Bus Stop Anarchy vs British Queue Democracy: What Transit Taught Me About Writing

Yesterday, I stood at the wrong bus stop for twenty minutes, watching three buses I needed drive past because I was literally ten meters away from the official stop. Ten meters. I could see the bus. The driver could probably see me. But rules are rules, and in London, buses only stop at designated stops, thank you very much.

In Mumbai, this would never happen. Not because Mumbai has better urban planning, but because Mumbai buses operate on a completely different philosophical principle: if you need the bus and the bus can physically stop, the bus will stop. Wave frantically enough, make eye contact with the conductor, shout your destination, and somehow, miraculously, public transport bends to accommodate you.

I've been thinking about these two approaches to getting from point A to point B, and how perfectly they mirror two fundamentally different ways of approaching writing.

The Mumbai Method

Mumbai buses don't follow a route so much as they follow a general direction with excellent improvisational skills. You can board at traffic lights if you're brave enough to dodge between lanes. You can hop off mid-journey if you spot your destination earlier than expected. The conductor navigates through the packed bus, collecting fares, making change, somehow remembering who's paid and who hasn't, all while the vehicle lurches through traffic that would give most London drivers a nervous breakdown.

There's no queue in most of the small town bus stops in India because there are barely any official stops. Just loose clusters of people at recognisable landmarks - ‘near the chai stall, ‘opposite the temple,’ ‘where that tree used to be before the monsoon.’ Everyone knows where to stand, even though nothing's marked. When the bus arrives, it's organised chaos. People squeeze on, people squeeze off, and somehow everyone gets where they're going.

This is discovery writing in its purest form.

Discovery writers - the pantsers, as we're sometimes called - start with a vague destination and figure out the route as we go. We know we're writing a story about grief, or family secrets, or what happens when your protagonist discovers something unsettling in their grandmother's attic, but we don't know exactly how we'll get there. The journey reveals itself through writing.

I wrote my first complete story this way. I had a character, a setting, and a general sense that something was wrong in this family. I started writing and let the narrative find its own route. New characters appeared unannounced (hello, Uncle Sharma). Subplots emerged that I hadn't planned. The story took unexpected turns because I was paying attention to where the energy was leading rather than following a predetermined map.

Like those Mumbai bus conductors, discovery writers develop instincts for navigating chaos. We learn to recognise when a detour is necessary, when to let a character hijack the narrative, when to trust that we'll figure out how everything connects once we arrive at our destination.

The London Model

London buses, on the other hand, are a marvel of planning and precision. Every route is numbered and mapped. Every stop is marked, timed, and GPS-tracked. You can check your phone and know exactly when the next bus will arrive (usually). There are apps, schedules, live updates. The driver follows the route, the passengers follow the rules, and the whole system operates with admirable efficiency.

You cannot wave down a London bus between stops. You cannot convince the driver to take a slight detour. You board at the back, you exit through the middle, you scan your Oyster card, you sit down. It works because everyone knows and follows the same structure.

This is the plotter's approach to writing.

Plotters outline before they write. They know their story's structure - inciting incident at the 12% mark, midpoint twist, dark night of the soul before the climax. They've mapped character arcs, planted clues that will pay off three chapters later, and ensured every scene serves a clear narrative purpose. When they sit down to write, they're following a route they've already planned.

My friend Monica writes like this. She spends weeks on outlines before typing a single word of prose. She knows how her story ends before she writes the beginning. She creates character sheets, timeline documents, even maps of fictional locations. When she drafts, she's executing a plan rather than discovering a path.

The result is clean, purposeful work that rarely requires major structural revision. Her scenes connect elegantly because she planned those connections. Her foreshadowing actually works because she knew what needed to be foreshadowed. Her pacing is controlled and deliberate.

The Efficiency Question

Here's where it gets interesting: the London method is objectively more efficient. Buses run on time, routes make sense, passengers get where they're going with minimal chaos. Similarly, plotters often write faster and edit less. They don't write themselves into narrative dead ends because they've mapped the route in advance.

Small-town buses in India? Wildly inefficient. You might wait an hour, then three buses arrive simultaneously. Your journey might take twenty minutes or two hours depending on traffic, random stops, and whether the conductor needs to have a lengthy conversation with someone at a chai stall.

Discovery writing is equally unpredictable. I once spent three weeks writing a subplot that ended up completely cut because it went nowhere useful. I've rewritten entire narratives because I didn't realise where the real story was until I'd written 40,000 words in the wrong direction.

But efficiency isn't everything.

The Joy of the Journey

What small-town Indian buses offer that London buses don't is possibility. The route might change. You might see something unexpected. The journey itself becomes part of the adventure rather than just transportation between two fixed points.

Discovery writing offers the same gift. Yes, I've wasted time on scenes that didn't work. But I've also stumbled onto moments of genuine surprise - character revelations I never would have planned, thematic connections that emerged organically, dialogue that felt alive because I didn't script it in advance.

Some of my best writing comes from letting the story lead. There's something that happens when you're deep in a draft, following your characters rather than pushing them around, when the narrative develops a momentum of its own. Plotters might plan these moments, but discovery writers get to experience them fresh, in real-time, which creates a different kind of energy in the prose.

The Stress Factor

Both methods come with their own anxieties, just differently distributed.

Discovery writing means living with constant uncertainty. Will this story actually go anywhere? Have I been writing in circles? Is there a coherent narrative buried in these 50,000 words or just a collection of random scenes?

It's the literary equivalent of boarding a Mumbai bus without being entirely sure it goes where you need it to go, then trusting that between your instincts and the conductor's knowledge, you'll figure it out.

Plotting means confronting different fears. What if the story refuses to follow my outline? What if the character I've planned doesn't feel authentic when I write them? What if my carefully constructed plot feels mechanical rather than organic?

It's like watching your London bus drive past because you're at the wrong stop - the system works, but only if you play by its rules exactly.

The Hybrid Route

Most writers I know, myself included, have developed hybrid approaches. We're the people who take London buses but occasionally hop off early to walk the rest of the way because we spotted something interesting.

I outline now, but loosely. I know my major plot points and my ending, but I leave space between them for discovery. I map the bus route but allow for unscheduled stops along the way. Some scenes I plan in detail; others I write to see what happens.

Last month, I started a story with a clear three-act structure and detailed character arcs. Then, about 15,000 words in, a minor character revealed something that changed everything. My outline went out the window. I kept the destination but found a completely different route to get there.

The story's better for it, but I also couldn't have found that path without the original structure to push against.

What Transit Teaches Us

Both systems work. India moves millions of people daily through organised chaos. London moves millions through organised precision. Both cities would probably benefit from learning from each other - a bit more flexibility in London, a bit more structure in India.

The same applies to writing. Pure discovery writing can be inefficient but creatively liberating. Pure plotting can be efficient but sometimes constrains organic storytelling. Most of us need elements of both.

The key is knowing which approach serves your story, your temperament, and your circumstances. Some projects demand the India method - experimental work, character-driven literary fiction, anything where you're exploring ideas you don't fully understand yet. Other projects need the London approach - mystery novels where clues must be carefully planted, commercial fiction with tight genre expectations, anything on a deadline.

What matters isn't which bus system you prefer but whether it gets you where you need to go.

Though I'll admit, I still miss the beautiful chaos of Mumbai's ‘bus anywhere, anytime’ philosophy. Even if I don't miss hanging off the footboard during rush hour.

Some creative freedom is worth standing at the wrong stop for.