A blinking, unmoving cursor is probably one of the top ten boogeymen if you’re a writer. For me, there are few things more infuriating than sitting down and realizing that I have absolutely no idea what my story is doing. Suddenly I have no idea how to get my characters where they need to go.
So how in the hell do I get over it?
I suffer. I stew. I sit down and indignantly peck out a few words to try and get the tap running again… and then shove my chair back, slam the laptop shut, and walk away with my hands on my hips, shouting about my poor life choices.
And after my little baby tantrum, I get to work.
Before I start giving advice on writing, I need to stress this: working through writer’s block is not the same for everyone.
Louder, for the people in the back—
WORKING THROUGH WRITER’S BLOCK IS NOT THE SAME FOR EVERYONE.
But I’m going to share a handful of ways I deal with it. Maybe they’ll help you, too.
What Does Writer’s Block Look Like?
I’m a plantser—a combination planner and pantser. My process looks something like this: I come up with a baller idea, pants my way through the opening scene, plan a basic story outline, then pants again through the first several beats. So when I hit writer’s block, it’s not that I’m wondering where the story goes next. It’s that I’m not sure how to get my main character from point A to point B in a way that’s interesting, believable, and true to the story.
Your writer’s block may look different. Maybe you’re a discovery writer, and suddenly you realize that your characters are keeping the next beat a secret from you. (Rude.) Maybe you’re a planner who’s having trouble getting the ideas onto the page at all. Or maybe your writer’s block looks like something else entirely.
Whatever it feels like for you, there is a way around it. Or through it, if you’re the bulldozing type. Here are five methods I’ve found that work for me.
5 Ways to Bulldoze Through Writer’s Block
1. Write to Your Characters
Have a conversation on the page. Ask them what in Beelzebub’s name they think they’re doing. Talk to them like you would a moody teenager.
Girl, what is your problem? Why are you not cooperating right now?
Because I’m angry. Did you know that Britainee started a rumor about me at Club Phut and now my boss isn’t taking my calls? Also, my dog has diarrhea and all I want to do is sit at home and eat a whole cheesecake on my own.
Oh. Well, dang. I didn’t realize all that was going on. You okay?
Whole. Cheesecake.
Noted. I think I can do that for you.
Turns out, Miss Main Character wasn’t resisting because there was nothing for her to do. She just needed a night to herself before gearing up to do the next thing. And now you know that you need to write a slightly comedic scene where your MC is loafing around on the couch with a cheesecake from Safeway while her pooch looks at her balefully from the floor wearing a doggy diaper.
Amazing what characters will tell you if you lend an ear.
2. Free Write & Brainstorm
Talk it out with yourself. Dump everything you know about your story onto the page and just let your thoughts flow. I’m talking about pure stream-of-consciousness here. We’re not here to write, we’re here to think:
“Okay so Amanda just got home from the hospital and found out that Josh has turned their triplets into a performing act in a local circus. What is this woman going to do now? Call the cops? No, that won’t really work—cops can’t do anything about child performers. Can they? Wait, hold on, let me check. Right. Nope. Cops are out. Maybe she should confront Josh and demand to see the contract. Okay but also, why did Josh not pick her up from the hospital? What kind of husband is he? Unless they’re already in the middle of a nasty divorce. Maybe he’s just lost his job. Maybe he’s trying to avoid paying child support. Okay, that’s juicy.”
Boom. You didn’t solve the whole novel. You solved the next problem. And that’s usually enough to get moving again.
3. Skip to the Good Stuff
This is a classic for a reason. Lots of authors walk away from what they’re currently struggling with and write a scene that takes place later on. Here’s why it works: future scenes give previous scenes context. If you’re not sure where that blinking cursor will take your character next, give them some development a little further up the road.
