I have a question to ask you all, coming from a man with no experience on the subject. What does it take to begin writing a story? Should I come up with the characters and basic plot first? Should I just start from chapter 1 and make everything up as I go along? Should I write extensive notes on the story and have a clean cut outline of it before even attempting to write a chapter? How did all the great authors manage to do it?
Please help me.
Different writers have different processes. Faulkner usually started with a single image and built the story around it. Sinclair Lewis on the other hand did tremendous research and constructed the world (for Babbitt he had a complete city map of the fictional Zenith) he worked in before really starting. Robert Silverberg has a great quote (that echoes the advice of most authors I've seen) about forcing himself to write four hours a day, regardless of his emotional state. "No muses involved" he said.
Anyway, point is, just put the pen to paper. You'll work out your own system if you stick to it.
By forcing yourself to just write no matter how bad it is.
Just start writing!
>>9947355
don't be sedentary, go on long walks/rides through the country side or forests, pause to write, this gets me inspired and in the flow of things a lot more often.
When you feel like you can't write you can still know what you want to cover next or the structure you want to follow up with, you might not like the way you are writing it at such times but it keeps things moving toward a refined end product instead of stalling.