Most writers fall into one of two categories:
The most obvious, and shallow, difference between organic writers vs. planned writers is that organic writers don't outline first, while planners do.
In general, if you're one type, you'll have trouble trying to write the other way.
This is because the real differences between organic writers vs. planned writers run much deeper than the mechanical difference in their methods. The organic's creative orientation toward telling stories off the cuff comes from a subtle but fundamental personality difference.
A personality difference that leads to significantly different approaches in every part of the writing process.
Planners tend to start with an outline of some sort. They figure out where the story is going and how it will get there before they start producing prose. They make conscious decisions about how each story should unfold, step by step.
For a planner, creating an outline before writing the rough draft provides a framework for the story. It keeps the main points of the story in the writer's mind so she can write the plot effectively and intentionally from point to point. It guides her in keeping characterization, world-building, and every other story factor focused on the right track.
For a planner, an outline makes the difference between creating a worthy story, and writing random nonsense.
But, for an organic writer, an outline can feel like a straight jacket.
An organic writer needs the freedom to let the plot twist in directions she could never imagine beforehand, to let the story world evolve to meet those twists, and to let her characters run wild between them.
Organics rarely outline before writing the rough draft. We just dive in without a road map. We want to follow the story wherever it goes, and be happily amazed by where it ends up.
For an organic writer, that freedom makes the difference between creating a stilted hack job and writing a story worth reading.
Planners tend to get lost if they try to write without an outline. They want the guidance and control an outline provides, all the major decisions pinned down ahead of time so they know where the story is going and how it will get there. Then they can focus on the detailed work of writing the rough draft.
Organics tend to get blocked if we try to write from an outline. We do better spilling the story directly from brain to page. We believe we can make all the decisions on the fly with little to no second guessing. We trust that the story will naturally evolve in a wonderful direction, and that whatever end that evolution might lead us to will be worth the journey.
Planners tend to pre-write more intentionally than organics. In addition to building an outline, they may figure out many things about the world, the characters, the plot, the theme, and any other factor that might impact the story. They may do extensive research, working out anything from character clothing styles to who they might want to publish the finished novel.
They write an outline (and other documents) to organize it all and pin the important parts in place, like marking their route on a road map. Then, once they're sure they know the lay of the land, they attempt their first draft.
Organics tend to start by attempting a first draft, before we figure out more than vague ideas about the characters, the world, the plot, the theme, or anything else. Whatever pre-writing we do (no matter how extensive) is meant to prime the well of our subconscious, rather than to pre-define anything in particular about the story.
We figure out the plot, characters, theme, and all the rest, along the way. We explore the lay of the land as we write about it, picking up clues from the text and fitting them together on the fly. We usually don't know (and often don't even care) what the important parts will turn out to be until after we write about them.
A planner needs the guideposts a first draft outline provides. Without it, she may get paralyzed or stumped, unable to figure out how to get the story from where it is to where it's going.
Take the example of a character stuck in a locked room.
The planner may struggle to decide how to get him out. She might draw a blank about any escape possibilities at all, or she might be paralyzed trying to decide between too many options, each of which presents the risk of leading her story off course.
But if her outline already specifies that he escapes through a trap door under the rug, the planned writer can simply focus on leading her character to find it. And she can be certain the story will thus stay on a course she knows will work.
Organics are the opposite. For an organic writer, there are never enough possibilities. We want to explore and experiment and be surprised by the results. Where the story is going is much less important to us than what we can do with where it already is.
Faced with the same character locked in a room, the organic would brainstorm escape routes like tunnel through the floor or build a parachute from the curtains or bang on the door and shout for help or try to kick his way through a wall or....
Each possibility results in a need for a different next scene. Each makes the story diverge toward a different and unpredictable end point. Without an outline, the organic is free to choose any of those brainstormed options, and happy to follow the story to any end point they might lead toward.
For an organic, the rough draft is commonly full of non-story info-dumps, such as world-building notes, character histories, explanations of how the magic or special technology works, etc. The writer might send her characters meandering all over the story world in order to explore various plot possibilities or world-building areas -- generating scene after scene that might never pertain to the main character's central mission.
All those exploratory meanderings and other chunks get moved out of the main story text during revision.
For a planner, the info-dumps and so on tend to be built in satellite files to start with, because her outline enforces a level of initial simplicity, structure, and organization the organic writer feels no need for.
When it comes time to revise, the differences between organic writers vs. planned writers become harder to pin down.
By then, we each have a rough draft to work from. We each know quite a lot about the story, the world, the characters, and everything else.
For revision, planners may create a new outline or they may continue working from their original outline.
Organics, also, might create an outline, or might not. (Organics do use outlines -- just not as our first step.)
But, even in revision, and even with a revision outline at hand, organics still tend to use more fluid methods.
Where the planner tends to make changes aimed at the particular story outcome her outline specifies, the organic writer tends to make changes based on the details and clues the story offers in the moment.
A planner sees no issue with changing a character's dress color so she can blend into a hiding spot to escape pursuers. With a little back filling to make sure the character wore the new dress color to start with, all is good, because the plot remains on track.
The organic, on the other hand, is more likely to keep the original dress and ask where the existing color might lead the story, or how the character could react differently in order to still be able to escape. Either way, all is good, because an organic writer can follow a plot anywhere.