Do you jot ideas or let them stew in your head? Talk them over with loved ones or guard them as your precious? Join a chat group and post the synopsis, welcoming constructive criticism – wanting to quit and cry with every suggestion for change pinged your way – or deny all knowledge of a book being written under your roof? Write a plan, knowing what will happen, or embrace the blank page and see where it leads?

I listen to a podcast that asks that last question - to plan or not to plan - to each guest at the end of an interview. Usually, the answer is, ‘I plan, follow the blueprint, and elaborate.’ That makes sense to me. To begin a story without the bones mapped out would be like setting off on a drive without knowing the destination. The journey might not go as designed and the route change as obstacles come your way, but you have to know you’re heading in the right direction, don’t you? To stay with the driving analogy, the clock on the Sat-Nav has to countdown or you’ll be speeding along forever - within the speed limit, of course.

This is different to what Stephen King does. In his book, On Writing, he tells how he starts with a situation, then lets it develop, writing with spontaneity and creativity. What!? Perhaps I’m too controlling. Perhaps this is where I go wrong, and a pro like King shows his expertise. But I can’t be the only person who bristled at that sentence – perfectionism: a topic to explore in my next therapy session, Sophie. If you are like unknown, unpublished me, though, and believe globally renowned, multi-million bestselling author Stephen King is wrong, then these are the questions I ask myself before writing a novel, and after trawling through blogs, articles and books, they’re a pretty sound starting point for anyone wanting to write the next classic.

1. What genre are you writing in, and why?

For me, right now, the answer is children’s middle-grade fiction (9-12 years old). I have three children entering/leaving the age range; I have worked in primary schools for fifteen years; and I love the fast-paced narrative of the genre. When I started writing these books, I found them to be like adult novels minus random swearing and two hundred pages of describing the weather, and telling a story in forty thousand words was a breath of fresh air. That I can pick one up and read it in the time it takes to watch a film is amazing to me. Ever since then, I’ve been a convert.

2. What are the expectations of the audience?

It would take more than a blog to detail the nuances of a genre. However, at this point, I am always aware of word count. I’m sure there are purists who would argue the story is as long as it needs to be, and aiming to fall within a specific word count is pandering to the market. However, agents, publishers and the public expect their fiction to be a certain size. I wouldn’t consider War and Peace a palatable proposition for my seven-year-old. Nor would I expect the conflict in a saga to be resolved in a hundred pages. Even Harry Potter had to get his foot through the door with his shortest, genre-acceptable novel first. For the audience I’m aiming for, 45-55,000 words is my target.

To know more about genre word counts, read Harry Bingham’s article, How Many Words Are There In A Novel?, on Jerichowriters.com and prepare to be overwhelmed!

3. What’s at the heart of your novel?

Can I sum up my novel in a sentence? Every author has to. It’s the first question someone asks when you’re writing a book: ‘Ah. Wow. What’s it about then?’ Your stomach lurches because you haven’t got an answer that doesn’t involve immersing the person in landscapes, lore and character development; or you make it sound dull and ill-conceived because talking about your work is like baring your soul for judgement.

‘Um, it’s a children’s book, um, about, well, a sort of detective story, only, er, not, sort of.’

‘Sounds great.’

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I’ll try now.

Aliens exist. They enter and leave Earth like a holiday destination. Governments know about it. Secret agencies police it. But when a boy stumbles into that world, a gateway to other planets, can he discover the neurodiversity that’s always held him back is his greatest asset in saving his family?

How did I do?

4. What’s the blurb?

Instinct tells you to write the book before the blurb. However, upon the completion of one novel, I wrote the blub and realised it was so niche I only had a handful of publishers I could send it to, of those publishers most weren’t open to submissions, the genre wasn’t popular, I’d written too many words for the intended audience (hence, question 2) and it was dull. Not great! If I’d written the blurb first, I would have contemplated these points earlier and addressed them, or poured sixty thousand words into another project. Lesson learned: write the blurb first, read it aloud and see if its parts (beginning, middle and end) are what I want to spend the next six months on.

