When writting a book where do you start?

[dbztoolkit]

well with me what I do is write down my idea plot of the story.
Ill come up with whats going to happen in the book it will be about 1 page long, if that.
This is all befor I come up with character names or even the name of the book.
Then after i get that done then i will send it to a writer or someone in the indy and see what they say about the book.
then i will put it into the script form.
Can you tell me the way you do it?

[Kep!]

i work in several ways. It usually begins with something pressing against the inside of my skull saying "HEY! Do something with me!" It might be a plot, a line of dialog or even just a character's name. Often it's a scene that I like too much to put away.

A recent graphic novel of mine (pending publication) began with a premise and quickly manifested an ending. The first act virtually wrote itself and the ending of the book was a piece of cake. this was a really rare event for me, I usually have something in the middle...but I have the endcaps, so the internals started to form based on those.

So, how do i do it? I have no idea, I just go with what I have and publish when its finished. It's kinda simple, really...no magic bullet.

[Finn]

I think I'm a lot like Kep, it usually always starts with an idea that's been banging around my head so long that I just have to get it out. If that's not the case, than it starts with some smart-ass comment I make that actually sounds like a good idea once I say it out loud. Usually my initial ideas become way better after I bounce them off a couple of people and listen to the echo. Just the other day, an artist (or illustrator, since we're all artists) I know was talking about 24-Hour Comics Day coming up. I told him I was thinking about doing a little story about various songwriters, such as Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash, etc. To which he responded it would have to be set in the past due to the death of everyone except Ol' Willie. "Of course," I joked, "you could just make the rest of them zombies." That one little, very goofy comment has changed, spiral, and been mutilated into a little something we'll be working on for the competition, and hopefully we'll get to see it published. (Actually, I'm just setting up the script for him to "memorize" and then he'll go to work on it.) So, I guess my advice would be that your first idea is never as good as your second. At least, that's how it is for me.

[Icaruss]

I usually start with a scene, or a concept and build around that. For example, in the project I'm working on now, I came up with an opening scene, which would start with a superhero being pointed with a gun in his head. Why is he being pointed the gun at? Who is he? How did they reach that place? Usually, I figure out the character the superhero is, and then build a story around him. Right now, he isn't even the main character.

And that's just how my mind works.