Beginning fiction writing: Tips for writing your first story

If you’re just beginning fiction writing, you’re probably full of as much self doubt as you are ideas and dreams. 

This is very normal when you start writing fiction. The stories you have in your head probably mean a lot to you. Getting them out of your head and onto the blank page in front of you isn’t easy. But it’s important to remember that every writer was a beginner once. From Cormac McCarthy to JK Rowling to Marian Keyes: they will all, at some point, sat down nervously in front of their first blank page.

The bad news: the way you feel now might not change much, even if you write 100 stories. As Phillip Pullman once said “All writing is difficult”.

The good news: once you’ve got some fiction written, you’ll know for sure that you can write more. You’ll know how to write fiction, even if it doesn’t always feel like it. You’ll still feel nerves and frustration sometimes, but you’ll be much better able to push through them. In the same way, a first-time marathon runner who starts to flag at 20 miles will have a tougher mental battle to get to the finish line, than the runner who’s on their 10th marathon. Even if the first-timer is the fitter, stronger, more talented of the two. 

This article is designed to get you to push through self doubt and understand how to start writing a story, and then to finish it. If you’re like I was when beginning fiction writing, before I wrote my first story (way back in 2005), you probably have plenty of starts already. Character sketches, first lines, first paragraphs. Pushing through to begin something is one thing. Pushing through until the end is much harder. I paid for an Open University creative writing course to force myself to do it. My hope is that you can use this blog to get beginning fiction writing effectively for free (I can even give you an extra, personal nudge – more on that at the end). 

How to start writing fiction and create a finished story as a beginner writer

If you’ve never completed a piece of fiction writing before, start with a short story. You might have the most incredible novel idea, but novels usually take years to write. At minimum, they take months, and even NaNoWriMo are clear that you won’t finish their month-long challenge with a fully finished novel.

A solid, valuable and memorable short story can be as little as 1000 words (some would say even fewer). It can be up to around 10,000, though I would aim under 3000. That keeps the story simple and manageable (vital when you’re beginning fiction writing) and puts your finish line very firmly in view. 

And if you really can’t see past your book right now, create a self-contained spin-off short story around one of your minor characters. If your novel was Harry Potter, for example, you could write a story about something that happened in Hagrid’s childhood, or how Harry’s parents met and married. 

My advice though: give your writing brain a break from the novel (and from any other works in progress). Start something you’re excited by, but not emotionally invested in. It’s easier that way, at least this time.

Common pitfalls for beginning writers (and how to avoid them)

Beginning fiction writing pitfall 1: feelings of inadequacy

Nearly all fiction writers have to beat feelings of inadequacy to get a first draft finished when they’re starting out. The nagging doubt that your writing isn’t good enough or that you can’t measure up to established writers. 

This fear isn’t failure. It’s a natural, even necessary part of beginning fiction writing, and the creative process. Experienced writers feel it too. 

Consider this: imagine you believed yourself to already be the most incredible writer ever. Where would you go from here? How would you begin to evaluate your own writing? What motivation would you have to improve? 

Rather than fighting your feelings, acknowledge them. Work around them by:

• Embracing imperfection. Write a shitty first draft and then edit it. The first draft doesn’t need to be good. It needs to be done.
• Being kind to yourself. It’s OK if you didn’t get your story finished today, or you only managed 100 words when you thought you’d write 500. Life happens. Bad days happen. You’re writing, and you have a plan. You’re a writer. 

Beginning fiction writing pitfall 2: Writer’s block

Writer’s block is a pretty much a universal experience. Everyone has days when their blank page stays blank for much longer than they’d like. 

It doesn’t mean you lack talent, or that your story is no good. It’s simply something you need to push through. The only cure for writer’s block is to write. 

How?

• Write anything, even if you think it’s awful (it probably isn’t). Words on the page are the goal. You don’t need to feel inspired or creative. 
• Imagine you’re being paid for this. Would you just tell your boss you ‘feel blocked’ today, when they ask you to write an email or file a report? Of course not. In my freelance copywriting work, I often have to write when I’m tired, struggling, or not in the mood. Because I have deadlines to meet and invoices I want to send. It’s harder to push through without that external motivation, but not impossible if you choose to believe that your work is worthwhile, even when it doesn’t feel like it. 

As Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat Pray Love author, said:

“I don’t sit around waiting for passion to strike me. I keep working steadily, because I believe it is our privilege as humans to keep making things. Most of all, I keep working because I trust that creativity is always trying to find me, even when I have lost sight of it.”

Beginning fiction writing pitfall 3: Lack of time or space to write

Most writers struggle to carve out time for writing. Often because it’s a solitary, self-indulgent thing to do. I don’t mean that in a bad sense: but it simply is. We write because we want to, not because it benefits others. 

Many other things we do involve obligations to other people as well as to ourselves. Jobs, kids, elderly parents, spouses, pets, house renovations: all these and many more mean it’s hard to find the physical and mental space you need to focus on your writing. 