I spent some time doing exactly this the other day. 40 pages into setting up the premise, characters, and funny funny body mechanics, I got stuck. But instead of banging my head against the writer’s block, I hit fast forward and noodled on a scene that I knew would happen later. After about 700 words, I learned a few important things:
- A background character ended up coming back into down to team up with my main character for a corporate break-in.
- My main character has no concept of where the copy room lives or how to work a copy machine.
- The background character had extremely good reasons for leaving this schmuck.
Will it make it into the final draft? Maybe. But that wasn’t the important part. The value was in understanding my character even better and gaining context for how he handles interpersonal relationships.
Poorly. He handles them poorly.
4. Change the Question
Flip it on its head. Treat your story like an exercise in negative space. Instead of asking, “What happens next?” try asking, “What doesn’t happen next?”
You probably know that Amanda won’t agree to the triplets’ new career choice. She probably also won’t join the circus herself just to keep an eye on her acrobatic offspring. Josh probably won’t get himself a real job, now that he’s got three golden geese in his pocket. And that’s useful information, because now we’re narrowing the list of possible actions the characters can take.
- Josh might file for sole custody so he can keep his kids in the circus.
- The triplets might actually enjoy being stars and beg their mother not to make them stop performing.
- Amanda’s lawyer might say, “Hang on, Amanda. This guy is digging his own grave right now. Let the man cook.”
And all that came about because you knew exactly what the characters wouldn’t do.
5. Write the Worst Version
Just do it. Write like you’ve never seen a proper sentence before. Run-ons, fragments, stacked subject-verb-object phrases—whatever it takes to get the words out. You’ll probably hate it, and that’s okay. Call it a zero draft if you need to. Just get something onto the page.
You might open your manuscript later, look at it, and say, “By Moses’ trousers, this belongs at the bottom of the sea.” Or, maybe a miracle will occur, and there will be a diamond in the rough that you can pluck out and spend some time polishing.
Here’s what one of my “zero drafts” actually looked like while I was trying to untangle the plot for an old “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” fanfic (I see that side-eye):
a fight with a major demon causes Buffy and Spike to absorb fragments of each other’s memories and instincts. Demon comes in, they’re like “Buffy. Spike. ASSEMBLE” begrudgingly, because they all know that even Riley isn’t enough to help take this down, and if something goes wrong, then Spike’s less likely to get seriously harmed. Willow and Giles perform an experimental spell on the two of them through which, BY THEIR POWERS COMBINED and sharing instinct and battle knowledge and preternatural powers, they take this thing down. Which is delicious, because this is their first instance of being totally physically in sync. And even Buffy is like “Okay that was kind of cool. Spike wasn’t that cool?” And he lights up a cigarette, puffs on it, and says, “I’ve had worse.”
Internally, Spike’s like: WHAT THE FRICK JUST HAPPENED I CAN FEEL THE SLAYER’S INSTINCTS HER HEARTBEAT IS STILL ECHOING IN MY HEAD THIS WAS THE BEST THING THAT’S EVER HAPPENED TO ME
…but externally: cool vampire guy cigarette shrug.
Horrible. Terrible. An abject mess. But it wasn’t supposed to be good. It was supposed to get me unstuck. And what I got out of it was the basis for this ridiculous vampire’s emotional arc. And after that, the outline got clearer, ideas for scenes started coming, and before I knew it, I had a complete outline.
Mission accomplished.
How (and Why) Do These Work?
These methods don’t work by magically giving me the insight of a best-selling author or summoning inspiration out of thin air. They certainly don’t guarantee that the thousand words will be any good.
What they do is chip away at the two things that cause most of my writer’s block: I either don’t know enough about the story yet, or I’m putting so much pressure on myself to write something brilliant that I can’t write anything at all.
Either way, the solution isn’t to wait for inspiration to descend from the heavens with trumpets and glitter. It’s to get curious, get messy, and keep moving.
And if all else fails…
Go have your little baby tantrum.
Then get back to work. You’ve got this.
Featured photo by Steve A Johnson on Unsplash