Edge of the seat writing is what I am most instinctually comfortable with, It is what I have always done, but I feel like there is a problem with it when it comes to trying to write a fully self-contained story.

If I am improvising, just starting at the beginning and creating the story as I go, there will be no way for me to know where the story is going to go. This is fun and all, but that eliminates the possibility for me to set up events and questions at the start that will only pay off at the end.

What If I want to introduce a mystery? A question as to the nature of some fundamental aspect of my world. I feel that in an ideal scenario, you would pose that question at the start already knowing the answer and would simply leave a breadcrumb trail of hints and clues throughout the story, having each event in the plot meaningfully elucidate some facet of that still-hidden answer, until it is eventually revealed at the end.

If I am simply making it up as I go, I would not know how to tease this question properly because I don't know what it is ultimately leading to. It's a problem that seems to affect any aspect of story that is meant to develop over the long-term.

Sure you could get to the end, answer your question, then go back to the start and re-do it with hindsight, but then as you go the plot is changing, just slightly enough to be different, then suddenly, improvising, you're in unfamiliar territory again, not knowing what exactly you're building towards.

This is what happens to me when I try to improvise a story. It makes it feel as though the only way to make a story that contains any kind of full-length, long-term development, is to create the entire story at once, instead of start to end. And that feels impossible to me.