Here’s some tough advice: if your diary is full, you need to make choices. You can only spin so many plates. You can’t drop your job or your kids, so what can you drop? You don’t need to get divorced, but you might need to reduce the time you spend on social activities or hobbies. 

Not necessarily forever. Just while you get this first story out of your mind and onto the page. Once it’s done, you can reevaluate what’s important and what a fulfilling life looks like for you. 

Crafting your story: what are the basics of fiction writing?

Many people see fiction writing as an art. It can be. But I would argue that it is far more a craft than it is an art. It can (and should) be learned, practised and developed. 

Your art might have provided you with the initial inspiration that’s brought you to the point where you want to write a story. It’s learning your craft that will allow you to actually write it. 

And there are many beginning fiction writing tips you could listen to. You don’t need most of them now. What you do need is to:

1. Create believable characters
2. Write a compelling plot

These are the most basic ‘rules’ of writing stories. A story isn’t a story if it doesn’t follow these 2 rules. This much might seem obvious, but many otherwise talented writers struggle with this. I once had a coaching client who wrote wonderful descriptions of places and people, but was absolutely against putting them into any kind of plot. Plots were something she associated with formulaic mass market fiction, not the literary fiction she wrote. And when I co-ran the Brighton Prize for short stories, we saw many, many entries that were wonderfully written, but frustratingly plotless. They didn’t get past the first round of judging, however evocative they were.  

Here’s the thing: as you’ve probably heard, character is plot and plot is character. Strong, relatable, believable characters will create their own plots, if you let them. And a compelling plot will strengthen and shore up your characters. Just like real people, your characters interact with each other, and things happen, and they react.

So even if you don’t want to follow the rules, I strongly suggest, at least just this once, that you do. Remember that writing ‘rules’ are simply the distillation of successful writing from writer after writer, to reader after reader, over generation after generation. Yes, fashions and boundaries change. Genres differ. But the basics of what we, as humans, find compelling in a story are universal. 

The framework you can follow for writing fiction

Rule 1 of fiction writing for beginners: create believable characters

Believable characters are the characters we care about. If a character feels thin, or cliched, we quickly lose interest. Even the most carefully plotted stories don’t grab us emotionally if the characters don’t feel real. 

Many writers naturally base their characters on people they know or have met, especially in their early writing. Even so, it’s worth taking a little time (not too much, or it’ll act as a distraction) to develop a quick character profile of your main character. You can repeat this for more minor characters too, if you like, but don’t let it become a distraction. In a short story, the main character should be your focus. 

You can redevelop this as you go, if your story takes you somewhere unexpected. But I would start by taking 15 minutes or so, and writing just a sentence or two to define these 4 things:

• Who they are

The very basics such as age, gender, and where they’re from. Keep it very simple at this stage. You shouldn’t need to create a huge backstory, and if you do, you can do it later.

• What they look like (and perhaps what they smell, sound or feel like too).

Are they nondescript, or striking? What interesting details or quirks do they have? Think the man who always wears his trousers neatly rolled. Or the child whose hair is always tangled. Even if you don’t know why these things are the case yet, the detail provides feeling and depth. You’ll connect the dots as you write.

• What motivates them

What do they want that they don’t have? What are they at risk of losing? Do they want to be the best detective Scotland Yard has ever seen? Do they want to travel? Change the world? Or do they simply want a comfortable life, or an escape from emotional pain? Think broad, rather than specific goals. In Lord of the Rings, Frodo’s quest to take the ring to Mordor is motivated by his desire to keep Middle Earth as a peaceful, harmonious place. Throwing the ring in the fire might be the focus of the story, but it’s not his actual motivation. 

• What’s stopping them, or could stop them, from having what they want?

Knowing this is fundamental. Without it, there can be no story. 

It’s likely that there are either internal or external forces at work, or both. Internal forces are things like lack of confidence, negative past experiences, illnesses or addictions that mean your character struggles to change their situation or achieve their goals. External forces can be things like political regimes or social structures (including poverty, or gender roles). They can also be other people: workmates, family, friends or partners who stand in your character’s way. 

Think of Frodo again: he had to overcome numerous forces, including Sauron, Gollum and his own weakness in the face of the power of the ring. You’ll notice that you’re veering sharply into plot here, rather than character. That’s inevitable. If plot and character were a marriage, it’d be a co-dependent one.

Rule 2 of fiction writing for beginners: write compelling plots

You might have read about things like rising and falling action, story arcs and denouement. 

This kind of technical study of plot can be fascinating (it is for me). But it’s not particularly helpful when you’re getting started. At this point, I would simply think of your plot like this:

• Beginning. Where you set up your story by introducing your main character, their situation, their goal and the struggles they have in achieving this goal. 

• Middle. Where your main character fights against the things that are stopping them from achieving their goal. And receive either help to do so from others, or come across people preventing them from doing so. 

