Within the world of writing advice there’s often a clear distinction made between planners and pantsers. Referring respectively to people who plan out what they’re going to write before putting the words together, and people who write ‘by the seat of their pants’ and see where the flow will take them.

These descriptions are usually given to people who write fiction, but can equally apply to people writing non-fiction – or, as in the case of my latest book, people who write a hybrid of the two.

I had started off with a plan for how to describe the various stakeholders in the patient recruitment process, and outlining ideas for making improvements.

Then when I came up with the title – The Patient Recruitment Conundrum – it reminded me of a thriller story, so I rewrote everything in the style of a novel, combining elements of planning with elements of pantsing, which worked well for what I wanted to do.