“When you’re just starting out on a project, when you’re in that early stage where you’re still trying to figure out what you want to write in the first place — at this stage, it’s the frailty of memory that causes problems. This is because most good ideas (whether they’re ideas for narrative structure, a particular twist in the argument, or a broader topic) come into our minds as hunches: small fragments of a larger idea, hints and intimations. Many of these ideas sit around for months or years before they coalesce into something useful, often by colliding with another hunch.