Know Your Staff: Planners or Plungers?

Human beings fall into two groups: “planners” and “plungers.” Planners decide what to do, and then do it. Plungers jump in and do it, figuring things out as they go along.

Newspaper writers also divide into planners and plungers. Planners know what they want to say before they say it. At a minimum, they plan their story’s structure in their heads before they start typing; at the maximum, they compose from a written outline.

Plungers tend to “write by discovery.” They have no idea of structure when they start typing. They usually type sentences or paragraphs or sections, and then rearrange them to make sense.

Planners and plungers can write at the same speed and with the same quality. Both methods prove equally valid for newswriting. But most editors, teachers, and coaches are planners, so they find fellow planners easier to work with.

Planners

Planners need and want help with their plans. They tend to like brainstorming about the story before they leave the office, and debriefing when they return. Planners’ confidence depends on feeling they know what they’re doing and what they’re about to do.

Before they start typing, planners can tell you what their lead is about, although they may not write it first. They can discuss the structure of their piece, although they may not write it in the order of their plan.

The dark side of planners involves rigidity and procrastination. Some planners stick to their outline no matter how the writing goes or even, in extreme cases, how the facts break. Some planners cannot start typing until they have every detail in hand and a place for it in their structure. They may sit at their desks right up to deadline watching the phone for that last item to come in.

Plungers

Plungers resist help from planners, especially from planner editors who try to impose structure on them early. A planner editor usually brings a lead for every story into news meetings, and will try to gather them from reporters soon after they start typing. But the plunger reporter may not know the lead until the whole piece is revised and finished.

Plungers discover the structure of their pieces by simply writing and rearranging them. When they try to debrief before they start typing, they may sound lost in detail because they haven’t figured out sections to put those details in. So they may seem fuzzy (to a planner). The coaching editor helps them discover the parts of their story by asking about main ideas, importance, reader interest, and backgrounds.

Plungers fail spectacularly when they run out of time, because the piece they turn in may have no structure or coherence. At the worst, a disorganized plunger may turn in typed notes.

Middlers

Obviously, some newswriters fall in the middle, or in both camps. Some reporters plunge on news, and plan on projects, or plan on long pieces, and plunge for short ones. (I’m an extreme planner, but, for some reason, I plan short pieces and plunge on very long ones. I also plunge when I write fiction.) Some planners plunge when they write features, or when they panic or run out of time. Some writers plan the first half of stories, and plunge the bottom, mostly because they lose control of time.

Newswriters tend to equate plunging with speed. They say things like, “I didn’t have time, so I had to just plunge in and write it.” In fact, planning in an emergency saves time, because it eliminates false starts. Plungers also may waste time writing and revising parts they don’t include in the finished story.

Their Way, and Yours

Writers work best when they do things their way. Planners write better by planning, and plungers by plunging. So the helpful editor should not try to convert a plunger to planning, or vice versa. Rather, you adjust to the writers’ ways of doing things, and give them the specific help they need when and how they need it.

Helpful editors help themselves by sorting their writers out into planners and plungers. Just ask them; they know. And of course, you have to know who you are, and what works best for you.

[Are you a planner, plunger, or middler?]