I used to totally have this problem. Okay, so let me explain. The writing process is a delicate one. The genre should be the first thing to be established. Then the possible characters and possible scenarios. Imagine various scenes in your mind. Experiment over and over again until you get it right. It took me at LEAST fifteen tries to get my second book I ever wrote good enough where I was happy with it. But it took around seven years, give or take a couple months. You have to be patient with yourself and give yourself lots of time, room for improvement, and it's good that you're asking for advice because every writer - even professional ones - have room for improvement. Just write your heart out as long as you can until the imagination runs out. There are going to be a lot of errors, probably, punctually or otherwise. But afterwards and after a break or two - maybe a couple days - re-read it. Fix the errors and make sure it makes sense. Sometimes in order to make writing believable you have to write about ordinary things. Writing a story is like connecting the dots or putting together a puzzle - your puzzle. Your dots. But if two pieces of the puzzle don't fit, cut out the part that doesn't fit and use the rest. Always keep generating ideas. That's always important. But try not to go overboard with it because even though that is the fun part, restraint and knowing when to cut loose is one of the best quality of writers. You may not be able to get from point A to point B. . . yet. But maybe you can go from point A.05 and work your way up to A 1 and half.
For example: "John Doe woke up early on a Monday morning and groggily made his coffee. His face still sagging and dark circles under his eyes, he sipped the coffee, not minding it without sugar or coffee. . . again. 'Time to take the kids to works again', he thinks to himself and 'I still gotta go to work'. It was a typical Monday and well, he was not exactly a morning person. John Doe looks up at the clock. Five forty one it reads. Strangely, the last time John Doe looked at the clock it was also the same exact time. Thinking nothing of it, he goes to the kids' rooms to check to see if they are awake. John Doe opens one of the doors down the hallway only to realize something is off. The door where the kids' room should have been was actually no more than a custodian's room complete with sanitizers, mops, and containers bleach. Odd. The coffee mug slips out of his hand. He doesn't even react to the ear-splitting sound of the porcelain making contact with the floors. 'Good evening, Mr. Doe', a man in a surgeon's uniform says to him. 'I'm not Mr. Doe.', John Doe says slowly."
Is this the most creative story ever? No. Does it have errors? Yes. But I kind of came up with it just now and I'll tell you why. Think of each sentence as a stepping stone. Keep feeding little bits of information but withholding just enough to keep a reader interested until you reveal the answer to the last question. By then, you have already come up with another question that the reader has to consider until you've written an entire book. Now in an entire novel, one chapter is Point A. Chapter two is point B. Little by little, the character interacts and reacts with his/her environment like a sim. Almost like you are a photographer or journalist documenting every step of the way. As a writer, you're not always expressing your understanding of what is happening but if something can go wrong in a story, make it go wrong. Did you notice how quickly I set up a conflict in the plot? With more conflict, you have more to work with. Like throwing trash all over the ground and coming up with new ways to clean it up. Your reader is with you on it but you have to be in on the secret too of what you're planning and setting up for them. But that's part of the fun. So when this John Doe is drinking his coffee, I didn't say he was in a hospital. But then again, a reader should be able to determine by now that a unicorn isn't going to pop out of the closet. I could do a lot of things with that short paragraph alone: maybe John Doe is dreaming. Maybe John Doe has high anxiety levels. Maybe he time-traveled. Maybe he's in a nursing home. Maybe he's seeing things. I don't know. But as a writer, you have to be able to choose the best next thing to happen and continue on with it both imaginatively and logically. But you couldn't just pick all of them. I couldn't say he's a robot who lost his kids to a bet with Medusa. It's too random and the reader can't expect anything to happen. Really, it's a matter of what you want in a sty. Remember too that in the middle of the big, awesome scenes are going to sleep and eating and going about daily lives and having normal conversations and always have something for the reader to chew on and relate to. A little food for thought. I hope this is helpful. If not, I apologise.
