# How to Start a Book: From Idea to First Chapter - Feldar > How to start a book: choose the idea, plan on one page, write the first chapter and keep a writing habit, shown on Frankenstein, with a free template. - URL: https://feldar.com/guides/how-to-start-a-book - Site: [Home](https://feldar.com/) · [About](https://feldar.com/about) · [Blog](https://feldar.com/blog) · [Careers](https://feldar.com/careers) · [Pricing](https://feldar.com/pricing) · [Download](https://feldar.com/download) · [Changelog](https://feldar.com/changelog) - Machine index: [llms.txt](https://feldar.com/llms.txt) · [full site content](https://feldar.com/llms-full.txt) --- On this page - The short answer - A book, not just an opening - 1. Choose the idea - 2. Write a one-page plan - 3. Set up the habit - 4. Write the first chapter - 5. Keep going - Worked example - Start-your-book template - Common mistakes - Starting a book in Feldar - Sources - Questions Updated November 10, 2026 · By the Feldar team ### How to start a book: from idea to first chapter 9 min read How to choose the idea, plan on one page, write the first chapter and keep writing past the first month, shown on how Mary Shelley started Frankenstein, with a template to download. #### The short answer - Pick the idea you keep coming back to, and test it: a person, a want, an obstacle, a cost. - Write a one-page plan: the premise, the main character, a few turns, a direction for the ending. - Decide when, where and how much you will write before you write a word. - Write the first chapter fast. Start with the scene you can see most clearly, even if it isn't the first. - Keep going for thirty days without rewriting chapter one. Notes go on a fix-later list. #### A book, not just an opening Starting a book and starting a story are different problems. How to start a story is about the page: the first line, the first scene, what to cut. We cover that in [how to start a story](https://feldar.com/guides/how-to-start-a-story). This guide is about the project: getting from "I want to write a book" to a first chapter on the page and a habit that will carry you to the second, the tenth and the last. Most books that never get written fail here, before the writing is ever good or bad. The idea stays an idea, the plan grows for a year, or the first chapter gets rewritten until the writer gives up. Each step below is built to get you past one of those stalls. #### 1. Choose the idea You probably have more than one idea. Pick the one you keep thinking about when you are supposed to be thinking about something else. That pull is what you will need in month four. Then check it can carry a book, not just a scene: A personSomeone at the centre whose choices drive things. A place or a concept alone isn't enough yet. A wantSomething they chase that we can see from outside, and that takes a whole book to get or lose. RoomCan you name five things that could go wrong along the way? If you run out at two, it may be a short story. A shelfWhich books would sit next to yours in a shop? Knowing the genre tells you the length and what readers expect. If two ideas pass, write each as a two-sentence premise and read them a day later. Pick the one you'd be sorrier never to write. The other isn't lost; keep it in a file. Stuck for an idea at all? Our free [plot generator](https://feldar.com/tools/plot-generator) and [writing prompts](https://feldar.com/tools/writing-prompts) give you something to push against. #### 2. Write a one-page plan A plan for starting is not an outline of the whole book. It is one page you can write in an evening, that tells you enough to begin and where you are heading. Planners will grow it later into a full [outline](https://feldar.com/guides/how-to-outline-a-novel); discovery writers may never need more. The book A working title, the genre, a target length and a two-sentence premise. The person Who they are when we meet them, what they want, and what is in the way. The direction Three or four turns you can already see, and a guess at the ending. Then write one more line: the first scene. Not the first line of the book, just where chapter one happens and what goes wrong in it. That line is what you sit down to on day one. #### 3. Set up the habit before day one A book gets written in sessions, so decide the sessions in advance. Writers who wait for a free afternoon rarely find one. Settle three things: - When. A fixed time, even twenty minutes, on fixed days. Before work, at lunch, after the children are in bed. - Where. The same chair and the same file, so starting takes no decision. - How much. A small number you can hit on a bad day, by words or by minutes. Go over it when you can; never skip it because you can't. Small numbers add up faster than they seem. Chapters in the classics we counted average about 2,000 to 6,000 words, so 3,000 is a fair target for a first chapter. Here is how