In my last article, I wrote about some of the reasons a first draft is tough and gave a few tips on getting past those obstacles. If you’re ready to sit down and write, but you struggle with where to begin, then this article is for you. It is by no means exhaustive, and it’s not a one-size-fits-all solution, but here’s my advice for getting your story out of your head.

First, Do the Pre-Draft Work

Before you start writing in earnest, you need to flesh out a few items that are essential to your plot. I’ve narrowed this down to the three most essential items – character arcs, plot, and setting. Making sure you have these ideas solidified will help you to redirect wayward characters down the road, focus your plot, and anchor the story in a believable world.

CHARACTER ARCS

Whether you have one character or many, each character should have their own arc that demonstrates their progression throughout the story. Typically, where your character begins and where they end should be different. There should be an inciting incident, or some sort of catalyst that drives the character’s action and propels them forward. There are a lot of great resources on how to develop character arcs and things to include, like internal and external struggles, weaknesses and strengths, ideologies, etc.

Let’s take a look at a fictional character arc using Disney’s Cinderella.

Character arc: Cinderella starts off as a poor, but kind girl living at home with her abusive family. By the end of the story, she’s married to a prince and living in a castle.

The inciting incident: An invitation to the ball arrives. Cinderella wants to go, but her family doesn’t allow it.

PLOT

This is your story in its simplest terms. You can approach this many ways, but as you focus the plot, ask yourself questions. What is the story’s ultimate goal? What themes are present? Why does the story matter? Let’s look again at Disney’s Cinderella.

Plot: A poor girl abused by her family becomes a princess with the help of a fairy godmother.

Themes: Good triumphs over evil. Love conquers all. Cats are evil.

SETTING

I am the worst at this, but feedback from readers has taught me that setting is really important. A sense of place is necessary to anchor your characters and make their journey and their world more real to readers. You don’t have to go into excessive detail, but the setting needs to be clear.

And setting includes more than physical descriptions of places and landscapes. It includes the culture and social hierarchy and, depending on your genre, the political or economical landscape as well. If it’s a love story, does the MC live in a society where there are certain expectations of her, such as being in a relationship? Does that affect her social standing? If we look again at Cinderella, we can break this down a little.

Setting: Fairly standard fairytale fodder. A kingdom ruled by a monarchy in a hierarchal society. Within the family, Cinderella is not treated as an equal among her step-sisters. Socially, she is isolated, having rats and birds as her only friends. This is the world Cinderella lives in.

As you flesh out your characters, plot, and setting, you’ll begin to find clever ways for all of them to flow together. The setting can be a sort of antagonistic character in itself – something for the MC to overcome. This is actually one of my favorite things to do during the creative process. Shameless plug for legal pads and spiral notebooks. You’ll need them.

Next, Visualize Your Story

If you’re only thinking about your story when you sit down to write it, you’re probably going to have a hard time getting ideas out. Take advantage of your idle time, and think about your story. The plot, the characters, little quirks you can add. Imagine scenes and interactions between characters.

Visualize your story as often as you can to help work out ideas, dialogue, flaws and reactions. Talk about it, if you’re ready, with some writer friends or close family. Google pictures of places and people to help get a better visual of your characters and their surroundings. Some writers assign specific colors or natural attributes to characters to help them. For example, if one character is fire, and another is water, how would they engage with one another? The beauty of visualization is that you can do it almost anywhere. So let those characters live rent free in your head in between writing sessions.

Finally, Make Time To Write

I’ve mentioned this before, but it bears repeating. When you’re working on a first draft, procrastination is your enemy. In Steven King’s Top 20 Rules for Writers, he shares that a first draft should take no more than three months. When you have a story idea, you need to get it out as quickly as possible. If you sit on a story too long, writing it down gets harder, so make time to write.

When I’m working on a draft, I fall behind on K-dramas and housework and video chats. Socially, I say no more often. Your sacrifices may look different from mine, and ninety days may seem crazy, but remember, the first draft doesn’t have to be print ready. You’re just getting the story out of your head. Whether you can do ninety days or not, sooner is always better than later.

I hit on this a bit in my article “3 Reasons Why Writing A First Draft Is Hard,” but if you want to finish your first draft, you’re going to have to power through that inevitable lag. Dry spells happen. Delays are inevitable. Sometimes as writers we just get stuck. And it’s okay to take a break when you find yourself in a rut.

Give yourself a day, then get back to it. Your draft won’t get finished if you don’t sit down to finish it. So give yourself a writing schedule and stick with it. Be okay with writing trash for the sake of writing. Don’t sabotage yourself with lofty ideals of perfection. No baby leaves the womb looking like the front of a Gerber jar. Your first draft will be messy. But it will still be beautiful. So get started on that story.

That’s my Write or Die Advice. Happy drafting.