A great deal is written about how to do it.

How to write a novel, that is.

These days, it appears compulsory to consult numerous books, listen to countless podcasts, read endless articles, attend relentless writing courses – in order to write a novel.

To learn the so-called rules.

Matters such as:

What is your premise?

What is the story arc?

The inciting incident?

The rising action?

The climax?

Where is your conflict, your resolution?

All of these are, of course, worthy considerations to hold in mind when planning, writing and editing a novel.

To a certain extent, anyway.

But aren’t they also extremely inhibiting? As if writing the novel is a tick box exercise, a recipe, if you like, where all ingredients have to be consciously present for a successful result.

I am currently editing my fifth novel, having completed it – at last! – in the sunny climes of Crete over the summer.

And as this novel is very different from anything I have written before, set over a longer time frame – 1940 to 1945 – I am more aware than ever before of the structure and the timing of incidents.

Set against the backdrop of WW2 in London, there is naturally a great deal of dramatic incident that could be included and I am conscious of balancing historic facts and events alongside the development of my characters’ stories.

And ringing in my ear as I edit is an annoying voice asking me about my premise, my story arc, my rising and inciting actions and all the other considerations of structure that are supposedly meant to be present.

So my thoughts have been sliding onto writers of the past and wondering how much concern they gave to arcs and premises et al.

Well, of course, the answer, in such clinical terms, has to be none.

That’s not to say that Jane Austen, the Brontes, Dickens – I could go on – simply ignored the bones of their novels – it’s just that it wasn’t A Thing in such a precise and controlling way.

In fact, when did the jargon come into popular usage so that these days it seems a failure not to admit to considering and sewing them neatly into the narrative?

Creative writing courses, naturally, have contributed enormously both to the proliferation of terminology and the resulting How To books on the market. Then there are the online articles, the podcasts, the social media outlets all offering such guidance.

Writing and publishing a novel, to a certain extent, has become a far more democratic activity with the existence of the internet so that, with a certain amount of technical skill and aptitude (all of which I lack) it’s possible to finish a novel and release it to the world on a screen within moments.

Presumably, therefore, the availability of guidance for How To actually write that novel is more in demand.

And it starts early with such language being introduced at school to children tasked with writing stories, to give them the building blocks, it’s claimed, to write compelling and well structured stories.

But I can’t help thinking that it’s all a bit of a pity. That in making something of a science of writing with rules to follow and abide by, some of the joy of creation and the freedom to follow the passion of an idea and story is being lost. In the classroom in particular.

As we can tell from the past, good, popular writers already knew how to construct their stories without being conscious of such strict rudiments.

Dickens was well-practised in the cliff-hanger technique, of course, writing for serialisation which would surely have made him an excellent tv script writer for soap operas if he had lived in a different era.

All our other celebrated writers certainly knew what they were doing as otherwise we wouldn’t still be reading their novels. Into the 20th century, the esteemed names continue of wonderful writers who simply seemed to know how to do it.

After all, writing a novel means telling a story.

And surely, stories have their shape and arc et al – these are innate factors of a story as things happen.

Even if you are recalling to a friend in conversation something that happened to you, the natural response is to shape the story, build anticipation, reach the climax and then reflect. It’s simply how it’s innately done.

I think perhaps I have become a little self-conscious of my own writing, checking up on structures, as I edit, alter, change and sift through my novel, knowing that I am not a good planner.

That I have an outline of an idea at the start but do not work from spreadsheets and graphs and diagrams (don’t even know how to create a spreadsheet!) but from the kernel of that idea (let’s call it a premise!) a couple of central characters and the driving desire to tell a particular story. A need, in fact, to tell it.

Anyway, I will make some effort to look out for my structures, my – I hope – unconsciously introduced and woven in arcs and incitements and rising and falling actions and the rest as I work through my editing process.

Only once it’s actually finished and in readers’ hands, I suppose, will I know if my somewhat free flowing and spontaneous approach to creating structure – as opposed to working from those pesky spreadsheets and graphs – has worked!