Writing a book is a complicated process and figuring out where to start can be confusing, especially for new authors.

Some writers start with character.

Some writers start with a theme.

Filmmaker and painter David Lynch starts with transcendental meditation!

In this episode of The Writing Coach, I describe the perfect way to begin developing a story and exactly where you should start.

Listen to the episode or read the transcript below:

The Writing Coach Episode #138 Show Notes

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The Writing Coach Episode #138 Transcript

Hello, beloved listeners and welcome back to The Writing Coach podcast. It is your host as always writing coach Kevin T Johns here.

One of the questions I get asked when I’m doing interviews about my novels and books is the question, where do you start? Where does the idea for a book begin? And there are a lot of different ways that a book can begin, and a lot of different writers come at it in different ways. I think for some writers, you start with an idea of a certain moment. There’s just this scene or this set piece that you have in your mind, or that you’re basing on something you’ve read in the past or seen. And then you kind of build a story around that little moment. Something I haven’t seen as much of in the clients that I work with—but that might just be because I largely work with action-type stories—is starting with character.

But I think in literary fiction, we often start with characters. Look at Mrs. Dalloway, the book is named Mrs. Dalloway, certainly starting with character is probably where Virginia Wolf started when she wrote the original, short story, Mrs. Dalloway, which ended up becoming the masterpiece novel. Another place that some people start is the concept of theme. There is some sort of thing going on in the world. That’s making you upset, or there’s some sort of message that you want to share with people. And that can be a starting point. You say, “I want to tell a story about friendship,” you know, and some theme as simple as that can be a great place to start stories.

Now, one of the reasons I had this topic of starting places in my mind is because my daughter, she’s in grade seven, and in her English class, they did a really cool project. The kids were asked to read two graphic novels. Then they were asked to create a Venn diagram, demonstrating what the two graphic novels had in common and what was different. You understand how a Venn diagram works, I’m sure. Then the teacher assigned them to take those things that cross over in the Venn diagram and write their own comic book or graphic novel based on these ideas, which I thought was a really interesting starting point to tell your own story, take a look at two things you really enjoy and maybe two things that are similar or maybe two things that are very different,