I have been struggling

For a number of weeks now with a chapter in a book I'm working on. I knew what pieces needed to be in there, but for the life of me I couldn't figure out how they go together. This is a not insignificant problem. Normally I would skip ahead and write another chapter, but this book has a strongly linear narrative structure: when the string of the story is drawn this taut, jumping ahead can bounce you right out of the book.

Being stuck is a problem. Some good ways to unstick, for me, include s...