by Jess Howe

Created on: October 06, 2007   Last Updated: April 12, 2009

You need to work at stories to get them better, and in order to do that you need to stop thinking so much about things and just write. Maybe for the next few years all you'll be able to write is garbage. It even happens to well-known writers from time to time. You can't get past this phase, however, if you don't just simply sit at the keyboard. You have ideas, so put them down. Write them out. Don't think about it, don't plan things out unless you have a very good reason to do so. Now, many people have heard this, and many know this, but how do you get from "I have a story I've been mulling around in my head" to writing down the story?

First of all, get yourself an idea book. It could just be a small notepad, or it could be a leather-bound notebook. The point is to have somewhere to write down the thoughts in your head. For one thing, you want a thing to carry around with you, so you get into a new mindset of "these are the ideas for the story I've been thinking of". You want something small, something you can even put on your bedside table, for when ideas come. Whenever one comes into your head, write it down. Whatever the idea is, write it down. The idea here is just getting out all of your ideas, getting yourself into more of a working writer mindset.

In conjunction with that, here's an idea to get you more comfortable with writing down stuff in your book: When you're watching television or a movie, write in your idea book what thoughts the show or movie bring to your head. Write down any story ideas you might be getting from it. Again, don't worry about how silly those thoughts or ideas might seem.

Once you've gotten yourself familiar with your idea book, with the many times of day you're using it, you probably have found that you have a couple ideas for an actual story. You might have even written pieces of one, or parts of an outline of one. You might just have a name in there that sparked some other idea. You see, one idea in the idea book can often get you started on other ideas.

So now, you're ready to go to the next step: writing that story down. Again, you should just write it, no matter what you come up with. No matter how much garbage you get rid of now, know that if you finish this draft...

...it's a draft.

Congratulations, you now have a draft! So now all you need to do is edit it. Congratulations, you have successfully made the transition from thinking to writing!

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