How do I write? I wrote in High school and college. I fulfilled my teachers expectations. They told me what to write about, and how long it needed to be. Of course, they gave me a deadline.
After that, I was busy with work and home and life. I still thought about writing, but I read thick novels and I just couldn’t make my brain think about more than 5000 words like my school papers.
Years later, I got my first laptop. Soon afterward, a co worker was taking a lot about a book she was writing. A thought crossed my mind. . ….A novel is nothing more than a bunch of short stories on the same subject. Two years later, my first novel was in print and in my hand.
Selling? Not my forte. But I love to write. I now understand about a lot. That is for another day.
By my ninth book, another friend published a great sci-fi book with a nearly free publisher compared to the first eight.
It took a couple more to figure out my path.
First, I size the page. Then. I set the margins, headers, footer, page numbers.
Next I start with the prepages, including list of books, forward, dedication,and all. Then I write, chapter one..
If the story stalls, I edit the entire thing and by then I know if I lost a character and need to give them a chapter so the reader knows what they were up to and then I write another hundred pages or so before editing from the beginning again. One more time and a full edit. Recheck format. Select all and search for over used words, check character named to make certain the name doesn’t change spelling.
One more thing, keep the character’s character the same in all the books.