Honestly, I have no idea most of the time. Most of my ideas just pop into my mind, sometimes tangentially based on something I was doing or reading or listening to at the time. Often I find a gap in the canon where I could conceivably fit something interesting and just work from there (19-5 BBY is the setting of a lot of my ideas, for example). I don’t really go for common tropes, but I know that plenty of people can pick a trope they find intriguing and figure out a story around that premise. I also find that reading outside your normal genre can be a huge source of inspiration; as you may have guessed, I both read and write a lot of sci-fi, so when I get stuck in a bit of a hole I like to go for something fantasy or non-fiction. 

Other than that, I would definitely recommend that you write down every idea you have, however simple or small. Most of mine are very vague and need a whole lot of development before I could even think about going through with them, and I always feel silly writing them down, but it does help. When it comes to actually developing the story, it helps me to map out exactly where I want certain things to go (others I will leave open) and I find that seeing it laid out like that often gives me inspiration for the next bits. But, of course, everyone works in their own way. 

Hope that helps!

~ Jacen

I mean, there are so many different ways to go with any character. Personally, I draw a lot on canon examples like TCW to get a feel of how certain groups tend to react to such situations. I can certainly help you out with the details of the war itself, and possibly even some specific things about your characters, depending, but I can’t claim to know a lot of things about writing a character in the middle of a war in general. However, depending on the sorts of things you’re hoping to explore, you may find @transcriptroopers, @scriptmedic, or @scripttraumasurvivors useful. I hope you find what you’re looking for!

~ Jacen

I’m a bit haphazard with my writing and I do have a tendency to do this, but what I do is I leave a bunch of underscores in place of a word or phrase if I can’t remember or find it relatively quickly. Then, when I go to edit, I can put more time into either researching and finding the term I need, or making one up to fit. This especially helps me get through technical scenes, like if I have someone piloting a starfighter or hacking into a computer, because I do often get lost in the details and spend a long time thinking through how to describe the scene instead of actually writing. It mainly just helps to remember to treat the first draft as a first draft, and skip over parts that aren’t working just yet. 

~ Jacen