I've recently found myself being swept up in a shiny new novel idea. Maybe you know the sort. It started with just a little hitch of my attention here and there: an interesting podcast episode, a coincidental conversation with a family member, a couple of mentions of a certain historical figure and then, whoosh, suddenly it had enough momentum to carry me away.

If I'm honest, this has been something of a novelty. My story ideas usually require a lot of incubation, followed by some serious mixing and matching. I might take a snatch of an idea from one place and pair it with a wisp of something else, repeating the process until the fabric of the story is thick enough to hold. Usually this starts with a theme and a setting and a handful of general feelings. From this mist of a concept, some characters and their relationships emerge and then, if I'm lucky, I might get a sense of an actual plot. Even then, it usually takes a fair bit of exploratory writing before I can tighten the threads and find out what actually happens.

I don't want to speak too loudly and scare the muse away, but the plot of this new idea seemed to arrive – if not fully-formed – then at least in an orderly fashion over a couple of weeks rather than in dribs and drabs over a couple of months. There are still a thousand details to add and hone, but when I started writing an initial outline, I already had a sense of all the little twists and turns and how they might interact and lead on to each other. In other words, I found myself thinking of the tiny moments of the story as if they already existed.

This felt like a very good sign. So good, in fact, that I did something I've never done before: I planned out the whole novel, scene by scene, before I started writing. And yes, I'm aware that for many writers this is a perfectly standard way to begin. What seems interesting to me about this is that its an excellent reminder that we can change our minds.

You see, I've always thought that I was mildly against 'over-planning' in the early stages of writing a novel. Mainly, I think, this was from concern that setting everything down on the page too early would suck all the magic out of the process. Or even that the act of mapping out the roads I wanted to take would scratch whatever itch the idea was provoking in me and I wouldn't find it necessary to actually bother writing it.

Maybe this can be an issue in some cases, and I certainly wouldn't want to think I was taking away the opportunity to surprise myself as I go along. And yet... that sort of thinking seems rather the antithesis of another truth of my writing behaviour, which is that I find more joy in rewriting and editing than I do in getting down the first draft.

For me, the best part is when the bare bones of the story are more-or-less in place and I can work my way back through, layering in detail and colour and depth. Knowing this, it seems like it would make a lot more sense for me to have a clear plan in place before I begin. Perhaps if I consider the plan itself as a kind of mini skeleton draft, it might even bring forward some of the writing pleasure that comes when I know where I am with a story and am taking on the task of making everything feel real.

I drafted this Substack post a month ago, just before I limbered up ready to start turning my skeleton outline into what I hope will be a living, breathing first draft. I wrote the first ten thousand words and then – ah, the nature of writing! – temporarily shifted back to a line edit of my previous project.

Anyway, I'm done with the line edits for now, and I'm excited to get back to the new shiny idea and the accompanying scene-by-scene spreadsheet. Time, I suppose, will tell whether it carries me smoothly over the next ten thousand words and beyond, or whether the very spreadsheet-ness of it will make the whole thing lose the spark altogether.

But! It's fun to lean into writing the story the way it seems like it wants to be written. I will, of course, report back.