First, a story about Edith Wharton: Days after finishing the manuscript for a new book, she lost it in a fire. Her publisher asked when she’d have the work rewritten, and Wharton replied, “Why bother?” She’d already discovered the ending. The story no longer held any mystery for her.
Per the bad-boy editor and writer Gordon Lish, every story should begin with a “line of flight.” Each sentence should carry us forward from the sentence before until the story resolves itself. No steering of the plot. No outlining. Robert Frost agreed: “No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader.”
