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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/45479
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

It's OK to start with **characters** who are not yet fully fleshed out, because characters tend to develop as you write. one thing to keep in mind is that your characters should have goals at the outset (your emperor already does.). They should take actions toward those goals (sounds like your emperor will), and they should encounter antagonizing forces that keep them from their goals (your main character may be the emperor's antagonist.). As you go, if you got some of the characters 'wrong,' don't worry. It's OK to fold characters together, and to add in new characters after you've written a chunk of your story, and to change characters as needed.

It's also OK to use a stock **plot** based on a tried-and-true story structure, such as the three act structure. Act One: Introduce setting and character with goal. Then, inciting incident, call to action, answer the call. Act Two: character growth, difficulty achieving goal, goals might change, there's often a deep night of the soul, more 'try-fail' cycles. Growth. Act Three: Final confrontation and/or attempt, climax, resolution.

Finally, it's OK to revise a first draft if it doesn't end up working as well as you hope.

**ANSWER** : Just start writing, and allow the first draft to be very bad. Imagine you have a lump of clay and you want to mold it into a beautiful vase. Start shaping it. You have the luxury of being able to reshape and modify and pull bits off and add them on elsewhere and so on as you go. For your **characters** , simply use what your instinct tells you--gender, age, characteristics. You'll probably be happiest with your results if they have a definitive GOAL. Allow the depth and complexity of your character to develop over time and adjust the clay to fit. **Plot** --I suggest reading up on the three act structure (or some other story structure) and molding your lump of clay to it. You can also use the fifteen story beats popularized by Blake Snyder.

Original score: 5