. After you’ve got the base manuscript in rough working order, go back through this first draft and expand on the chapters
5. Once you’ve got a good solid 40-60k words, go back through the manuscript and expand on it again, paying careful attention to the notes you included in step 1.
6. The next step is to do a developmental edit of your manuscript to check for flow, character arcs, pacing, plot holes and to try and fix any boring bits
Need an editor for your book? Get in contact with us to discuss how we can help you finish your books.
FAQs
What is a pantser and why does being one make editing harder?
A paster is a writer who writes without an outline, letting the story unfold as you go. It's great for capturing momentum, but it usually leaves you with a messy draft that's hard to shape into a finished, readable book without some structure applied after the fact.
Do I need to become a plotter to finish my book?
No. You can stay a pantser through the drafting process. The method described here adds structure after the fact — outlining chapters and arcs retroactively — so you get the benefits of planning without giving up your natural writing style.
How many words should each chapter be?
A rough baseline is 2,000 words per chapter. For an 80,000-word novel, that works out to about 40 chapters — a loose guide, not a strict rule.
How do I know if my story arc is working?
Try mapping it visually — plotting the rising action and major plot twists across your word count on paper. This makes it easier to spot places where the arc goes flat or loses momentum.
What if I go off-plot while drafting?
That's normal, especially for pantsers. Plots evolve as you write. The key is keeping your overall premise intact so the manuscript still moves toward a finished draft.
What should I track for each chapter once I start organizing my draft?
For each chapter, it helps to note the characters involved, what they're doing, their goals, the plot point, world/location positioning, time period, and weather. A bullet list or short paragraph works fine.
How much of the manuscript should I have before doing a developmental edit?
Once you've expanded your draft to a solid 40,000–60,000 words and gone back through it with your chapter notes in mind, that's the point to bring in a developmental edit — to catch flow issues, pacing, plot holes, and character arc problems.
What's the actual process from messy draft to finished manuscript?
Capture your premise and arcs
Map chapters against a word-count baseline
Check the arc visually
Build out a chapter-by-chapter working document
Fill in and expand each chapter using your rough draft
Do a developmental edit once you hit that 40–60k mark.
