A How To On: Starting A Story

For this how-to, we'll be working on the absolute most basic of tasks. Starting and planning out your story. If you missed the last one check it out here.

To begin ask yourself one question. Why do you want to write?

Is it just for fun? Do you have a fun scene in mind and want to write around it? Do you want to explore a genre? Etc.

The answer to this question will determine where you go, what you write, and how you go about getting that done. For example, if you're just writing for fun then I'd say jump into it. Just start and whatever happens, happens. If you have a scene/interaction/joke, etc in mind then ask yourself what genre and scenario it would best fit into. Then go from there.

For this example, we'll say that you recently read a really good crossover that's quite interesting but you feel like it didn't push things as far as you would like or was a bit a cliche. Either way you want to write something better, or at least something that explores what you want to be explored.

Start with that as your goal at the top of the page. For this example we'll say its... "Write an interesting halo crossover fic that explores how the flood would interact with ponies."

From now on everything you do will be in service of that goal, keep it in mind whenever your writing.

Great, now with your goal stated at the top of your outline you're ready to start moving onto spitballing. Which in this instance is just writing a bunch of ideas and thoughts that you want to put into it. I usually fill a page or two of ideas and things I want to see happen in the story, like...

1. I want Ponies to be very large in comparison to other races. Like standing taller then a human while alicorns tower over even brutes.

But if you have a good feeling as to where you are taking this story we can move on to the next step, which is writing out the basic outline.

For example I'll start by saying...

"Have Spike get infested with the flood from a downed ship. Twi tries to cure him, eventually harmonizes the flood and accidently turns herself into a proto gravemind. While this is happening a covenent ship lands in order to try and take out the flood, followed soon after by a human ship with our boy the big C. While Twilight is working they are fighting, and things are bad by the time that the humans arrive as the covenent try to wipe them all out. End with an encounter between Floodlight and the big C with the cheif reluctantly leaving her alone after a climactic battle. Now wielding immense magical power Twilight domes the entire planet, shutting it off from the rest of the galaxy."

So we got a two primary story lines. Twilight and another pony, lets say Applejack. She doesnt get enough protag treatment. Now with a very rough outline we can move onto finding errors with our plan.

1. For one Twilight would need forerunner tech in order to understand the flood so lets put some tech on Equestria for her to find in her search. But it cant be easy so we'll put it on the moon. Since we are putting it on the moon we can also tie it into nightmare moon's imprisonment as well. There are a bunch of other things that we would need to do but you get what I'm going for here.

2. The flood is also super infectious so we'll have to say early on that due to the presence of magic it cant seem to infect people nearly as easily, nor as quickly.

With our pile of ideas, corrections, things we need, etc we can now start putting them all together. To do so we need to plan out the story in greater detail.

For example we need alternating Twilight and Applejack chapters.
Chapter One Twilight.
Twilight and co find the crashed ship or the ship finds them. Spike gets floodified, and contained, but not before an outbreak occurs. A covenent probe enters orbit.
Chapter 2 Applejack.
We want Applejack to eventually be the mare in charge of things in order to keep the readers at the forefront of the action. As such we'll have her volunteer to help fight the flood but is just supporting for now. We meet the squad.
Chapter 3 Twilight.
Twilight begins to understand the most basic fundementals of the flood organism. Since we need to drive Twilight away from her freinds we'll make it evident that disaster will strike by forshadowing the flood escaping. For now nothing will happen.
Chapter 4 Applejack.
Applejack's squad starts searching for this escaped flood form and sees the aftermath of its attack, establishing tension.
Chapter 5 Twilight.
Twilight is getting a better grasp of things, introduce the rest of the supporting characters, and have her deal directly with Celestia who is coordinating things. They notice the probe and try to hail it.
Chapter 6 Applejack.
They find that magic is relatively effective against the creatures the flood creates, and after some experimentation they are able to find otu how to cleanse the enviroment of all trace of the deadly parasite.
Chapter 7 Twilight.
They discover that more Covenent are entering orbit. With the use of scanning spells and magic they are able to talk to the covenent. Who ask where the flood is. Twilight tells them where all non Spike flood is and they leave, with the covenent warning to give them a wide berth. They dont wish to glass the planet as the current commander believes this is a chance to bring another race into the fold. Establish that his second just wants to glass the place and be done with it.
Chapter 8 Applejack.
They fight the flood and are overwhelmed breifly before being saved by covenent troopers.

And you get the point from here. The outline is rough, and things arent perfect but we have a general idea of where things are going and how they are going to get there. After all chapters are completed in this style we can move onto...

Refinement.
You will see problems, errors, and things that just dont work with your outline. You will need to make changes, and you may need to rewrite things. In general you want to acomplish two things at this point.

1. Streamline your chapters. Trim off any bits that may have seemed like a good idea at the time but now no longer fit your vision. While doing this be aware to make notes of things you are only now figuring out and want to add into the story.

2. Interlock your story. With a solid understanding of where you are going and how your going to get there you can add notes to help foreshadow future events, and set up things you want to eventually pay off.

For example, I will add a bunch of notes in brackets to our outline.

