Setting up for writing

Question

I am a work professional and the writer by choice. I have been writing for a while now but basically poems, short stories etc. I have been writing due to internal urge. An idea, emotion and a feeling have been my guide and I have been converting them to poems and stories.

Now after 8 years of my first writing, I am preparing myself to write a play with characters, dialogue and scenes. But the problem is creating a plot. Or let's say, setting up myself for how to start? I have tried to start many times but couldn't go any further.

So, here I am seeking some suggestions for the preparations that are needed for an amateur writer and guidance on, "How to start?".

Answer 1

An amateur writer does not need any preparations to start. You do not need a plot. You do not need to know "how to start", "how to plot", "how to write". You need to overcome resistance (look inside this book, if you don't know what I mean).

So, you have to start writing. And keep to it. It really doesn't matter if it suits your high ideals or not. Keep writing.

If you want to write a book, then you (normally) have already an idea what it should be about. Like: two people love each other, they can't get together, they commit suicide.

I call that an idea, but if it helps to kill your resistance, then you can call it a plot. Just put two characters into it and write a scene. You do not know how to start the drama? Well, write the end scene. How do they commit suicide? Or take a scene in the middle. How the best friend of the protagonist tells her that the guy she loves is not good for her, because ... up to you.

If that's, what you have already tried, then you should explain, what you did when you "started many times" and why you "couldn't go any long". Maybe our help can be more specific.