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Find out if you’re an outliner or a discovery writer.

Make an outline.

Basic Example:
Start is A in location Y, with characters F, G, and H. End is B in location Z. C, D, and E happen between A and B.

Make it as detailed, or not, as you need it to be. (Even “discovery writers” or “gardeners” need at least a basic outline.)


Sit down. Turn computer on. Write/type several pages of word vomit for your first chapter. Write more chapters. (Go back and delete first chapter, start book with second chapter ;P) Edit, re-write, edit, re-write.

How you do you a split PoV is up to you, it’s your story, your style :)

Enaid Cysgodol brings up a good point - determine your writing style. That said, you don't have to stick to one specific school of thought, either.

I sometimes outline - other times, I wing it. If you're in a position where you've got a universe/world/land/arc filled in with lots of details, and are just unsure where to write because there are multiple points at which you could start, then I would recommend simply picking one, and starting; because actually writing is the goal of your post here.

This can be at random if you're uncertain, or just the first one that jumps out at you. It also doesn't mean that this WILL be the start of your story - rather, it will be the start of you actually writing something.

If you're like most authors I know (myself included), you'll throw out more than you finish - it's simply starting to begin with that is a hurdle in the process.

Grab the first character, or set of characters you look at next time you open your document, and start writing their story. If you have the urge to move on from them to another section, do it - don't feel obligated until you've written enough to understand the best place for your legitimate story arc to start.

I've written back stories for side characters before, that I've never included anywhere, simply to either understand the character better or to "just write something". Eventually it led me back to the main arc.

Anyway, those are my two cents, for what they're worth.

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Well done, you’ve taken the hardest step in writing: Starting. :)

Take what I said about deleting the first chapter with a pinch of salt. You might find what you have written is salvageable with some editing and rewriting, or you may find, by the time you finish the arc, you’ve started in the wrong place. The first story in my signature has to start where it started, but the second story, the one I’m currently writing/posting, I may find I scrap the first chapter or so and start it slightly later in the story arc.

Drew Walker is right about not sticking to a particular school of thought. Like him (?), I sometimes outline, sometimes wing it.

And remember, your first draft isn’t always going to great. But keep writing and good luck. I’m looking forward to reading what you write when you post it here on RRL :)

'IceMountain' pid='831476' dateline='1514839512' Wrote: So you have the whole universe worked out; characters, their links, what happens throughout history, etc. You have the potential start and end points for multiple stories, but how do you decide where to begin? What to write and what to put aside as unimportant, how to transition from one place to the next?

I've wanted to write for years and want to actually start doing so rather than saying 'maybe tomorrow' (attempted briefly when at university, but was too busy so quit). When I sit down and start drafting out ideas, though, I feel a bit overwhelmed; do I just wing it? Do I make a framework first? Argh.

Okay, I will give you a brief answer that comes with my subjective experience to avoid making a long essay out of this post.

The question of where to begin is simple - do you want to make a longer story about growth of a character (1k+ chapters), or do you want a shorter, more fast-paced story? In first case you start eitther when MC is a kid/adolescent, or at the point where his adventure begins, aka he acquires his powers, reincarnates, gets swept by some chain of events etc depending on the genre. In the latter case, you can simply chose a point that will lead you into the most intense/interesting part of the MC's life. Do take into consideration that the second approach makes readers care much less about the characters you might care about since you know and are close with all of thieir backstories, while for readers it's just a few lines of description that appears for the first time.

What to write about is truly about what you are aiming for - and it's important to be fairly consistent here. If you go for an action-packed approach while story is developing as events happen, then you won't be describing many slice-of-life events and you will avoid any long explanation worldbuilding blocks. On the other hand, if you want to take your time, then you will include more daily events and you will focus more on fleshing out your characters and their motivations not only through their monst important actions, but by the many interactions and things like internal thoughts + narration about characters. In this case too, however, you should be careful not to put too much worldbuilding (aka infodumps) when they aren't needed and if you really must, then do try to present them in something more interesting than narration of 'blah blah blah' for 10 paragraphs. That's one surefire way to kill your story- infodumping in the early chapters. Let readers discover your world step by step - there's no need for them to learn everything no matter how irrelevant it is within first 50 pages.

As for transitions, unless you do timeskips, they should happen naturally. One action of the character leads to another and to certain consequences, which you describe. The need to 'introduce a new bloc of story' on your own is most often (but not always) a sign that you failed to set up a transition and simply threw the character into new place / series of events radnomly because the plot you planned beforehand needed it to advance.

Also, since I consider it important, I will empathize that plot should come naturally as the consequence of the choices made by your characters. Using 'emotional approach' of 'he did so because he was angry' and similar plot-related deux ex machinas get super annoying when repeated more than once in a long while. When there are no motivations behind the actions of your MC and all side characters are generic tropes that act like 3-rate villans or a collection of various types of friends who can only be distinguished by one main trait (the smart friend, the tsundere friend, the cool warrior friend etc.) then no one will be invested in the characters at all.

Hm, there are other things, but I already failed to not make this post too long.... I'm too lazy to edit, so sorry for the grammar mistakes / spelling mistakes. Hope it was helpful in some way and good luck with your writing :)