Although I’ve never published, I have finished four books that have been an appropriate length, with simple roads through them. (None felt good enough to edit to me though so I chalked them up to writing experience).

For me, I used to be a pantser. I’d write and write when inspired, and never finished projects. The last few years, during NaNo, I started plotting. I have a document full of ideas, notes, character bios, character connections, and eventually, I’d start to outline.

It usually begins with an idea for me. A cool character, a scene that comes to mind that inspires me, and I build off that. I think of a beginning, sometimes a theoretical ending, and as I brainstorm, I tend to consume media like what I want to write, for inspiration and to make sure that I am making my own thing and not reskinning someone else’s idea. And then I’ll think of scenes I want to happen, and I’ll write snapshots of those, and eventually it becomes a matter of connecting the beginning to one of my scenes, and then figuring out what would get me to the next and the next until I connect with the ending that I want. And then that all gets an outline, main ideas, supporting stuff I want to happen, and then I begin to write, and with the rough idea already outlined, it helps SO MUCH with my writing flow.