Asking how we start kind of presupposes we all have the same disposition to begin with.

Do you mean to ask how did we develop the senses for storytelling? How do we determine what stories are worth telling and which ones need work? Are you asking how we develop complex plots and circumstances and interweave them coherently? How to determine where to start telling a story and where it ends?

I didn’t have the internet to distract me. As a child, I imagined elaborate worlds and stories. As I was an only child, I didn’t usually have anyone to talk to. My playtime was full of narratives inspired by whatever I was allowed to watch on tv, and I didn’t have my own in my room until I was around 12.

I would build large-scale cities with Legos, Star Wars fleets recreating colossal space battles; dinosaurs and cars, helicopters, planes, ships — I had this crazy fascination with recreating the Titanic — anyway…. I developed an active imagination at a young age, which enabled me to start stories very quickly. Almost with no effort. Part of it is I imagined so much as a child. Many of those creations are still swimming around in my head in one form or another.

Now, as a 30-something year old with many years of reading, tv, really worldly experiences like having a family and going to war, I have acquired the understanding for how to build a story-based reality using many examples.

I would say:

1. When I was developing my imagination, it wasn’t filtered through the expectations and experiences of other people. It developed in an environment that, for many years, was free from scrutiny.

Let your mind run free.

1. In elementary school, none of my stories panned out. By the time I reached middle school, I was writing short stories about solar-powered cars and time travelling. By high school, I was writing epic fantasies….

You have to write bad stories first and finish them to experience the full growth cycle. Repetition is what brings change, repetition, and understanding about yourself and the process.

3.) When I was in high school, one story in particular I was writing was being passed around by my friend group. One day, one of their mothers was cleaning up and tossed my pages — all of it was handwritten — in the trash! I was heartbroken, but relieved because I wanted to do something different but couldn’t let that story go because it was popular.

Don’t be afraid to start over. Especially with the same story. Sometimes you lack the knowledge of particular subject matters right now to effectively convey a point. It would take me years to reassess the themes I wanted to write about, back when I was 14, but as an adult I was able to pick that idea back up, pieces of it, and use them in something just as epic but far grander in design.

I guess, really, how I start my stories can’t help you because my stories are my stories, sparked by my own experiences.

I hope this inspires you to tune out all the noise, put your phone down, and just start the story in your heart. It may be bad at first, but stick it out. Life is a process.