Write a first draft!

It’s time to put all your ideas together and write your first draft. The most important aspect of this phase is to simply start writing. Don’t be concerned with how the story starts or sounds or even if it makes sense. Like the brainstorming session before, the important part is to get sentences and paragraphs and some dialogue out of your head and into your writing application.

Describe the setting, describe the characters. Make everyone interact. Create a big explosion or confrontation or something to end the first act. Write a lot of short conversations and interactions and actions and don’t worry too much about which order they appear. Write another explosion or confrontation or shoot-out or fight or anything else to end the second act. Write how everything is happily resolved and the main character is a better and wiser person having conquered the inner turmoil and outer antagonist. Show everyone in their new state. (Or show the main character hurt and defeated. An interesting recent twist are stories where the guy doesn’t get the girl and in the last scene discovers someone else that makes him realize he was a fool for chasing the original girl.)

If possible, write the whole first draft in a single sitting or two. You want the story to be fresh and interesting while you write. Don’t get stuck fixing grammar and punctuation and making dialogue crisp. Write until all the pieces are in place.

Then celebrate the completion of a first draft!