How to plan a piece of creative writing

Writing creative texts like novels appears to be mostly about imagination, but the reality is that you also need to be organised to accomplish your goals. Of course, there’s no single formula for successful writing but there is some advice on how make a start. 

•  Develop an outline – select a time and setting and plan the main plot events as well as creating your principal characters before you start writing properly. This may change as you go along but it will definitely help you get started. 
• Identify themes – what are the main themes of your writing going to be? Ask yourself this question as you sketch your outline and your ideas take shape but don’t over think the content, the details will develop as you actually write. 
• Know your audience – consider who you are writing for before you write much as this could change the format you select and the style you choose to write in. 
• Select a format – when you’ve identified your main themes and ideas decide on the best format to present them in. Whether you’re writing a novel or short story, poem or blog post will influence the way you write. 
• Create characters – start to make character profiles with basic information about all aspects of the person to help you imagine their actions, responses and how they will fit into the piece. 
• Start anywhere – get writing on what seems interesting to you, it doesn’t matter if it’s the beginning or not. It’s easy to get stuck if you wait for the whole piece to become clear in your mind so write in chunks and fit them together as you go along. 
• Set goals – as you plan the text set yourself some goals to keep you on track. Writing takes discipline and setting yourself targets to accomplish will help you stay motivated enough to actually complete your work. 

Creative writing is a lot about having the discipline to actually write something. Often the hardest part is beginning and once you have some pieces of text, you can edit, improve and adapt to fit your objective or assignment.