• End. Where they either achieve their goals successfully, or don’t. If they don’t, there should be a resolution of some other kind, such as the main character coming to terms with a different path. 

This might seem overly basic. But if you’re writing a short story of less than 3000 words, you don’t need anything else. Even if you have a far more complex story running through your mind, with multiple subplots and characters, pare it right back so you can focus on finishing. You can always expand it later – though you’ll probably find you love it as it is. 

To see how to do this, think about Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. Most Dickens novels are highly complex, and couldn’t realistically be drastically cut down much. But A Christmas Carol, a short novella at just 36,000 words, could. Instead of 3 spirits visiting Scrooge, there could have been just 1. Instead of showing him the error of his ways through multiple subplots and links to his past,  just one powerful event could have led Scrooge to realises the benefits of kindness, society and generosity. 

Would it be as powerful or famous a story if you cut it down to 10% of its current size? Almost certainly not. But it would still be a viable, interesting and impactful story. It would still be a story worth writing. And it would still be a complete and finished story with a beginning, middle and end. Right now, for you, that’s what matters. 

Quick and powerful writing tips: worldbuilding, theme, point of view, language and dialogue

• Worldbuilding. Particularly if you’re beginning fiction writing with a fantasy or historical story, you probably feel you need to set the scene, and explain the world in which your story takes place. And you do, but you might not need to do very much of it. A short story should be simple, and so the only worldbuilding details you need are those that your reader needs to understand the story. If you find yourself getting bogged down in detail, cut back ruthlessly. You can always copy and paste the details you cut to an outtakes document, just in case you want them back. 

• Theme. Your story may have a theme, or a point to make, but it should primarily be a story. As Stephen King says ‘good fiction begins with a story and progresses to a theme’. Highly political novels like 1984 might be led by their theme, but they don’t make ideal first stories. Follow the rules now, break them later.  

• Point of view. Short stories usually work best when told from a single point of view. This can mean first person. Or it can mean a closed third person narrative, where the story is told from the main character’s perspective, even if it’s not in their voice. It doesn’t much matter which you choose: start with whichever feels most natural, and switch if it doesn’t seem right. One of the benefits of short stories is that this is easy to do.

• Language. Remember that when you write fiction the words you use exist only to help your reader understand and connect with your story. Forget any hangups you may have about ‘good’ or ‘bad’ writing. Simple language is very often more effective and meaningful. 

• Dialogue. Many writers hate writing dialogue. The good news is, in a short story, you can usually get away with writing either none or very little of it. Especially if you write in first person. If you struggle with it, just try and avoid it for now. 

No more writing tips. Just write! 

This might be frustrating advice, but at this point, you simply need to write something. 

Even if it’s a shitty first draft. Because editing that draft will be far less difficult than you might imagine. It’s nearly always easier than writing. 

Forget about writing prompts, forums and feedback. These quickly become distractions that get in the way of actually writing. 

Follow the advice in this blog if it helps you get off the blocks and over the line. Ignore and do it your own way it if it becomes another distraction. 

Your sample writing plan: adapt as you choose

Set a goal to write a 1000 word story. It can of course end up longer, but it doesn’t need to be. That’s only around a third of the length of this blog.

You could write 200 words a day over a 5 day working week to get to 1000 words. See where you can snatch up to an hour a day (or 2x 30 minutes) for a few days running. Use your lunch break, your train commute, your toddler’s nap. Get up a little earlier or go to bed a little later. You don’t need to do this forever, just for 2 weeks. Probably much less: remember people write 50,000 words in 4 weeks for NaNoWriMo.

Set a timer for 30 minutes. Focus hard and aim to get  200 words on the page in that time. If the timer goes off before you get to 200 words, take a 5 minute break and do another 30 minutes (or come back to it later). 

After those 60 minutes of writing, if you don’t yet have 200 words, refocus and try again the next day. You’re allowing yourself to become distracted somewhere if you can’t meet this goal, so just keep trying until you get past the distraction.

You can then take a break over the weekend, clear your head, and spend the next week editing at a similar pace (though you’ll probably find you end up working faster). 

Adjust the timings if you want or need. You might find it easier to write at weekends, or maybe you have a day off every Wednesday when you can write all day, for example. Do whatever suits your schedule. 

But however you do it, you should aim to have a complete, edited 1000+ word story within 2 weeks. Which will mean, you have solid proof to give yourself that you are a writer. 

What if you decide you hate the story you just wrote?

I bet you won’t. But if you do, simply file it away. Accept the learning experience you’ve gained. And write the next one. It’ll be easier, I promise. 

What if you find you just can’t get it done, despite following all the advice in this blog?

Email me. Tell me what you’re struggling with. I’ll email back with pointers, or a pep talk. I want nothing in return, expect the chance to read your story once you’re finally done. 

You’ve got this.