Regardless of the genre I am writing, I start thinking about the setting and story structure well before I think about the characters. I'll always jot down a brief outline of what generally happens, but on one-shot erotica pieces that tends to not be substantial. I don't do full character sheets for short pieces, and instead opting to just write a few lines about them instead; if the story is only going to be a few pages, I do not believe a full character sheet would add enough, if any, to justify the time spent.

For a longer length story I plan to start writing during National Novel Writing Month (or whatever it is called), I am doing extensive outlining, character sheets, and world building. While characters are what make a story work, it is easier to design them once the world that they live in feels more 'real'.

Stories only a few pages in length, like those in my Bad End series, I can knock out in about 5 hours total, including editing. I've only been writing fiction since the beginning of the year, and I'm proud of my progress. but I probably have to keep an eye towards higher quality and longer length if I am going to ever make money writing (which is something I hope to do someday, but I know how unlikely that is).

In summary, I put my stories together by developing the world and setting, then the characters, then the words themselves.