To Plan or Not to Plan?
By Julie Hartley
A dream came true for me in November 2024 when, after several months of editorial meetings and the submission of three detailed synopses, I received a two-book deal from Bookouture UK. Beyond excited, I clicked on the contract, scanned the deadlines specified for delivery of the first book, and my jaw dropped open.
The first novel was due in fifteen weeks.
I had already completed research for the book – the story of a shy 18-year-old English girl in 1940 who discovers an injured German spy in the woods behind her home. I also had a 3-page synopsis and the opening chapter, but that was all. Staring down at the date on the contract, I asked myself: how do you set about writing and polishing a novel in 15 weeks?
My first book, released by a small press back in 2015, took a year to write and three years to edit. I began without a plan, developing my characters as the plot unfolded, and the first draft was a rambling mess; raw material for a novel that gradually took shape over subsequent years. If this experience taught me anything it was that I don’t enjoy structural edits. I’d much rather do the work up front, creating a detailed outline and ensuring – as much as possible – that all the ingredients are in the right order before starting to write.
Learning this about myself was important, because as I read through my Bookouture contract last November, something occurred to me: to write a successful novel in 15 weeks I was going to need an extensive outline, because the time for structural edits would be very limited.
All novels must be planned: there, I’ve said it. A ‘planned’ novel enters the story in the best possible place, gets the tempo spot on, keeps a reader focussed on unfolding events, reveals motivation and backstory at exactly the right time, keeps the stakes high and introduces conflict. Planning means showing not telling, relating a story from the best point of view and ensuring there are no loose ends or superfluous scenes. In a ‘planned’ story, characters change as they move through the novel, until by the end, something significant about them has been transformed by key events.
The question isn’t if we should plan, but whether we prefer to do this planning before or after writing the first draft.
Each writer approaches the planning process differently. The first novel I wrote for Bookouture – Her Secret Soldier – existed in a 36-page chapter-by-chapter outline before I began to write the first draft. When I told one writer-friend about this, she gazed at me, appalled. “How can you enjoy writing,” she asked, “if you already know everything that is going to happen before you even begin?”
Her question was a valid one, but to me, a plan is like a road map. You can take detours along the way, but you always know where you are headed. Writing is similar to performing, in this way. An actor playing Macbeth knows before he steps onto the stage what will happen to his character, and he can’t deviate from it. Each night, he begins a hero, kills a king, transforms into a tyrant and dies a monster – yet actors step into their lines the same way a novelist steps into their plan, using the existing material as a skeleton on which to build something multi-layered.
Writers live through the experiences of their characters as they unfold, just as an actor does, and they must be able to live through them over and over, whether fleshing out a detailed plan into a first draft, or sculpting that first draft into something polished. If we stop to think about it, we do the same thing as readers, picking up books we have previously enjoyed and reading them again with pleasure, even though we know what happens in the end.
“But you can’t know how your characters are going to behave until you get to know them,” another writer-friend maintained, “so how can you plan in such detail before you start to write?” This is a great question, of course. My novels are plot-driven. Story comes first, because it is what fascinates me most about writing. Some writers are led by their characters, so is it possible for them to work to a detailed plan?
A few years ago, I completed an MFA in Creative Writing and I recall one of our instructors describing how she created her character-driven novels. She would write individual scenes as they occurred to her, learning about her characters as they engaged with one another but making no effort to connect the scenes into any kind of a plot. Once she felt she understood who her characters were and how they needed to change in the course of the novel, she would begin placing the scenes in order. Some served only to help her understand her characters and would be set aside at this stage. Others might be expanded. Once she had the most relevant and compelling scenes in place, she would look for an emerging shape to her novel and fill in the blanks.
It’s possible there are as many approaches to the writing process as there are writers. I have one friend who loathes planning and considers it an enemy to creativity. Her first drafts are often more than six hundred pages, containing within them the three hundred pages she will eventually consider her completed work. She maintains it’s impossible for her to end up with those three hundred successful pages without writing the three hundred she eventually scraps. Another friend who prefers spontaneity to planning described to me how she dives into writing a novel with no more than a vague idea, writes for fifty or so pages, and then stops. At that point, she’s able to identify the story she wants to tell – then she throws away these fifty pages and begins to write from scratch.
