Free download · 40 pages
How to Start Your Story
A guided workbook for the book you haven't started yet. One honest question at a time, it helps you get the shape of your story out of your head and onto the page: the feeling behind it, the person carrying it, the world it lives in, and the first page that begins it.
What's inside
Every chapter includes a worked example, so you can see the questions answered before you answer them yourself. All the examples follow the same imaginary book, so by the end you'll have watched an entire story get built from a single feeling, page by page.
Let's get you started
Why this story, why now, and the honest reason that carries you through the middle.
Your main character
Want, need and a real flaw, plus the small specific details that make a person feel alive.
Build your own world
Where and when your story lives, and the rules that hold it together.
Magic, technology or systems
How your system bends reality, what it costs, and where its limits sit.
Who else is on this journey?
The supporting cast, the secrets they keep and what they'd cost your character to lose.
What is this story about?
The emotional wound underneath the plot, and the theme you keep circling.
The shape of your story
Inciting incident, midpoint, climax and where you leave your character.
Dialogue that sounds real
How your characters speak, joke, deflect and stay silent.
Genre and the promises you're making
What your reader expects, and how to keep the promise your first page makes.
Your opening page
How to begin, and the clichés worth consciously avoiding.
Bring it together
Your logline, comparable titles and a one paragraph pitch.
Making it real
A gentle checklist for the habits that actually get a book written.
Why I made it
A few years ago I started writing my own book and found myself scattered across five apps just to keep track of my characters, my world and the manuscript. So I built the tool I actually needed. This workbook is the small, paper version of that same idea. It won't write your book for you, but it will help you start. No book idea is stupid: not the one that feels too big, not the one you're embarrassed to say out loud yet.
— Rachel, founder of Myra Create
Common questions
- Is the workbook really free?
- Yes. Download it here as a PDF, no payment needed. It is also waiting on your dashboard when you create a free Myra Create account.
- Who is this workbook for?
- Anyone with a book idea they haven't started yet: first time novelists, returning writers, and planners who want the shape of the story on paper before drafting.
- Can I print it?
- Yes. It is designed as a printable A4 style workbook with note space on every chapter, so you can fill it in by hand or type into the PDF.
- What happens after I finish it?
- Move your answers into Myra Create: characters and world into The Attic, loose ideas onto The Nook brainstorm board, and start drafting in The Study. Every new account gets 30 days of everything free, no card needed.
Start writing free in Myra Create
Also see: character profile template, story planner, world building tool