I have found that writng ideas come slowly: a character, a scene, a coversation, somewhere to start, a setting, an ending etc., and you have to note all these down before you forget them. It takes months or even years for such things to coalesce into a coherent story idea, but the important thing is that your idea will tell you when to start writing. Plan all you like, it is your character(s)who give the kick up the backside. And it might not be gentle. One of my stories started not with a quiet knock on the mental door but practically hammered it down and announced its existence.
It's a matter of an idea achieving a critical mass, rather like a nuclear reactor - nothing happens on the action front until this is achieved, nothing useful is generated. But once achieved you can be hauled away into some fictional space and shown all sorts of things you never thought possible - and all by your characters. Mind you, it works only when characters are rounded three-dimensional types with real lives and aspirations and who you feel you know.
And are you swept along by your idea? Does it seem to flow? With that will come justification and vindication of your idea. Notice that what I suggest is not sitting down and planning everything in minute detail, as some recommend, and neither is it sitting down with a blank page (and no idea) waiting for the Muse to turn up. Neither of these works: either you get bored and don't finish or you never get beyond the first couple of chapters. Go for the compromise, wait for critical mass, and a fictional someone will tell you when to start writing.
Jack Orchison, 18 January, 2014.
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