Each year I run several creative writing retreats in Costa Rica and Mexico, regularly working with writers who have completed the first draft of their novel without any planning at all. They realise their manuscript lacks shape and start to feel overwhelmed by the structural editing ahead. The question they ask is this: if you prefer not to edit before beginning to write, how do you find the throughline of a story lurking inside 300+ rambling pages of a first draft? My advice is to start by reverse engineering your book. Create a synopsis from your completed manuscript, then use that synopsis to build a plan in point form. Once you have this, it’s much easier to spot the scenes in your first draft that really matter – the ones that pull characters into clear focus or serve the unfolding story. These can be given the prominence they need, and less pivotal scenes cut back or deleted. Software like Scrivener can be very useful for writers who prefer not to plan up front and need help organizing their material once the first draft is complete.
With just fifteen weeks to write Her Secret Soldier, I asked myself: what would be the best way to approach the writing process? Bookouture had accepted the novel based on a 3-page synopsis so I started with that, pulling out the main plot points, fitting them into a five-act structure and filling in the gaps until a structure emerged that excited me. I looked at what each of my main characters needed at each point in the story, how their motivations changed as events occurred, and how each character was transformed by their experiences. Next, I divided each act into chapters, and each chapter into scenes, until I knew exactly what needed to happen for the story to unfold at the right pace. Finally, before starting to write I decided what the reader needed to know in each chapter, and which elements of character and story should remain a mystery. Unanswered questions compel a reader to read on – but too many can be confusing, or overwhelming. I tend to be old fashioned when it comes to planning. I wrote each individual scene on an index card, shuffling them around until I found the structure that works best.
My friend had warned me such detailed up-front planning would take the joy out of writing, but the opposite proved true. As I started to write the first draft of Her Secret Soldier, I could barely contain my excitement, waking earlier and earlier each morning to live through the next part of the story alongside my central character, Rose. In one scene of my novel, a Luftwaffe bomb lands on a small hospital in rural England, and I recall actually dreaming about Rose’s experiences as she plunged into the burning building, fighting her way through the smoke and rubble. I awoke before dawn, exhilarated, and my eyes were barely open as I reached for my pen.
There’s no right or wrong when it comes to planning – what’s important is that each writer figures out the process that works best for them. I had no idea if detailed planning would work for me, because I’d never tried it before – but it’s definitely an approach I’ll be taking with every book, in the future. “[Her Secret Soldier] will have you turning the pages furiously, trying to find out what will happen next,” wrote one of my first reviewers. “You will not predict the ending before it arrives.” When an author launches into a first draft knowing exactly where the book will go, there can be no finer praise than this.
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Julie Hartley is the director of Centauri Arts, which runs creative writing courses and retreats for teens and adults. She has published three previous books and her fourth – a historical fiction novel entitled Her Secret Soldier – will be released by Bookouture this September.
‘They’re making me do this. I don’t want to, but I don’t have a choice. Please believe me.’ As I look into his blue eyes, I feel in my heart that he’s telling the truth. But can I trust a German spy?
England, 1940. When Rose sees a parachute crash into the woods behind her house she rushes to help. Finding an injured young soldier, Rose’s first instinct is to care for him. As she pushes the hair back from his handsome face, Rose feels an instant connection. But when he speaks, her blood turns to ice.
His name is Walter, he’s German and he’s an involuntary spy. He wants to turn himself in, even if it means he’ll be executed. As the pair share stories of their hopes and dreams after the war is over and their feelings begin to deepen, Rose knows she has to do whatever she can to save Walter’s life. Hiding him in an abandoned cottage in the woods, Rose prays he will be safe.
But after hearing the Germans are planning a deadly attack, Walter disappears and Rose fears the worst. Has he been discovered by the British, or has he been taken by the Germans and shot for desertion? With her heart in pieces Rose must decide – if she really loves Walter, how much will she sacrifice to save his life?
1990. When Emma unexpectedly inherits a cottage in the middle of a forest from her Great Aunt Rose, she wonders how anyone could live in such isolation. Searching the house for clues about the aunt she never knew, she’s shocked to discover old bones carefully wrapped in cloth, hidden in the cellar. As Emma begins to unravel the connection to Rose, will everything she has ever known about her family change forever?
Her Secret Soldier is an utterly gripping and heartbreaking wartime novel about the power of love and sacrifice against all odds. Deeply moving, it will have fans of Fiona Valpy, Soraya Lane and Rhys Bowen enthralled from start to finish.
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Category: On Writing
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