Writing.Com General Discussion

I don't know if this is the right place to post this question - I am still a newbie with this site. I am currently working with a few story ideas - many of which have been on the back burner for quite a while. A few of them are from when I took writing courses in college, but I never really had the time to dive in and work on them. I have so much passion and in depth design and just recently made the decision to spend a portion of my evenings with them. Here are the first few I have in mind...


- A fantasy tale along the style of Lord of the Rings (probably the best way to put that!), Game of Throne, and classic AD&D
- A story about a spoiled teen who finds that he is schizophrenic and his entire life is a delusion
- A zombie apocalypse - this one will either be fantasy or more realistically based, not sure yet
- A story about a teen who has a alcoholic father who leaves him on the side of a highway at night and he has to find his way home
- A high school teen with mental illness that is bullied every day and the story is about his daily struggle with life

My initial plan for undertaking the first storyline of the above list is to do some in-depth research on medieval government, religion, architecture, and agriculture, then being mapping out the world around the story. Then I would begin character creation. A very good friend of mine suggested that, instead of following this path, to create characters, storyboard the plot, and then do underlying research.

Anyway, the reason I am posting this is because I am very curious and very interested in hearing how everyone on this webpage goes about building/creating a story and then executes the writing process. Any help is appreciated! Thank you so much!