Or does it? There is no right or wrong way to plan a piece of writing. Use whichever method suits you, because if you ignore it, you're likely to run into trouble. Some people are pantsers, and are happy to set off on a 150,000-word novel with only the skimpiest of ideas to guide them. Others aren't comfortable unless they have every plot point, character flaw, setting and back story marked on a spreadsheet or graph, as if they're heading out on an expedition to find the source of the Nile although they're only going as far as a short story.

You have to have some part of an idea to begin with, whether it's a one-word prompt found on social media or a dictionary opened at random; a certain fall of light through the leaves in the park; an overheard conversation; a piece of music or some other flash of inspiration. It could be a character, a place or a situation that sets you off.

From there, you could jot down whatever ideas occur to you at random just as they arrive. The next stage could be to sort them into a loose order by using a spider plan, or you might prefer to use index cards or post-it notes that you can stare at pinned to a board and shuffle around until they fit in the right place. Of course, you can use a computer instead.

One advantage of putting things on notes or cards is that you can more easily spot where there are gaps or inconsistencies, or that you have no logical reason for 'B' coming after 'A'. You can number your cards and add others between them e.g. 1(a) etc.. You can also use these numbers to indicate where supplementary notes such as character features, particular conversations or details about settings might be relevant.

Your work might have several storylines intertwined and putting these on a graph or spreadsheet is a way to keep track of them, so you can see what should happen when i.e. in relation to the other storylines, and show you where the climaxes should occur and when they should meet or cross.

I usually go for something in the middle. I have tried writing whatever pops into my head and simply following wherever my pencil leads me. Occasionally, I've found it works, but more often I get lost and have to write all around the houses to find my way back to the right track. That's why I note as much as I can and put it into some sort of order before I begin, then I add to the plan as I go along. For a novel, this means a separate page for each chapter, with the bones of what happens. I have notes for each character (their appearance, temperament, skills, back story etc.), and for settings. For Fantasy and Science Fiction, it's particularly important to think about any different cultures and societies, and what the implications of these might be. Also, things like the climate and time of year. Without doing this, I find it all too easy to write things that couldn't logically be there and/or write myself into a corner.

There's no need to stick rigidly to the plan. In fact, it's almost inevitable that it will change, because as you write, the characters tend to go the way they want to, and other ideas come to you. This is what's been happening with the novel I'm currently writing (working title: The Omega Hunt). I thought I knew the characters well, and I'd plotted what needed to happen in each chapter, but I keep discovering more details about the former and that while I have decided what happens, I have no idea how. The result is, I've been writing one scene forward, then having to go back and change what I've already done. At least the notes I've made help me to find the place that needs editing.

It doesn't really matter whether you are a plotter or a pantser; the most important thing about a first draft is that you finish it!