(This post is part of my Patreon-supported New Worlds series.)
Just as the miasma theory of disease wanders in the direction of something useful (germs) before veering off to be totally wrong (bad air), so too does the notion of elemental imbalances contain a grain of truth in a beach of incorrect concepts.
By “elemental imbalances” I mean the various theories — European humorism, Indian Ayurveda, Chinese wuxing, and others — that envision the human body as being made up of a small number of humors, elements, energies, and so forth, with disease arising when one of them becomes too prevalent or too lacking. Not just physical ailments, either; they also diagnosed mental issues such as depression or phobia by these same means. And it’s true, excess and deficiency can indeed cause disease! The latter is more common, I think, resulting in conditions like anemia, beriberi, rickets, or scurvy, but gout is an example of a disease brought on by too much of something (uric acid, in this case).
When I was in New York City earlier this year I simply didn’t have the time to take in the revival of My Fair Lady at the Lincoln Center. Heartbreaking! But fortunately the show is now on tour, and thank goodness I live near the 
‘Tis the season, and because it is, I saw three different versions of A Christmas Carol last week (and completed my annual re-read of the book as well). The first was a stage production done by San Francisco’s A.C.T. Conservatory. It was lovely–not ground breaking, but rather precisely what I expected: a straight theatrical retelling of a well-loved story. Then there was my annual rewatching of Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol–still my favorite version ever, and despite the fact that it’s a musical, I think it’s one of the truest renditions of Mr. Dickens’s story. And then I saw a new BBC-produced version with Guy Pearce as Scrooge that is not, as the advertisements might have it, your father’s Christmas Carol.
If you’re a pantser you are not in sole charge of the work. The characters, the plot, the theme, all chip in and drag the book to new and exciting places. You want them to do that. This is the whole point of pantsing in the first place. The book will go to places that you, if you outlined it at the beginning, could never have imagined. You know the thing’s really alive, when it gets up and runs!
