: Re: What should step one in writing a novel be? I have had an interest in writing for years, but I don't know where to start or how to organize the process of "becoming a writer." I have

@Shanna875

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There's no single answer to the question of how to start writing a novel. Different "on ramps" work for different people, and what works in one case doesn't work in another, but here are three possibilities which may work.

A loose outline

Writing an outline first can work - and it's standard advice. I find there's a trap to it, though. It's usually enjoyable to work out the details in the outline, but what often happens is you then have a terrible time fleshing it out into a full-length work. The fun has been sucked out of it like some previously enjoyed freezie, and you're left with this tasteless stick of ice. The writing stage feels as creative as painting by numbers. If you go the outline route, I find it helps to keep things vague, so that it provides the loosest skeleton for the structure. You might write something like "Stephen meets Julia and they fall in love. For some reason, he realizes he must return to Nevada, and she vows to kill him." Then you have can have fun figuring out how those things happen when you write it, knowing that those events must happen (because you said so).

No outline - tell "your" story

Try writing with no outline. Play the main character and confidently tell what happened, even though you (the writer) have no idea where things are going. For example, you might start, "I'm going to tell you why I killed that damn goat. You see..." If you find you know exactly where things are going, challenge yourself by taking it in an unexpected direction. That keeps it surprising for the reader. This approach works best for first-person novels. I wrote a book this way once, and it was a very enjoyable experience. Of course, this approach doesn't usually lend itself to a tight structure.

Write what MUST be there first:

In one of his books, William Goldman (Princess Bride) describes his process for screenplays, which you can apply to any fiction. He starts with the scenes that will be in the story, then works outwards from there, writing the scenes that set those up, and filling in other details. This approach is very organic because most of us start with a scene (or sometimes just a feeling) from the middle of the story.

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