From Story Idea to First Draft: How to Get Started
How do you go from a story idea to a written draft? That’s the million dollar question for so many aspiring writers out there.
I work with a lot of writers, and one question I hear all the time is: “Mary, I’m stuck. I’ve been pre-writing for years, and I just can’t get started on my draft. What should I do?”
Today, I’m going to give you 3 ideas for how to get from story idea to first draft. Let’s go.
First—you are not alone. This is very common
It can be scary to take the first steps into a first draft, especially if it’s a story idea that you’ve held close to you for a very long time. You feel like you don’t want to ruin it. If you never try writing it, you can’t ruin your story, right?
That’s sort of true, but it’s also not a healthy or productive relationship with your craft or creativity.
While yes, it’s true that you are not alone in being stuck, I also want to give you some tough love and tell you that there is no amount of pre-writing, or pre-work, that is going to make your first draft better than it would be if you just started.
No amount of research.
No amount of lengthy character bios or craft classes.
You can’t write a good book by studying how to write a good book. You have to write. It’s like learning to swim or cook.
Man, the chefs on cooking shows make it look so easy, don’t they? And sometimes I’ll sit there watching Alison Roman make a beautiful dish on YouTube, and I almost feel like I’ve done it myself.
But this is, of course, is not true. I’ve done nothing but sit on my couch.
This phenomenon actually has a name in the field of learning science, which I used to work in—it’s called “false fluency.” You think that just because you’re familiar with something, you’re capable of producing it, yourself.
Like if you’d read all the books about swimming and could talk about the techniques and the form, but you’d never actually been in the water—you might be exhibiting false fluency. You’re familiar with it, so you feel like you know how to do it. But if asked to actually swim, you’d flounder.
Staying in the stage of pre-writing, I think, is kind of similar to sitting on the couch watching chef’s cook. It’s comfortable. You can fool yourself into thinking you’re being productive, when, really, you’re not doing anything.
“But Mary,” you might be thinking. “I need to do X amount of prep or research so I’ll write a better first draft will have to revise less!”
Nope. Not how it works. Also a fallacy.
There’s no amount of pre-writing that is going to lead you to write a first draft that doesn’t need to be revised.
What are you afraid of?
The question becomes, what are you afraid of? Why aren’t you just starting? And that’ something only you can answer.
I want to invite you to really get honest with yourself about that—brainstorm it. Journal. Write it down. What are you afraid of?
Are you just afraid that it won’t be good? That’s very common. But please know that whatever shape your first draft is in, you’re going to have to revise no matter what.
A lot of the anxiety that we experience as writers is because we are trying to do everything at once. If you were to build a house, you would not try to paint the walls and hang light fixtures as you were building the foundation.
That literally doesn’t make sense, right? It wouldn’t work.
The same is true when we try as writers to both get a story down on paper AND worry about how it’s being presented at the same time.
Writing and revising are as different as hammering a nail and painting a wall. You cannot simultaneously get a story down for the first time while concerning yourself with how you’re telling it.
I want to encourage you to trust your future writer self to paint the walls. You have to stop reading about building and actually dig a hole, then hammer some nails into wood.
Or maybe you’re putting off writing not because you’re afraid it won’t be good, but because you have an inkling that you’re not really sure what you’re writing yet. Maybe you don’t feel ready to write because you don’t really know what it is you’re writing.
If that’s the case, I want you to tell me this: what big question are you trying to explore in your work? What underlying human question is at the heart of it?
I teach writers I work with to phrase this as a question because questions are open-ended and prompt curiosity, not preachiness.
What is your why?
If we don’t have a why, it’s really hard to generate an engine to actually write.
Okay, in sum, if you’re struggling with taking the plunge and just getting started, the trouble is less likely to be logistics and more likely an expression of internal resistance.
So step off the couch and into the kitchen.
Or if you preferred my construction metaphor, put down your curtain rods—it’s not time for those yet—and pick up a shovel. It’s time to start digging. It’s the only way anything is going to get built.
Ready to write your book?
If you made it this far, I’m guessing that you are writing a book, or want to write a book. If so, I want to talk to you.
When I’m not writing, my mission in life is to help talented writers write their dream books. I love it. I live for it.
Because before I published my novels, I first had to figure out how to write one. It wasn't easy because none of the writing classes I was taking showed me how to actually write a novel.
Not until I had a newborn and only a couple of hours to write did I come up with a process. The process worked. I wrote my entire novel during my 8-week maternity leave.
Now, I teach it in my program the Book Incubator and it works for dozens of other writers.
If you're curious to know more, I have a free video walking you through my exact process for writing a book. You can get it by clicking below and answering two questions to apply to the program.
You get the video whether you join or not—no pressure to enroll.
Just click below to tell me a little bit about you and your book—you can fill out a form online. I’m so excited to hear from you!
