Before everything else consider what you want for the players in this game.What are the most important elements? Game design refers to pillars which may be more formal than what you need, but take some time to consider what excites you about making this idea happen. My gay selkie IF game design pillars could include "provide cosy comfort through the tension", "depict intense, nuanced romantic connections", and "enable there to be kickass moments for the player character".

These may shift as you discover more about your game but doing this will help you understand what matters to you and what you want from the game. It will also be something you can refer to when making decisions.

Then consider the roughest of broad strokes for an initial outline: overall vibes, general concepts, bullet points about potential plot points. Your pillars and the thoughts you've already considered will likely have sparked off some ideas already.

The nice thing about starting very generally is that it's harder to get perfectionistic about it. You can translate some of what's going around your head into something more concrete without needing to pin everything down at once.

Then you can get more detailed. Characters, the player character's role in more depth and what the player will be doing, more plot details. There will probably be points where you get tangled up! When that happens, it's a good time to speak to a friend about it or take a quick break to clear the air and come back fresh.

At some point, and there is no real science for this, you will feel ready. It will be intimidating to start, so I recommend making a bullet-point or flowchart outline of the first scene you write before you start (which does not have to be the first scene the player sees) so that it tricks your brain into thinking you're already writing. Because... you already are!

Some writers code first and then fill in the writing. Some do both at once. You will not know which suits you best until you try, so try both or a combination. You might change from project to project. Regardless, it's vital to test as you go - both to check for bugs and that things are working as intended, but also to see how the story feels to play.

It will not be long before your outline turns into something much larger.

And if you aren't sure about what you're doing, or even if you're not, share it with someone you trust if you possibly can. Olivia Wood of Possibility Space and formerly of Failbetter Games has an excellent talk from VideoBrains called Show People Things Before They Are Ready and, friend, it changed my world.

Now for the motivational part:

Yes, your draft could be bad. First drafts are always awful on some level. My gay selkie IF was full of cliches when I first started writing and I cringed all the way through those first bits. Have you ever seen a seal cringe itself right out of a bathtub? It's quite the sight. Let go of the mean editor in your head: swat them with a rolled-up newspaper. They're not the boss of you!

Yes, writing your game might be hard or frustrating. But it will also be something new in the world that did not exist before. You're a combination magician-gardener-craftsperson turning something imaginary into something real.

If you are thinking about your story a lot and it's rattling around in your head, it must mean something to you.

Maybe it will mean something to someone else one day, but right now: this seed of an idea has potential, and it's important to you. You can do it.