Before you actually start writing your story, I suggest you plan it first. The first steps of planning are simple: 

1. Make a title ✔️

2. Make a cover ✔️

3. Make a summary ✔️

4. Create your OC(s) ✔️

5. Think of a love interest maybe (I failed on this step, took me a whole ass year to decide, I'm sorry everyone 😭) ✔️

6. Now... you gotta plan the plot. That's the hard part. 

PLANNING YOUR BOOK:

You should know how to start it, how to end it, and some major points in-between them. There are many methods of planning, but I'll show you how I do it (mainly because I don't know any other way lol)

I'll use my story as an example: Eudaimonia

Here's my story plan: 

(I put all my notes in an unpublished book in Quotev, I don't know why I don't put in Wattpad, but whatever)

So as you can see, I plan my books in a timeline format. I even have a key at the top that tells me which one's a Harry Potter plot point (bold) and which one is from PJO (italics). The ones in regular font is a plot point entirely made by me. 

Most of the things you see there are just... somewhat major-ish plot points. My plan's pretty detailed but that's because I go online to look at timeline's so I know which event happens and in which order. I just put those events into my story plan and add in whatever I want. 

I just need to look at my story plan and go "Oh, chapter one should be about the Quidditch World Cup", then when I make the chapter, I center it around the Quidditch World Cup and fill in all the little plot points that come with it. 

Please you guys, I gave you the advice about going online to look at timelines, pleeeaaasssseee use them. They are VERY useful. Timelines give us every plot point that happens in the books, they pretty much summarize what happens in every chapter so you don't have to reread the books every single damn time because you couldn't remember shit like "hey did the Beauxbatons and Durmstrang students come before Moody started teaching about the Imperius Curse or was that after??"

Most of us forget small plot points that actually happen in the book. This is why using timelines are important because, like I said, it summarizes everything that happens in each chapter. Utilize them so you don't end up being like: "Wait a second, Harry, Ron, and Hermione actually go to Hogsmeade to visit Sirius?? I forgot all about that! I could've written a scene of it with my OC!" 

So anyways, yes, look online for timelines so you can actually plan how your book goes. And then once you start writing, you can fill in all the little details that come between them. 

PLANNING YOUR CHAPTERS:

Now we can move on to planning chapters.

Hopefully, thanks to the plan you made for your whole book, you have a broad idea of how your chapters are gonna go, but it doesn't end there. You still have to plan for your chapters as well. 

When I start a chapter, I don't start writing it right away. I make my own mini plan for that chapter too and it looks like this: 

That way, when I start writing, I know what to do and what scenes to create. "Okay, for the start of my chapter I should have Sirius, Remus, and Essie discuss the Quidditch World Cup, then I should write about them actually going there." 

Once I'm done with the chapter, I can erase the notes, then go to my story plan and check off the bullet points: 

"Ah okay, Essie went to the Quidditch World Cup and she met the Rosiers. I can check those off now. What's the next bullet point? Oh the Death Eaters attacking. Then my next chapter should be centered around the attack!" 

Writing your story's gonna be a lot easier if you plan it, so make sure you do so rather then just... going with the flow. You'll end up with a lot of road blocks and you have a pretty high chance of missing out important events. 

Also, you should probably make your chapters... maybe 3000+ words??? I don't know if it's too much, but at least make it 1,000+ because anything less then that is just way too short. 

UPDATE SCHEDULE:

I had someone ask me to do a part about updating schedules, so here it is! 

First thing's first, you don't have to do an update schedule and you don't have to strictly follow it either. Sure your readers might complain about you "missing an update", but for something like this, it's okay to worry more about yourself rather then your readers. 

Having an update schedule could be stressful especially if you're running slow. If you have the tendency to get stressed, then I don't recommend you to make a schedule. Let yourself breathe. Update at your own pace. The good and nice readers would understand. 

I do have a piece of advice though, and it doesn't even matter if you're going to use an update schedule or not. I think this is helpful regardless of what you plan to do. 

Write your chapters beforehand. 

Let me explain what I mean: 

So before I started writing my PJO/HP books, I used to write a chapter and then publish it right away. Then I would give myself a few days off before writing the next chapter and publishing that one immediately too. But then I got bombarded with homework so I couldn't write for a few days. And then I got sick, so I still couldn't write. Then by the time all my homework, projects, and illnesses were done, I forgot what I was planning for the next chapter and got writer's block. Next thing I know, weeks have passed and I still haven't released a new chapter and now I'm just stressing out about that, and... yeah, you get the point. 

I think this is something a lot of people do, but in my opinion it could get really stressful (especially if you're trying to follow your own updating schedule). 

Don't publish your chapters right after you finish writing them! When I started writing Aletheia, I ended up procrastinating on publishing my chapters. I think it was when I started writing Chapter Thirty did I finally decide on publishing the foreword and Chapter One lol. 

I don't even know why I procrastinated, but it ended up benefiting me in the long run. Like, really benefiting me. I remember somewhere in the beginning of Aletheia, I originally wrote Essie reaching camp alone and being claimed right away. Around chapter eight or so, I realized I didn't like my original plan so I went back to the older chapters and completely changed them so Essie would travel with Basil and the Stolls, and that her being claimed would take several years rather than a few days. That wasn't the only thing that I majorly changed either, and I definitely would've confused my readers with how often I rewrote my chapters had I published them right away. 

So yeah, it was a really good thing I didn't publish them once I was done writing. 

(Btw, right now Eudaimonia has twenty four chapters published, but I'm currently writing the second chapter for the fifth book 😀)

Benefits to writing ahead include: 

- being able to go back and fix major or minor mistakes before your readers can see them

- less stress

- easier to follow an updating schedule (if you want to)

- more time to yourself 

And that's pretty much all I can think of for now...