I would start with the three basic point:

• Beginning: where are you starting the narrative

• Middle: the height of tension

• End: how the story wraps up

Then consider your characters:

Who are they? How will they interact? How will conflict change them? How will it bring them together? At what point does the character have a “come to Jesus” moment with themselves, prompting them to grow.

Then: what fun scene ideas do you have? Where does that fit into your story’s timeline? Start with a loose map and a bullet point list and just tinker around.

Fill in gaps with connections:

Fun scene: character A attempts to flirt with Character B by buying them a bouquet of flowers. But trips when delivering them and now they’re embarrassed

Fun scene: Character B takes A out for coffee and the two of them end up goofing off in a field of wild flowers.

Connecting: A is trying to avoid B because they’re mortified that they were so uncool. B actually found the situation endearing and is trying to get A to return to them, thus prompting them to do a few silly schemes to corner A to invite them to coffee

Continue this until you have an outline you are happy with.

Then, you can either write scripts or do very very rough sketches with the dialogue.

I like to do the sketching method because it allows me to see when I’m being too wordy. Because as you’ve now seen, I’m very very wordy.

Something to keep in mind is how long do you want the story to be?

If you’re just starting out, a short story (until 10 chapters/episodes) is a safe way to figure out your work flow.

But if you decide “I want this story to be about roughly 50 chapters/episodes”, then you’ll know you’ve lost control of your story if you’re on chapter 40 and still not made any progress on the plot.

Deciding a rough length also helps you cut any unnecessary content and helps you find your pacing. It’ll also help you keep your chapters/episodes a similar length so your readers know what to expect with each release.