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My attempt:

How old were you when you knew aliens existed? Four? Five? Daniel King was eleven. He has autistic spectrum disorder, he loves facts as facts are truths and build on other facts, unlike emotions, so when his grandfather is attacked and films the incident, and Daniel sees a giant alien not-spider on Earth, he refuses to return to school until he’s proven aliens are facts, too.

With the help of his dad, who wants nothing more than for life to steer back to its normal course, Daniel investigates his grandfather’s assault and gets dragged into a conspiracy. Political figures are missing. CCTV footage is being erased. And then there’s the man in the dark-blue suit who knows everything…

5. How are you going to publish and market this?

What? I didn’t tell my family, friends and colleagues I wanted to be a publicist or marketing consultant; I compared myself to George Orwell and explained how many times JK Rowling had her manuscript rejected. That being said, ‘if a tree falls in a forest and no one hears it, does it make a sound?’ Yes, of course it does, and if you write the greatest novel the world has ever known and no one reads it, it’s still the greatest novel the world has ever known. However, if I want people to discover my work, outside of the fifty books I’ll sell to my nearest and dearest - if I pester them - this is at least as important as writing the book itself (sacrilege!) and needs consideration. Posting snippets on forums, using social media for advice on title and cover, building momentum towards a release date, creating a website for people to discover and interact with, begging to guest on podcasts, all helps to stop zero sales upon launch – not because it’s a bad book, but because it’s fallen and made no sound.

6. Characters, setting and background knowledge: have you considered these?

Of course. When a seed of an idea plants in your mind, you play it out like a film, refine it every minute of the day; ponder subplots and backstories; roll the plot around the brain like a mouthful of gourmet cuisine being savoured across the pallet. This, in my opinion, is the best part of writing, where the passion stems from: the love of bringing a story from concept to fruition, adding layers of intrigue and depth that confuse the senses into questioning whether the event happened. Of course I had considered and cultivated the characters! I know their lives so intimately, when the time comes to open the laptop and start tapping, it feels like I’ve already finished the story and I’m merely getting it out of my head in a coherent way.

7. Is there a chapter plan?

Absolutely. Unlike Mr King (the author, not the father of the protagonist in my story), the chapter plan is the bones of the tale, that I need to give perspective and clarity of purpose, to add description onto as the flesh and muscle in my analogy. Like creating a painting, the chapter plan is the rough sketch that gets rubbed out once the artwork unfolds. It could be a sentence (‘Grandad speaks to Daniel in hospital about incident’), a series of bullet points, clipped words or arrows; whatever is useful, as no one will see it but me, like the pencil sketch in the painting. I add to it when needed, scribbling notes in the margin or footnotes for longer comments. I have it beside me when I’m writing, even though I only glance at it over the weeks. But it is essential to the process I go through. Sorry, Stephen; that’s why you’re on a different level to me.

8. Are you overplanning it?

Have you ever tried writing a fantasy book? I did, once. Now there’s a genre you can spend years procrastinating on. To build a world, you can go back to the dawn of time itself, map the birth of landscapes, chart the rise and fall of dynasties, create rules for law, customs, export, economics: the list is endless. Great fun, but five years later, your garage looks like an MI5 investigation with pictures, graphs and post-it notes linked by yarns of wool and permanent marker; you’ve left countless chatrooms because they’re not extreme enough and only ‘play’ at creating alternate universes; you only speak in one of the seven languages of your world, of which you’ve created dictionaries and shared them with no one; and you haven’t written a word of your manuscript. Great fun and a brilliant hobby to have, but if your goal is to write a novel, at some point you need to stop planning and actually write it.

This isn’t merely a question for fantasy writers. I did a similar exercise for a children’s book: producing timelines for every character, marking conflict and resolution; mapping and researching technology/terminology/historical events for accuracy. But when is enough? It’s like editing: am I changing for improvement, or for the sake of change itself? Then again, if you love escaping in the world you’ve created, then indulge, for who are you writing for?

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For this book, it feels like I’ve hit the goldilocks zone for planning (just right). But we’ll see as the story commences.

That’s it then. Planning over. The best part of the process for me because I don’t doubt my skill or ability at this juncture. It’s fun. It’s creative. And I miss it when it’s over, wanting to hurry and finish the project so I can rush back and immerse myself in undiluted imagination once more.