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Originally Posted by Moejoe
While you're reading them, you write, but let me save you some time and share some shortcuts that came to me over time.
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Playing counterpoint, here, because my experiences with fanfic don't all fit into this system. (This is really good--but it doesn't cover all types of prose writing. It may cover all stories, but only if we get picky about the definition of "story.")
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Plot
There is only one story and you don't need to plot the story. Here it is:
The pursuit of a want or need through adversity that ends in either triumph or defeat.
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Plenty of fanfic doesn't have this. Some is character studies; some is PWP ("porn without plot"); some is otherwise-different. ("Five things" fics come to mind, especially "five things that never..."; each of the five things might have a plot like this, but it also might not.) Archiveofourown.org has
over 400 examples of 5 Things stories; mind the warnings (that "E" in the red box means "explicit") if you're concerned about such things.
Non-plottish stories are probably easier to write as fanfic--explorations of a known world--than as original fic, where you have to capture the reader's initial interest in addition to showing what happened.
I'm trying to think of examples of profic that don't have plots. Maybe Ellison's From A to Z, the Chocolate Alphabet.
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Characters
Now all you need to do is add characters and their wants and needs. As to characters, you need only one sentence to pin a character in the mind. This sentence consists of an adjective, a job and a name.
Stubborn NY cop John McLane
Stoic Lawyer Atticus Finch
Cynical Private Eye Philip Marlowe.
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"Job" assumes a certain shared cultural background. While it's easy to expand to non-career identities like "orphan" or "dilettante," if the character's main identity (in the story) is something alien to the reader, this may not be the best way to describe it. (I have no problem with "devout kaseka Martina Lau" but even googling the term won't give the reader an understanding of how that might relate to other characters in a story.) (And, wow, Google won't help a bit with that one.)
In a number of sci-fi, fantasy or horror stories, adjective-job-name may not adequately describe the character; the writer's notes might instead have 3 adjectives, or a simple personal conflict (Martina: responsibility vs curiosity) as the core aspect of the character to be expressed.
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Character is action so just keep your characters in line with their simplistic descriptions and they'll write themselves, no need to know what their best friend's name was in 3rd grade or what happened to their pet cat that awful summer before they graduated (those experiences grow organically as you write the character)
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This, I agree with. It's worth noting that it's often *fun* to describe characters in great details in one's notes; an author can outline three years of back history, complete with arguments with co-workers and the name of the cute guy at Starbucks she flirts with... none of which needs to make it into the story.
Background details aren't bad, but many of them aren't necessary for the story itself. And authors need to avoid being upset if the readers come up with entirely *different* bits of background story for their own understanding of the character.
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Where to begin?
You begin just before, during, or just after the springboard scene of your story.
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And very possibly, you begin before... and on re-reading, discover that the first 2,000 words aren't actually necessary. In which case, REMOVE THEM. Excessive backstory details is one of the most common failings in fiction writing.
The story may begin in the author's mind when the thief has a harrowing conversation with a loan shark who demands $10k by the end of the week, leading him to buy tools for burglary and nab the diamonds, leading to the traumatic birthday party where the owner had planned to give the diamonds to her daughter, leading to the eventual contact with the Private Eye... but for the reader, the story might be better if it starts when she walks into the PI's office.