long a 3,000 word chapter takes, writing five days a week: Words a session Sessions to 3,000 Roughly 20015Three weeks 30010Two weeks 5006A week and a day 1,0003Three days Keep a simple log: the date and the words. Our free [word counter](https://feldar.com/tools/word-counter) will count a session for you if your editor doesn't. #### 4. Write the first chapter The first chapter has to meet the main character, show the world they live in, and break something in it, or at least crack it. In a first draft, that is all it has to do. It doesn't have to be good. It has to exist so you can write chapter two. Start where you can seeIf one scene is vivid and the opening isn't, write that scene first. Mary Shelley did; see the worked example. Write it in a week or twoSet a finish date. A first chapter that takes three months usually means it is being polished, not written. End on a pullStop the chapter on a question or a change, so you, as much as the reader, want chapter two. Leave it aloneDon't rewrite it until the draft is done. You'll know far more about the book's opening then. For the craft of the opening page itself (in scene, voice, question or change, and what to cut), see [how to start a story](https://feldar.com/guides/how-to-start-a-story). #### 5. Keep going past the first month The excitement of starting lasts a few weeks. What carries you after that is the habit and a few rules that stop you from going backwards: - Stop each session mid-scene, with a note of what happens next. The next session starts itself. - Reread only the last page before you start. Rereading chapter one is how restarts begin. - Keep a fix-later list. Change your mind about a name or a twist, write it on the list, and carry on as if it were already fixed. - When you miss a session, do the next one. Don't make it up with a double session that you dread. - When a shinier idea arrives, give it a page in your ideas file and go back to the book. By the end of the first month you should have a plan, a first chapter and a second under way. That is a book started. Our guide on [how to write a book](https://feldar.com/guides/how-to-write-a-book) takes it from there to a finished, revised draft. #### Worked example: how Frankenstein was started Mary Shelley told the story of how she started Frankenstein in her introduction to the 1831 edition. It is one of the best accounts we have of a book being started, and nearly every step above is in it. The promptIn the wet summer of 1816, near Geneva, Lord Byron proposed: "We will each write a ghost story." Shelley was eighteen. No idea yetFor days she had nothing. "Have you thought of a story?" she was asked each morning, and each morning the answer was no. The materialShe listened to Byron and Percy Shelley talk about experiments with galvanism and whether a corpse could be brought back to life. "Invention," she wrote, "does not consist in creating out of void, but out of chaos." The scene she could seeThat night, half asleep, she saw "the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the thing he had put together." Day oneThe next day she began with the words "It was on a dreary night of November." That sentence opens what became chapter five, not chapter one. The scope grewShe planned "a few pages," a short tale. Percy Shelley urged her to develop it at greater length. The finishShe finished the novel the next year, and it was published anonymously in three volumes on 1 January 1818. ##### What to take from it The idea came from material she had gathered, not from nothing. She started with the scene she could see most clearly and built the book around it, so the first words she wrote ended up in chapter five. Someone asked her every morning whether she had a story, which is accountability by another name. And she let the project grow from a few pages to a novel once she knew it could carry the weight. Here is our reconstruction of the one-page plan that start implies, filled in from the finished book: One-page plan · our reconstruction ###### Frankenstein PremiseA young student discovers how to give life to a body he has built, and flees from what he made. Abandoned, the creature turns on everyone Victor loves. PersonVictor Frankenstein, ambitious and secretive, who wants to master the principle of life. In the wayHis own creation, and his refusal to take responsibility for it. TurnsThe creature wakes. A murder at home. The creature asks for a companion. Victor destroys her. EndingCreator and creature pursue each other into the Arctic ice. First sceneA dreary night of November: the creature opens its eyes. #### Free start-your-book template The idea test, the one-page plan, your writing habit and a thirty-day log, on one page. Copy it into whatever you write in, or download it as a Markdown file that opens in Word, Google Docs or Feldar. THE IDEA Premise (two sentences): Who is at the centre, and what