Breaking Through: Dealing With Writer's Block

Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

I have a different view on writer’s block. I don’t get blocked, I get stuck.

Stuck is a temporary situation. Stuck is a delay. Blocked is more permanent. Blocked is being forced to stop. It may sound silly, but words have power, and thinking "I'm blocked, I may never write again" is terrifying and makes the situation worse. Thinking "I’m stuck, how the heck am I going to get out of this?" is just frustrating. I can deal with frustrating. There’s a way out of stuck.

This mindset helps me look at solutions to getting un-stuck.

 

Are You Stuck on What Happens Next?

There's a good chance you got snagged on a plot problem. Not knowing what the protagonist wants (the scene goal) will definitely grind a story to a halt. One of my favorite questions is, “Who does this situation hurt?” Because that person is probably your protagonist, and solving that problem is likely the core conflict.

 
Try looking at your core conflict, that big problem the whole book revolves around. Have you strayed from this issue? Maybe a subplot has dragged you off into the weeds, or you forgot what the main goal of the story was, or something interesting developed as you wrote that distracted you.

Trace your story back to the last moment when things were moving forward. Pinpoint where you went off track. There's probably a moment there somewhere where your protagonist made a decision or acted in a way that sent the story into a dead end. Try rewriting from that moment and choose a different path.

Are You Stuck on Why it Matters?

This is likely a stakes issue. Not knowing how your protagonist will suffer if they lose can make a story feel pointless. Without consequences for failure, there’s no reason to care about what happens.

Try looking at your stakes for this scene. Have you lost sight of what’s at risk for your protagonist? Is there no consequence for failing? Consequences and ramifications are critical to creating tension and making readers care, and “low or missing stakes” is a common problem in many early-draft scenes.

 
Go back to a time when it did matter and pinpoint that moment when things stopped being important. Did something about the character change? The story? Sometimes we run an idea into the ground and keep chasing a subplot because we were already running in that direction anyway.

 

Are You Stuck on Why Your Protagonist Would Do This in the First Place?

This is likely a motivation issue. Not knowing why your protagonist would do what they're doing, and/or not having it matter if the win or lose, can make a story feel pointless and aimless. There’s no reason to care about what happens.

Try looking at the protagonist’s motivation for the scene. Does the protagonist have a good and personal reason to do what they need to do? We often send our characters into a scene with what we want to have happen in our minds, but the character has other ideas. When they clash, the scene stalls. Frequently, the motivation isn’t personal enough to give the scene forward drive.

Think about why this scene matters to them. Why do you want the protagonist to resolve this scene? What do they want for this scene? Do they differ? It’s not uncommon to discover you want the protagonist to do X, but Y is what they’d actually do based on how you’ve been writing them.

Stuck is all about trying different things until you get unstuck. Some may help you pop out right away, others might not help at all. But everything you try gets you one step closer to freeing yourself.

Where do you get stuck? What are some ways that have helped you?