You need to know the characters as living, breathing people before you start the plot; otherwise, you'll feel panic, anarchy and chaos.
If you're going to have a complicated story you must work to a map; otherwise you'll never make a map of it afterwards.
In writing a series of stories about the same characters, plan the whole series in advance in some detail, to avoid contradictions and inconsistencies.
You need more than a beginning if you're going to start a book. If all you have is a beginning, then once you've written that beginning, you have nowhere to go.
I make extensive outlines before I write a book. I usually know what will happen. I know the characters, and I know what they are about.
When you get ready to write your novel, outline it first. There's nothing worse than getting halfway through and realizing you've painted yourself in a plot corner.
Spend more time working before you write page one. Then, the story - at least parts of it - will feel as though it is writing itself.
Some writers can produce marvelous plots without planning it out, but I can't. In particular I need to know the structure of a novel: what's going to happen in each chapter and each scene.
