: Should I write about a particular lingering thought? I have had the thought of writing about a nation with states on another planet. The planet is earth-like and the quantity of some resources

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If you want to be a writer ... you have to write. Otherwise, you're just thinking about writing. You are in the process of developing a world, also known as worldbuilding (world-building).

Once you've decided to write, you can either make up the story as you go along, using your previously mentioned ideas as a general guideline, or you can describe each of your ideas in depth using an outline format.

1) "Pantsing". I really don't like the term; idiomatically, writing by the seat of your pants. Ideas hit the page or computer screen as quickly as they come into your head. The advantage is you get to have lots of different ideas, and some of them will be brilliant. The disadvantage is you have to discard the rest. There is a great deal of editing between your great ideas. This is hard for people who can't let go of a character or scene. From experience, you CAN finish a book this way, but the editing never seems to end.

2) "Plotting" This starts by making an outline based on a worldbuilding scheme. Stack Exchange has a Worldbuilding site to help develop your ideas. Once you've built your world, you outline the characters in your world. (I wonder if one could write a successful fiction novel without any individual characters.) Use as much or little detail as you want.

3) "Hero's Journey" Now your story needs a point. There are numerous posts on this site regarding the hero's journey. Your story needs a protagonist: somebody we, the reader, care about. Your protagonist does not have to be a "good guy."

4) Editing. I would highly suggest investing in a style guide, such as The Chicago Manual of Style, and a collegiate dictionary. You can make up words, too. These are neologisms. If you ever have someone help you with your manuscript, you don't want to waste time and money on hyphenation and comma splices.

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As a world-building exercise, not as a story.

It sounds to me like you are engaged in world-building; which means solving the problems of politics, behavior, technology levels, geography, communications, religion, etc that all go into building a coherent fictional world.

But this is just a setting and that is not enough to start a story.

The setting is preparatory work, in fiction. You need characters that have a problem to solve (which might be suggested in your preparatory work), something they desire that will cause them to venture forth and take risks to achieve it despite the perils and cost involved. Something they care about more than their own safety and comfort.

You can write a "bible" about your invented universe, the things that are true about the setting and how it all works. For a story, you need a hero with a goal, a thinking being with a goal that the reader will follow to see how the venture to reach that goal comes to some conclusion, and along the way learn about your setting.

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