do they want: Five things that could go wrong: THE HABIT When I write: Where I write: My minimum per session: Copy template [Download .md](https://feldar.com/assets/templates/start-your-book-template.md) #### Common mistakes when starting a book - Waiting for the perfect idea instead of testing the one you have. - Planning, worldbuilding or researching for months as a way of not starting. - Opening with a prologue of history before anyone is on the page. - Setting a daily target you can only meet on your best day. - Rewriting chapter one until it is perfect, and never reaching chapter two. - Telling everyone about the book in detail before it is written, and spending the excitement. #### Starting a book in Feldar In Feldar a book is a project in your Library, and each page has an [Outline](https://feldar.com/features/scenes) of scenes beside it. Type your first chapter's scenes yourself, or describe the next beats and let Generate scenes propose some to edit. Keep the people and places from your plan as cards on the [Canvas](https://feldar.com/features/canvas). The words you write stay yours; anything Feldar suggests arrives in blue and stays only if you accept it. The Starter plan is free, with 500 credits and no credit card. That is the point of [novel writing software](https://feldar.com/novel-writing-software) like Feldar: the plan, the cast and the first chapter sit in one project. Scenes CHAPTER 5 - 1 A dreary night of November The creature opens its eyes. Victor runs. - 2 The bed curtain He wakes to find it watching him. Draft Page #### Sources All checked November 8, 2026. Shelley's accountIntroduction to the 1831 edition, [Project Gutenberg eBook #42324](https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/42324); quotations from this text Dates[Shelley-Godwin Archive, Frankenstein chronology](https://shelleygodwinarchive.org/contents/frankenstein/frankenstein-chronology/) Chapter lengthsCounted by us with the rules of our [word counter](https://feldar.com/tools/word-counter); Pride and Prejudice averages about 2,000 words a chapter, Dracula about 6,000; method in [how many words are in a novel](https://feldar.com/guides/how-many-words-in-a-novel#method) #### Questions How do I start writing a book? Choose the idea you keep returning to and test that it has a person, a want and room for things to go wrong. Write a one-page plan, fix when and how much you will write, then write the first chapter quickly and keep going for a month without rewriting it. How do I start a book with no experience? The same way as everyone else: with a small, regular habit and a first draft you allow to be rough. Read widely in the genre you want to write, and treat the first book as the place where you learn. Revision is where most of the craft is learned. Do I need an outline before I start? No. You need enough to know where chapter one happens and roughly where the book is heading, which fits on one page. Some writers then outline every scene; others discover the rest as they write. Both finish books. How many words a day should I write? A number you can keep on a bad day. For many people that is 200 to 500 words, or a fixed number of minutes. Regular sessions matter more than big ones: 300 words five days a week is a 3,000 word chapter every two weeks. Do I have to write chapter one first? No. Many writers start with the scene they can see most clearly. Mary Shelley's first written words, "It was on a dreary night of November," open what became chapter five of Frankenstein. How long should the first chapter be? There is no rule. Chapters in the classics we counted average from about 2,000 words in Pride and Prejudice to about 6,000 in Dracula. Around 3,000 words is a fine target for a first draft; you'll adjust it in revision. What if I lose motivation after a few weeks? Expect it; the early excitement always fades. Lower the daily minimum rather than stopping, stop sessions mid-scene so the next one is easy to start, and don't reread the whole draft. Putting your sessions in a calendar helps more than waiting to feel like it. #### Keep reading [Guide How to start a story Four openings that work, and what to cut from a first page.](https://feldar.com/guides/how-to-start-a-story) [Guide How to write a book Nine steps from first idea to a revised draft.](https://feldar.com/guides/how-to-write-a-book) [Guide How to outline a novel A worked example, scene by scene, and a free template.](https://feldar.com/guides/how-to-outline-a-novel) [Free tool Plot generator Premises with a character who wants something, a complication and a cost.](https://feldar.com/tools/plot-generator) [Free tool Book title generator A working title to put on the first page of the plan.](https://feldar.com/tools/book-title-generator) [Guides All guides Every Feldar guide to starting, planning, writing and publishing a book.](https://feldar.com/guides)