My advice is to start writing. Write small stories first, and learn how to put together a cohesive story. To have a good story, one needs to decide on how the story is to be structured... is it just a series of random events? Does the protagonist have an arc, where he or she begins with a flaw and learns how to overcome it? Does he or she grow in some way? become a better person?

Have a solid ending in mind when you start. Then, built towards that ending as you go. Try to avoid using "clever side stories" along the way that don't progress the story towards the ending.

Me, I like building an outline, as you would when writing a term paper or something. One of my favorite authors describes taking writing classes where he thought the professor was an idiot and the advice was not good advice. He wrote several things and submitted them to publishers, only to get shot down each time. To prove the professor wrong, he followed the advice exactly, and when that was submitted, it became his first published work.

He said that he uses a sentence that is essentially ,"the hero's goal is X, but cannot fulfill that goal because Y is standing in his way. He must do Z to defeat Y so that he can achieve X." Fill in the X Y and Z and you have your story.

When I write anything, I have the basic term paper format of Introduction, 3 sections of Main Body and Conclusion. That's five basic blocks of writing. In the 3 sections of Main Body, I break down each section the same way, with an introduction to the section, 3 areas of investigation or challenge, where questions or challenges are posed all relating to the same theme, and a conclusion to the section. Within each area of investigation, I have the challenge and research or data (or in fiction, actions taken) to resolve, refute or support the question or challenge.

This gives me a main story arc, with 3 main phases, and nine supporting challenges to overcome, with an introduction and conclusion at either end. Flesh out the first part with a good justification of why the hero needs to go on the story arc, with some character introduction and world building, and the last section is the "prep and execution of the resolution of the book." If you add in the idea of a Hero's Journey story arc and build around it, you can fill in the details as you go, and the story kind of writes itself.

/writing is pretty helpful. There's also ones for specific genres, like /scifiwriting and /fantasywriters. There's /writingprompts and /writinghub for beginner activities and making connections.

I suggest listening to author interviews! I like Martha Wells, Naomi Novik, Becky Chambers, Ryka Aoki and others. Some of the needy advice I've heard is write fanfiction, that way you can get feedback from an audience that's passionate about the topic and practice character voice (naomi novik) or read your whole book aloud to hear if it sounds right (Becky chambers)

Just start writing sections. Get things on paper/screen. Its a lot easier to remove something than try to add it later.

Flesh out scene descriptions, and what happens in each chapter.

Then fill in dialogue points you want to hit, then flesh out the writing around those.

Three main things- 1. Set a writing time each day. Same time every day you write. It will shortly become habit. 2. Just write your first draft. Don’t edit as you go, just get all the words out as they come. Your 2nd draft will be when you fix and organize what you’ve gotten down. 3. Stories go where they want to go. Start a story and just go with it. Once begun, you can think on the story at other times during the day, getting to know the characters and working out plot points.

Bird by Bird, Writing Down the Bones, The conflict Thesaurus a Writers guide to Obstacles, Big Magic Creative Living Beyond Fear, the Year you Write your novel, Marge Piercy So you want to Write.

Check out The Story Grid. It was developed by a developmental editor. There is a lot of helpful articles on the website. There is also a book you can buy and there is a podcast. My sister is writing a book right now. She has her first 20,000 words written and the story grid has been the most helpful thing for her. Also the podcast You Should Write a Book by Camille Pagán is really helpful for mindset advice and publishing questions. Camille is a published author of several books and a book coach. Also Fiction Writing Made Easy podcast by Savannah Gilbo is also helpful. Savannah’s website is also full of advice. She is a book coach and developmental editor.

Brandon Sanderson has a series of lectures on youtube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0cf-qdZ7GbA&list=PLSH_xM-KC3Zv-79sVZTTj-YA6IAqh8qeQ) about creative writing that may be helpful.

Go on r/WritingPrompts and take inspo, write based on your life, and just write, it doesn't have to be good, just write.

Hi there! This sub is for discussion around published literature and industry news. Your post would be more suitable to an r/writing related community which are dedicated to these sorts of topics. Thank you!