Writing Through the Blocks

Last week we started talking about writer’s block, which is in reality many types of writing issues that all have the same symptom: your creative process grinds to a halt. This week I’ll toss out some more hints on how to get moving again when you’re stuck.
It’s easy for us to say “Outline first! If you follow your outline you won’t get stuck.” But the truth is, sometimes you just can’t get through a particular part of your outline. This could be a problem from past work. Maybe your outline has a big flaw that you just don’t want to admit. If you just finished chapter 10 but can’t seem to get to chapter 12, it might mean that chapter 11 doesn’t make any sense. Maybe this bit of action calls for characters to do things they don’t want to do. So it’s time to break from your outline. Either create new actions that will get your story to Chapter 12 or give your characters a good reason to do what you need them to do.
Or maybe your outline is fine, but the section you’re facing is boring. There’s great action in chapter 10 and more in chapter 12, but you’re not feeling how to get from one to the other. It’s tough, but the solution is the same. Take a detour and see what happens. You may well trip over a better transition scene. And if you relax and let your characters do as they will you may see something that needs to happen with them that you didn’t know about.
If you chose not to outline, or if you tossed the outline after you got rolling, you might find yourself stuck in the middle of your story with no clue what happens next. Other writers have told me that this often happens after a really good day. You write a LOT, with cool action and some developments that set up lots of neat future stuff. But the next day, you don’t quite remember where it was all going. If that’s the deal the first step is to stop, take a breath, and read what you wrote yesterday. You might rediscover the trail, or you might rethink some of what you wrote on your big day.
If that doesn’t work, you’ll need to do something to get the story moving again. Introduce a new twist, or a new complication for your characters to deal with and you will probably be off and running again.

You should be back on track now, but if you get derailed again, I’ll have more inspirational tips next week.