Almost never I can just sit down and write. The act of writing is only the execution of a long story-building process.
It all starts with a motive; an idea or a theme, or just a sentence that sounds cool. My motives can come from books, pictures, newspapers, movies. I can find them at work or in the street. Mostly I don't even have to search for them.

Once one of these little bastards has dug its claws into my mind, I start to construct a rather rough story layout. By and by, more details are added to this frame.( Better make sure you have a notebook at hand during this phase; afflatus doesn't care about time of day. )

I usually work with lists (mostly actually collections of passages): the upgraded frame becomes the story list. It contains the story's keywords, chapter titles, phrases, short passages and so on, in the order in which they will appear in the final narration.

If needed, a timeline list is created, too. Here, the mentioned elements are arranged in their chronological succession. The timeline , of course, is only used if the story works with flashbacks or similar.

Of immense importance are character cards. All main characters get one. Here are their attributes and peculiarities listed. It begins with aspects like the colour of hair and eyes, their height or what country they come from. Then it goes deeper: likings, fears, abilities - whatever I need to get (and give) a feeling for the characters.

Last but not least, there is my collection of (semi-)synonyms. It is really helpful when writing foreign-language. An example:



female
girl
lass
damsel
vixen
harlot
...
...
...



As you can see, these are not all real synonyms but nuances of the term "female". This collection enables me to narrate variedly and to create the desired atmosphere.



That's it - the rest is brilliancy.