Did you use a functional outline, or was it just chaos that somehow worked?

I do not outline my work. 

Simply because it’s mine and I can do it how I like. 

There seem to be only two ways to plan a book - either you don’t and you just write. Or, you plan every detail until your fingertips turn blue.

But I think planning a novel is more of a spectrum - some plan a little, some plan a lot and there are always people in between. 

I like to think of myself as someone in between. I start out simply by writing. I write the book as the ideas come to me - the twists are turns are just as a surprise to me as they are to you. Once I’ve written the book, I’ll re-read it and note down the parts that worked and the parts that didn’t.

I scrap what didn’t work. 

And I create a plot point chart with what did work. Then, I do the same with the 2nd draft and the 3rd and the 4th and so on. Each draft does look wildly different from the last - but in my debut fiction novel, the first chapter hasn’t been touched since that first draft.

The rest is unrecognisable. 

I suppose I write without a plan, which I don’t consider chaotic, but rather enjoyable. 

From that first draft, I then make a plan.

I am neither a pantser or a plotter, I am a planttser.