Every novelist must eventually confront the question of how much to plan before beginning a manuscript. Some writers spend months developing outlines, character biographies, and detailed chapter summaries before writing a single scene. Others begin with little more than an image, a character, or an intriguing situation, trusting that the story will reveal itself through the writing process. Both approaches have produced extraordinary works of literature, and each presents its own creative possibilities and difficulties.
The novelist George R. R. Martin famously describes these two kinds of writers as architects and gardeners. Architects design their stories in advance, establishing the major events, character arcs, and structural relationships before beginning the manuscript. Gardeners plant the seeds of a story and allow it to grow, discovering its direction as they write. Martin considers himself primarily a gardener. Although he has a general sense of where his A Song of Ice and Fire series is headed, he has described how characters and storylines continue to evolve in unexpected directions during the writing process.
The architectural approach finds a particularly devoted practitioner in John Irving, author of The World According to Garp and A Prayer for Owen Meany. Irving has frequently discussed his unusual habit of writing the final sentences of his novels first. He then works backward, developing the events and relationships necessary to arrive at that conclusion. By the time he begins drafting, he has a remarkably detailed understanding of the story he intends to tell. This method allows Irving to construct elaborate narratives in which seemingly incidental events acquire significance as the novel progresses.
For a writer like Irving, knowing the destination creates opportunities for intricate foreshadowing, deliberate pacing, and carefully orchestrated revelations. An outline can also provide reassurance during the long and frequently disorienting process of writing a novel. When the immediate direction of a scene becomes uncertain, the writer can consult the larger design and consider the scene's relationship to the manuscript as a whole.
Other writers find this degree of planning restrictive. Stephen King, for instance, has expressed considerable skepticism about plotting in advance. In his book On Writing, he describes approaching fiction through situations rather than predetermined sequences of events. King prefers to discover what happens by following his characters through the circumstances he has created. This approach preserves the possibility of genuine surprise, allowing characters to develop in ways the author might never have anticipated.
For gardeners, the uncertainty of writing can become an important source of imaginative energy. A seemingly minor character may gradually assume a central role. An unexpected conversation might reveal an entirely new direction for the story. Images, memories, and associations that emerge spontaneously can lead to discoveries that would have been difficult to anticipate in an outline.
The novelist Zadie Smith offers another perspective on this distinction in her essay "That Crafty Feeling." Smith divides novelists into what she calls Macro Planners and Micro Managers, identifying herself with the latter. Rather than designing the entire novel beforehand, she works carefully through its sentences, discovering the larger work through decisions about language, perspective, and voice. She has described spending nearly two years revising the opening pages of On Beauty before completing the remainder of the novel in a matter of months. Her experience suggests that some writers discover the architecture of a novel through sustained attention to its smallest elements.
Both approaches, however, carry risks. Architects may become so attached to their outlines that they overlook unexpected possibilities arising within the manuscript. A character might develop a more compelling motivation than the one originally assigned, yet the writer may resist following it because doing so would disrupt the existing plan. Gardeners face a different danger: without a sufficiently developed sense of direction, a manuscript can accumulate fascinating scenes and characters without finding a satisfying structure.
Novel writing mentorship can help writers understand their natural creative tendencies while identifying the limitations of their preferred methods. For an architect, a mentor can encourage the writer to remain responsive to discoveries made during drafting, even when those discoveries require substantial changes to the original design. For a gardener, the mentoring process may focus on recognizing patterns that have begun to emerge organically. Through manuscript discussions, scene analysis, and reverse outlining, a novel writing mentor can help identify the underlying relationships between seemingly disconnected passages. The writer might discover that a recurring image provides a structural principle, or that a secondary character's development offers a more compelling narrative direction than the original premise. These discoveries can guide subsequent drafting and revision without requiring the writer to surrender the exploratory quality of the work.
Many novelists ultimately develop methods that combine elements of both approaches. A writer might begin with several exploratory chapters, construct a provisional outline once the characters become clearer, and revise that outline as the manuscript develops. Another might plan the major turning points while leaving individual scenes open to improvisation. The balance can shift from one project to another, depending on the demands of the story.
What matters is developing a process that sustains the writer's curiosity while giving the manuscript sufficient direction. Architecture offers the pleasure of design; gardening offers the pleasure of discovery. The most rewarding writing practices often leave room for both, allowing the novelist to shape a developing work while remaining attentive to everything that emerges unexpectedly along the way.