Chapter One Twilight.
Twilight and co find the crashed ship (Have Twilight be the first one in and the last one out, symbolizing what is to come much later) or the ship finds them. Spike gets floodified, (establish early on that despite the danger he poses Twilight will never abandon him) and contained, but not before an outbreak occurs. (floodify a secondary character or defeated villian they were fighting at the time to serve as our main antagonist at the start) A covenent probe enters orbit.
Chapter 2 Applejack.
We want Applejack to eventually be the mare in charge of things in order to keep the readers at the forefront of the action. As such we'll have her volunteer to help fight the flood but is just supporting for now. We meet the squad. (The leader is super by the books, while Applejack is adaptable, hint that Applejack will eventually take over things after a short demonstration of his poor adaptability.)
Chapter 3 Twilight.
Twilight begins to understand the most basic fundementals of the flood organism. Since we need to drive Twilight away from her freinds we'll make it evident that disaster will strike by forshadowing the flood escaping. For now nothing will happen. (Set up all secondary characters that Twilight will be working with)
Chapter 4 Applejack.
Applejack's squad starts searching for this escaped flood form and sees the aftermath of its attack, establishing tension. (establish other characters that she will be fighting with, and that magic seems to interfere with the flood's infectious ability and resulting in strange flood forms)
Chapter 5 Twilight.
Twilight is getting a better grasp of things, (show them around the facility that was hastily constructed for this purpose, check-in with Spike before leaving) have her deal directly with Celestia who is coordinating things. They notice the probe and try to hail it.
Chapter 6 Applejack.
They find that magic is relatively effective against the creatures the flood creates, and after some experimentation, they are able to find out how to cleanse the environment of all traces of the deadly parasite. (the flood cant use magic)
Chapter 7 Twilight.
They discover that more Covenent are entering orbit. With the use of scanning spells and magic they are able to talk to the covenent. Who ask where the flood is. Twilight tells them where all non Spike flood (someone almost mentions Spike but is cut off) is and they leave, with the covenent warning to give them a wide berth. They dont wish to glass the planet as the current commander believes this is a chance to bring another race into the fold. Establish that his second just wants to glass the place and be done with it. (add that they are baffled by magic, and though the captain is eager to secure the ponies assistance, his second thinks they are too dangerous to be left alive.)
Chapter 8 Applejack.
They fight the flood and are overwhelmed breifly before being saved by covenent troopers. (who are a little shocked by just how large the ponies are, and how well they are able to handle things despite their lack of tech. Introduce a squad who will eventually join defect to Equestria)

Perfect! Then we add our ideas, and corrections as well as reveiw the entire thing again order to ensure it flows like we want it to.

Once thats all done and our rough is exactly where we want it to be we move on to expanding the rough outline into a full outline and completing the last step before actually writing the story. For this example we will just be doing chapter one.

So we'll start by copy/pasting chapter 1.
"Chapter One Twilight.
Twilight and co find the crashed ship (Have Twilight be the first one in and the last one out, symbolizing what is to come much later) or the ship finds them. Spike gets floodified, (establish early on that despite the danger he poses Twilight will never abandon him) and contained, but not before an outbreak occurs. (floodify a secondary character or defeated villian they were fighting at the time to serve as our main antagonist at the start) A covenent probe enters orbit."

Then we will expand it, and fill in all the gaps.

Chapter one.
Twilight and co are in the middle of a fight with chrysalis when the ship flies overhead, distracting them. Chrysalis sees this as an opportunity to escape, and flees into the ship, hoping to lose the ponies inside the enormous structure. They get an introduction to advanced tech, the effects of flood infestation, combat, and the other races and ending with them tracking Chrysalis to a carrier form. Chrysalis shapeshifts into a dragon and bypasses a fire that broke out, with Spike following close behind, thinking this is his chance to shine. It takes a moment for the rest to catch up but when they do they find that Chrysalis and Spike are fighting. They then run into a carrier form which explodes and infests them both, with Chrysalis escaping in the chaos. Spike lashes out, hurting Twilight, but she just takes it, saying she's dealt with his claws when he was a child. She contains the now infected Spike and takes him outside where Celestia and Luna are waiting. Together they decide to start lockign down the sight. Skips to the probe landing in orbit.

And boom. We are done with that chapter. Once all chapters have been expanded like this then you just need to actually sit down and write it all out, confident that you wont miss anything.

With this method you can see your plot holes and problems a million miles away and dont need to do much rewriting in order to make everything fit together properly.

A warning though, this is just how I do it. If you want to change this method up, or just take inspiration from how I do things then please, do that instead. Do not slavishly devote yourself to any person's advice, no matter how good it may actually be.

Also, since that is all outline stuff you dont have to worry about spelling/grammer etc. It is also very good at long stories, helping you to visualize the flow of your story long before you've even written the first word but it works just as well with short stories.

TLDR version. Start with a very breif one sentance/paragraph summery, expand it, edit it, expand it again, edit again, and then expand each chapter one final time before writing.

Comments

[Jackelope]

This is useful for me. I feel like I've personally gone through a bronze age collapse or something when it came to my writing, unsure of how to properly structure a story - or even a one-shot - thanks for this!

[Jest]

5455118
My pleasure! It took me years to come up with a system that works well while also not requiring a ton of work so I had to share.