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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/31976
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

I'll provide a few (non exhaustive) thoughts on 'how-to' details. This will vary from writer to writer.

**(1)** I am in a writing group where people have 'a great idea' and jump in and start writing and ... '2/3 of the way through they lose interest.' The first chapter is great because they worked on it and it was fun,. same with second, third, etc chapters. So they have a nice start to a story and then it sits unfinished for a long time somewhere.

That's a cautionary tale. If you think that will happen to you, take precautions up front. This may mean committing to finishing it even when it is no longer fun, or writing the ending first, or some other approach.

**(2)** Some people outline the entire story. This is a different approach. They don't write anything, or have fun necessarily in the same way, until the outline is in place.

**(3)** Some people (I am currently in this group) write the whole dang thing as a complete story (more than an outline, an actual story with all the elements) and just force themselves to get through it whether it is coming out nicely or not. This is probably the mode of writing used by many in NaNoWriMo. I enjoyed plowing roughshod through my story and it showed at the end because it was horrible. The timeline was screwed up, the characters were ill-defined, the motivations weren't clear, there was no deeper meaning to anything, the villain was cringe-worthy. But the approach works in the sense that the idea/story was now on paper, and now you can go back through and modify this or that.

This has struck me as being similar to any other artistic endeavor - painting, sculpting, woodworking (get the damn joints right), even theater.

So - How do you do it? That's up to you, but don't let the empty screen stop you from getting on with it.

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