Reasonably enough, you’re a writer who wants to do “your own thing.” You want to write the story you want to write, and you want it to be as long as it needs to be. You want to ride the tumultuous wave of creativity straight out of the well-spring and all the way to the sea, without ever thinking about story structure even once. But story structure isn’t meant to be a limit on your creativity and lead to formulaic, cookie-cutter fiction.

You know who you are: the so-called “pantser.” You make up your first draft as you go along. And for a first draft, there’s no reason not to do it that way. Throw aside the constraints of what is and what has been, and strike out into the undiscovered country on your noble quest for whatever might be new under the sun.

But if your goal is publication…