some thoughts on writer’s block
We’ve all been there. Covered in sweat and broken similes, staring up an unscalable slope as it steals across us that the task may prove impossible.
Soul-crushing Grecian allegories aside, it’s not a nice place to be. The frustration mounts — the word count fails to — and your family is starting to doubt your sanity because you’re pacing your house like a caged predator. I won’t claim to have the answer to a problem so intrinsic to the creative process it must predate the written word. But I do have some strategies that might be of interest to anyone who’s been sucked into a creative black hole.
1. Stop Trying
A tactic to be employed often, if never for too long. Sometimes your brain just needs a break. Athletes get the yips, why not you? Get out of your head by playing a videogame. Get out of your space by going on a walk or visiting a museum. Relax. Do a puzzle. Play Sudoku. Talk to a friend on the phone.
That boulder’s not going anywhere: it’s got time for you to take a jog.
2. Stop Trying to Do it Right
I don’t know if it’s right to dignify this habit as ‘technique,’ but it’s something I do a lot of. I always have multiple works in progress simultaneously because I get blocked or bored, or happen to have a neat idea I know I won’t remember if I don’t get it down. I swap around a fair amount as whim takes me.
But I also have a couple documents on the side, halfway between stream-of-consciousness maundering and a short story anthology. That’s where I go when I need to work and find myself unable to. Trapped in a dead end as regards the projects I care about, this is my sanctuary.
These stories aren’t written with a goal in mind; they exist to serve me, not the other way around.
When it comes to quality, they run the gamut. Some are so sorry I wish they came equipped with a self-destruct feature that would make my laptop burst into flame if anyone else tried to read them. Some are so awesome they develop into novels. The Serpent Queen — and her household, her mythos, her alien butler — originate in my trash folder.
The beauty of these projects is the liberty to create in a free space, without your own expectations looking over your shoulder. It’s as true of the gorgons as the seraphim. It gives you a chance to breathe, and be, and recollect why you love doing this. If most of what you wrote is trash, so be it. If it’s gold, hang onto it.
Either way, you will have moved yourself back into the motion of creating, getting words down on the page, when you turn your mind back to the work you’re genuinely writing.
3. Read
If you know me, you know I don’t like strong declarative statements regarding the creative process. As a general rule, when I hear someone say, ‘This is the right way to do things, full stop,’ my reaction is, ‘This person is a fool who shouldn’t be listened to.’ For fear of painting myself in motley, I won’t say you can’t write if you don’t read. You know your own process better than I can.
What I will say is that nothing inspires me more than reading other authors’ works. From conversations with other writers, I think this is where a lot of us get started: creating OC’s in our favorite fictional universes, then fleshing them out. When that isn’t enough, writing scenarios where our OC’s can walk around and live their lives in this treasured environment. From there, we graduated to building worlds of our own.
I read an interview with China Miéville where he said something that really rang true for me, that people may not appreciate how much of literature is authors having conversations with one another’s books. Maybe the treatment of a character shows you something you’re failing to develop with your own. Hey, maybe you don’t like what they did and see a way to do it better.
At worst, reading will take you out of yourself. At best, something another author has to say will help you find your way forward.
4. Build your world
Sometimes the reason you can’t progress has less to do with your mental state or discipline than it does a lack of paths forward. If you find yourself ready in will but lacking in wit, look to your setting. Maybe you haven’t fleshed the context out sufficient for the story to take on a life of its own.
- How fleshed-out are your characters’ backstories?
- Do your fictional peoples have histories?
- Have you made your map yet?
- What do your characters believe about the cosmos and how do they pay it reverence (or refuse to)?
The best speculative fiction exists in the most atmospheric spaces. There’s a really low upper limit to how much information-dumping even the most tolerant reader can bear, but a fully-imagined world doesn’t need an encyclopedia. The reality of the place is present in every word, and when you’re breathing it, you don’t need to be told it’s there. Think Dune. Maybe Philip Pullman’s terrifying His Dark Materials trilogy.
Maybe your story doesn’t want to move forward because it’s not alive yet. Maybe you need a bit more prep. I generally wait to start this process; I like to get between five and thirty thousand words into the plot before I nail the sky to the ground. But it is necessary. It will help you see your world in new ways, perceive conflicts and tensions, connections you might not have noticed were present.
So put the laptop aside, and start drawing and making lists.
5. Reassess
Every professional editor I’ve ever had the privilege to listen to has said the same thing: don’t start editing halfway through the process. Get it all out before you reread. I think this is very good advice — whether or not I always manage to take it — but it’s also a best-case that may not apply to your circumstances. There’s only so long you can be stumped before you need to ask yourself: is the problem really you?
Or is the problem your story?
I know, I know: what kind of monster am I? You created that, you can’t question it. Let alone murder it! What’s wrong with you, Burnell? Probably hate puppies and lemonade.
Once you’ve been writing for a while, this gets less troubling. You’ve created enough to feel comfortable with the idea that it isn’t a well that runs dry. Yesterday’s idea seemed good at the time, but today you had a better one.
Assuming you’re in a place where you need to contemplate systemic changes, what does that mean and where do you start? You’re at the end of your rope and there are no easy answers here. I’ve only been trapped within this event horizon a few times, so these are just some thoughts, not tried-and-tested guidelines. I would suggest reevaluating your work in this order.
- characters
- structure
- plot/ the entire effing story
CHARACTERS
Are your characters living the truest versions of themselves, or are you trying to force them into situations where they don’t fit?
If your protagonist is very shy and the climax as you scripted it involves that person making a speech to a huge crowd, you need to explain what made them change or scrap the speech. Do we see them move from Point A to Point B? Does it feel logical and intuitive?
If your characters aren’t acting like the people you intended them to be, either you’re missing developing chapters or you need to rethink your outline.
STRUCTURE
The problem might not be the story or any of the elements of the story, it might just be how you’re telling it. The pacing feels wrong; you get bored and frustrated every time you try to add to what you have. You know where you want to go, but can’t get there because…?!
Consider making structural changes at this point, swapping scenes or tinkering with your timeline. Think of it like a jigsaw puzzle: there’s a way for these elements to fit together, you just need to experiment.
JUST EVERYTHING
I’m not clowning, it’s happened to me. You started out with a premise, but as you worked, your ideas shifted. Characters weren’t who you thought they were; scenes didn’t develop like you meant them to. Many aspects of the story evolved, but you didn’t make accommodation for those changes because you didn’t want to kill your darlings.
So here you are, 75% to completion, backed into a corner because your story doesn’t make a lick of sense. Acknowledge it. Refusing to admit change is what got you here. Weeks or months or years of work don’t necessarily have to be consigned to the recycling bin, but you can’t fix the problem until you decide which story you’re telling. What gets to stay and what’s being deleted.
Once you’ve made those choices, delete ruthlessly.
TO BE CLEAR. Do not EVER make ANY changes this sweeping without saving a separate copy of the document. Please, please please please please, save a copy under another file name, just in case. Accidents happen. Do it for your friend MC.
once more unto the breach
I don’t know that any of these tips will prove useful to you, but they’re worth trying. Like I said earlier, no one can tell you how to create; the idea is laughable. But give ’em a try, they’ve worked for me.
If nothing else, it beats pacing around your living room, chewing on your fingernails.
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