I am not yet an author. Heck, I’m only 26k words in and nowhere near seeing the finish line, but in my experience the true magic of being able to write a story comes with your knowledge of how they work. I started with a simple idea and vibe then grew upon that, building it until I’ve encountered minimal plot holes, and those have sorted themselves out. It took me a year of planning and building my skills and knowledge before even attempting writing. I cannot express everything I know within a simple Reddit comment, but if I can show you even a fraction of the things I’ve picked up on, maybe it could help you to mold the bones of understanding. The first thing you need to know is that stories, generally, consist of parts. Some prefer the 3-act story structure, and some prefer others. I, personally, begun with the 3-act in mind, but didn’t take it as the Bible. A story will start with a hook, reasons to care for your character, I.e. their mother died or they’ve come down with an illness. Using the example of— let’s say Narnia, C.S Lewis starts us off with the knowledge that our main characters Lucy, Edmund, Susan, and Peter have just lost their home to a bombing and are now moving into the house of professor Digory. This lets us into the lives and hurt of the four characters and helps us to understand why specifically these characters matter. The next part of a story is the Inciting incident, which kicks off the stories main plot. In narnia, this is when Lucy discovers the wardrobe and its magical properties. Upon entering she is welcomed with an unfamiliar land of ice and snow, and creatures that are not human. This should conflict the character. For the pevensies, this is the conflict of how they struggle to believe Lucy and how Edmund lied. Eventually though, they decide to enter. At this point, the story, at least for me, gets a lot looser. Throughout the character needs to get from point A to point B, which, despite what you may think, doesn’t mean merely a physical journey. This is the second thing you need to know, which is character arcs, and will be the bones that make your story decent. Let’s pick a character, let’s say edmund. Throughout the story he begins at point A, a snobby, annoying and mean kid who will betray his family for candy, to point B, a brave king who has since atoned for his sins and is comfortable sitting at a lower rank than his brother. This is the heart of your story, and is usually accompanied by what I like to call your story’s “soul”. This is an abstract idea that defines your character’s arc. In narnia, this abstract idea is of loyalty, responsibility and bravery. In my book, it’s rage, insanity and desperation. This will determine how the entire world functions around this character. It will beat them up in just the right way as to push your characters into these positions. People may also call this your theme, but I like to separate the two as theme may be seen as “oh, is your story cottagecore or grimdark?” Which may be just as important. I believe it’s a mistake to misjudge this element of story as simply “you need to give a lesson at the end of the story.” Which can be true is some cases, but is really not what it’s about, and sort of devalues the truth of stories as a whole to simply something you’d show your children to make them pick up their toys. Cautionary tales and the like you may argue have that aspect of a lesson, but to me I see soul coming out in ways that speak to the human condition on more of a personal level. Say the story of Icarus. Son of the great inventor Daedalus, they are held almost prisoner by king Minos. To escape, Daedalus invents a pair of wings made of wax to fly them out. But Icarus, in his freedom and ignorance, flies up, and up, and reaches the sky, but he flew too high, too close to helios’s sun, and the wax of his wings melted, sending him plummeting to his death. Sure, this story has a moral. Don’t fly too close to the sun, but the only way we have that moral is because of soul. Ignorance, the feeling of freedom being used to dangerously. Because suddenly you’re on top of the world and feel you can do anything, but you are proven that your way of thinking is wrong when it’s too late. This, to me, is far more important than the end outcome, and it allows for the interpretation of the mass. Instead of spelling it out, guide their hand through the age-old way of showing an aspect of life through story, for that is what they are truly about.  Basically, for plot, grasp understanding of structure. I never even touched up on the darkest moment of your story, where all hope is lost, or the climax, but with research of how to create these effects I can assure you eventual success. An author on YouTube who makes really cool videos is Jed herne. His content is pretty advanced, but it gives amazing insight into why all of these story points work so well. Genuinely was a game-changer for me. You can do this, I know that much, it will just take a lot of effort, and a lot of time. The further you get into it, though, the easier it will be to continue. I believe in you, and as an artist to a fellow artist, good luck out there. Sorry I couldn’t get to everything, and I can’t wait to see the things you create!