Being from a construction background, my analogy of writing a book or some prose, would have to be where one wants to dig a foundation trench or hole.

Firstly, we need to decide where to start digging.

Meaning, what is the story going to be about. We have a good idea what the ground should be down there, and what or who our characters are, but we really won't know until we start digging,

So, off we go.

Pick and shovel in hand along with a whole load of enthusiasm. The first few shovels out of the hole are easy. Nothing is there that we did not expect, as our plan is already made. However, we might break the pick or our enthusiasm, or even find we are digging in the wrong place, but seeing as we have found all we expected and both digger and tools are still in working order, let's continue down.

Each hard-fought shovel of ground that one brings out, will show us whether the ground will hold up a foundation. Yes, we may have found a nugget of gold which is always a bonus but if there is not enough consistency in the ground then that nugget will be wasted on repairing the hole we are digging.

The deeper we go we need to make sure that the hole will not collapse because of weak stones such as chalk that will just crumble and give way.

So the characters need to start having strength and depth, to hold up the whole story. It does not matter what sort of clay that binds the stone is in the ground as long as it is strong enough to hold the foundation hole together.

There is no such thing as half a hole.

There is a small hole, and that’s ok if it needs to be only a small foundation for a shallow story.  It's up to the digger how deep one needs to go, but awareness of the ground makeup is key to putting a good story on it.

Hole or Whole, how many stories any building has, is up to you.

Talk again soon,

Best regards from AngJon