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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/9675
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Write the scene where the protagonist takes a tour. That shouldn't take too long to do, and it'll probably help you firm up your idea of the layout of the place in your own mind as well.

Write the heist.

Now try putting the two together. There's at least 4 outcomes I can think of:

- It works great with the separate layout descriptions first. Keep it like that.
- The separate layout description is helpful, but having it all at the beginning slows things down too much. In that case you could try splitting the layout description and the heist itself up into sections, then alternate back and forth in time between the two.
- Having a separate layout description doesn't work, but you like the way you wrote it. Cannibalise it, taking the parts you like and work them into the heist description itself.
- The separate layout is entirely unnecessary. Discard it.

My point overall is that this is a difficult question to ask in an abstract manner. Sometimes writing a description first may work, sometimes it won't. I think your best bet is, if you feel led to write it, then go ahead and write it. Don't let worrying about the overall structure slow you down now - fix that later once you've tried writing it once and have a better perspective on the work as a whole.

Original score: 6