I’ve never experienced writer’s block, probably because my career began in PR. I wasn’t paid unless I delivered the press kit or the article—or the cross-your-eyes-and-snooze product descriptions for ABC Widget Co. The rush to meet deadlines taught strategies I use to this day. They’ll work for you too:
Empty Page? No, Thanks. The most experienced scribe feels trepidation at the sight of a blank page waiting to be filled. As you develop your novel’s plot, invite the characters to chat with you. Write down random dialogue, events and POV descriptions (of other characters or events) directly into your document. Long before I begin writing in earnest, I produce a jumble of pages beneath Chapter One. Then I cut and past these snippets into the developing story.
As work progresses, continue adding random paragraphs and compelling fragments. On a conscious level, you may adhere to linear thinking: “Paul meets Sarah in Chapter One. In Chapter Two, he crashes the car…” But your creative well, the lifeblood of your art, resides in your subconscious mind. Learn to welcome these random snippets even if they don’t appear to make sense. Paste them inside your document behind the chunk of completed chapters. You’ll be astonished at how often the oddball thought becomes a key component of your plot.
Slam on the Brakes! Whenever possible, finish your workday in the middle of dialogue. It’s easy to pick back up the next day (or the next weekend) if your characters are interacting. Halting work in the middle of an argument works beautifully. Stop typing right after Character A gives Character B the fifth degree. Then begin your next writing session with Character B’s response.
Or stop in dialogue right after Character A reveals stunning news. You’ll slip easily into Character B’s shoes, and not waste time staring at your computer thinking, “I have no idea where this story is going.”
Stop Working. Start Playing. If you’ve ever followed my conversations with other writers on Twitter you know I’m a big believer in turning off your internal editor.
Throw the parent and adult aspects of your ego out the window, and let your imaginative child steer your writing. Original thought, eureka moments, grab-a-hanky prose and laugh-out-loud passages begin with your inner child. So does the sex scene so hot you had to take a cold shower after typing the last word. And the striking prose sure to win the Pulitzer.
Here’s the thing: storytelling is a form of seduction. The aspect of your personality that’s determined to analyze sentence structure or count the number of adverbs in a chapter is not what will have readers clamoring for more. When I was a kid, I had every other child on the street convinced that fairies left pots of gold for us to discover. And that I could fly. And that the other kids would also fly once we found the purple peacock hidden on Englewood Road and plucked a magical feather…
With me so far?
Leave the Freudian analysis and all your grammar books locked in a safe until after you’re written the first draft. The entire draft. Ignore this rule, and you shall never learn to fly.
The Going Nowhere Story. Too many novels die in Chapter Five (or Six, or Ten) because the writer has no real direction. Don’t stop writing—improvise. Add a bridging conflict, a smaller problem your characters will solve in several chapters. Put your feet up and write longhand, first person, in the POV of a character. Take a walk. Skip to the last chapters, and write them down. Do anything but abandon your heart’s work.
Remember: there’s nothing you set down on paper today that can’t be edited, revised or removed during the read-through of your initial draft.
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