Think about the order of your paper and which points you want to cover first, second and third. Use more paragraphs if you have more points to cover.
Write the introductory paragraph for your essay, saving the final sentence as your thesis statement.
Use words to write your thesis statement that tells what your paper will be about in the order in which the sections come. For example, if your paper is about racial tensions after the Civil War in "Gone With the Wind" by Margaret Mitchell, your thesis statement might read: "'Gone With the Wind' by Margaret Mitchell deals with changing racial relationships before, during and after the Civil War." Then, your paper will be set up to deal with 1) the time before the Civil War in the first one to two paragraphs of the body of the paper; 2) the actual war in the next one to two paragraphs; and 3) the time after the war in the next one to two paragraphs.
Restate the points of your thesis statement in your conclusion paragraph by using those same points to draw conclusions about the topic.