Trading, despite what many would like to believe, is more of an art than a science.

There is no secret formula, no guaranteed get-rich quick scheme that will always work for everyone, and nothing that will work forever (because if it's that good, others will find it, exploit it, and the opportunity disappears).

What this means is that there are many, many ways to make money in the markets. And the best way for you to make money in the markets, is to figure out a system that fits you.

Everyone is different. Some people have a low appetite for risk. Some have small amounts of money to start with. Others have big bankrolls. Some want to trade options, others prefer bonds, some people just want to stick with stocks.

The point is, the trading world is diverse, and the best way to be successful in it is to know what you like, and make your trading system match it.

One of the hardest things in the world to face is a blank piece of paper.

Most of us are very good at critiquing something we are presented with:

• Show me a video clip, and I can tell you what I like and dislike about it
• Point me to an op-ed, and I can tell you why I agree or disagree with the author
• Present me with a plate of food, and I can tell you if I find it delicious or disastrous

But many of us, myself included, freeze up if we're given complete freedom to create something from scratch.

Trading systems are no different. That's why I think the best first step to system development is learning about what is already out there in print.

The very first book you should read is Van Tharp's "Trade your way to Financial Freedom," because this book iterates through many different systems of many different people.

Van Tharp walks you through each with enough detail to really find out which ideas spark your curiosity, and which ideas you think are just plain crazy. (For me,Fibonacci retracements fall into the latter category).

Next up are the famous Market Wizards books, compiled by Jack Schwager. The traders he profiles are proven, and they vary widely in their approaches -- yet another piece of evidence that there are many, many ways to make money in the markets. The traders range from trend followers you run their systems in the morning, and are essentially free for the rest of their day, to traders who have monitors and televisions set up in every single room, including the bathroom, so that they never miss a tick.

Finally, because system development is a deeply personal exercise, I think it is invaluable to pick up a book on trading psychology. "Trading in the Zone" is probably my favorite book in this category.

You can find many commercially available systems for purchase in order to backtest your system. One of the most popular ones that makes system development very easy is Tradestation. But tradestation is not cheap: for non-professionals, it runs from $100 a month as a brokerage customer to $250 a month if you include live marketdata and historical data. Another alternative for system development is Ninjatrader, which offers both free and subscription-based services, which start at $50 a month.

However, if you are just starting out, and your system is a stock trading system, there is a wonderful free resource I recommend you leverage instead: Tradery.

Tradery is a free, easy-to-use website where you can develop your own trading system and share it with a large community of trading system developers. They provide a simple language you can program your system with, that is very easy to pick up if you already have some basic programming skills. They provide full and thorough documentation of the language that is very useful.

Tradery also allows you to elect to make your system either public, or private. Since many users make their systems public, you can not only run their systems yourself, but read their code and see how they put it together. This is incredibly useful as you will learn so much by seeing how other successful developers created their trading systems. Think about how you first learned HTML. If you're anything like me, you learned your best tips and tricks by viewing the source of webpages you liked. It is equally, if not more powerful to be able to read the code of other traders and system developers.