Stuck in Your Story? Try This Fun Exercise to Shake Up Your Muse

By Janice Hardy

Sometimes, we get so focused on what’s supposed to happen in our novel, we forget to consider what could happen.

Unless you're incredibly lucky, at some point in your writing life your creativity is bound to stall.

The novel you loved yesterday feels flat today, all your ideas sound "meh" and nothing really excites you about your current manuscript. It happens, it's scary, but there are ways to knock your muse out of her slump and get things moving again.

Sometimes the best way to get unstuck is to look at the novel from a different perspective.

Changing your perspective can shake loose preconceived ideas and allow you to see the story and characters in ways you hadn't considered before. These different views often spark ideas that breathe new life into a novel that needs it.

When Stuck in a Scene, Look Around

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Sometimes the answer to making a scene work is inside the scene itself.

I’ve been struggling with a major turning point chapter revision the past week, and one scene was really giving me a headache. It’s the end of Act Two, and the scene that triggers my protagonist’s Dark Night of the Soul and All Is Lost moments. So yeah, it’s important.

What’s worse, is that I knew how the chapter needed to end (because of those oh-so-critical moments), I just wasn’t sure how to get there based on where the story was after all the new revisions. I had to connect Point A with Point B, mixing the original mystery plot with the new personal subplot I’d added.

This scene depended on my protagonist getting face-to-face with the antagonist’s minion and realizing something world-shattering about himself and the Big Problem of the plot. And after all the revising I’d done, I had no idea why that minion was in the scene now.

Stuck on a Scene? Try This Trick to Get it Moving Again

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

The problem isn’t always where you think it is.

Before I dive in today, I'm also guest posting over at Writers in the Storm, sharing tips on How to Make Clichés Work for You. Come on over and say hello.

Unless you’re very, very lucky, at some point in your writing you’re going to get stuck. You’ll write yourself into a corner and won’t be able to figure out how to get your protagonist where they need to go, or maybe you’ll have no idea what the conflict is supposed to be. You’ll sit at the keyboard and grow more and more frustrated by the minute until you want to scream. Or take up botany.

It’s not writer’s block—you can write, it’s just that the scene has stalled and you don’t know what to do to get it moving again.

Instead of struggling to fix the scene that’s not working, try this:

A 5-Minute Fix to Jump-start Your Scene

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Never fear the blank page again.

Blank pages stink.

Even when I know what I want to write, I still have days where I struggle to get that first line down. Once I do, the words usually pick up speed and I slide into my scene and my writing sessions, but not always.

On those days, I write that first line, then delete it. Write it again, and hit the backspace key like a woodpecker on a tree. Eventually, I get up and make a cup of tea and start the whole process over again.

This happened a lot in my early writing days. It didn’t take long for me to realize there had to be a better way to start writing. I examined my process. Since I’m a plotter by nature, I sought answers there first.

And found one.

The Antithesis Method: A Simple Solution to Getting Unstuck in a Scene

By Bonnie Randall

Part of The How They Do It Series 

JH: Stuck in a scene? Maybe going forward isn't the right way to handle it. Bonnie Randall shares her method for fixing a troublesome scene. 

A challenge I have used when stuck on a scene that feels wooden, isn’t working, or just refuses to write itself is something I have nicknamed “The Antithesis Method,” and it’s as simple as this:

Just write the scene precisely opposite of how you had planned to write it. If they were going to be friends, make them fight. If they were robbing a bank, have them get robbed. If they were headed to a wedding, land them at a funeral.

Sound like a lot of work and a lot of dismantling? Trust me, it is—put it can be well worth it.

4 Writing Pitfalls to Avoid at All Costs

By Laurence MacNaughton, @LMacNaughton

Part of the How They Do It Series

JH: Even though every writer has their own process, we still all face the same problems from time to time. Laurence MacNaughton is back this month with tips on avoiding the pitfalls no writer wants to stumble into.

Has your writing fallen into a black hole? Has your pacing dropped to a crawl, or your suspense become a snore? Do you just feel stuck? You might be sabotaging your own writing without even knowing it. But don't panic. Here's how to avoid the four most perilous pitfalls of writing.

Pitfall #1: Your plot is going nowhere.

If your story is bogging down, it's probably because you (the author) need to spend more time visualizing the specific outcome your main character wants.

Think about your main character for a minute. This person should desperately want to either: A) achieve something positive; or B) avoid something negative. Maybe both.

What does your main character want, exactly?

5 Tips for When You’re Stuck in a Scene

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Getting stuck in a scene can bring your novel to a screeching halt, but there are ways to get unstuck and keep on writing.

It happens to every writer at some point—the writing is clicking along, then suddenly it’s not. You hit a wall, you no longer like what you originally planned, the muse is nowhere to be found and she took the bucket for your creative well with her.

It’s not writer’s block, it’s just a scene that refuses to get out of your head and onto the page in a way that resembles decent writing. Or so-so writing. Or even bad writing. Let’s face it—the scene is totally giving you the finger.

Over the years, I’ve spent plenty of days struggling with horrifically rude scenes that just did not want to work, even though I knew (or thought I knew) exactly how the scene was going to unfold. Here are five tricks that always help me get the scene moving again.

What to Do When Your Writing Stalls Out

By Marcy Kennedy, @MarcyKennedy
 
Part of The Writer's Life Series

JH: Everyone gets stuck at some point in their writing career. Marcy Kennedy discusses how to get stalled writing moving again. 

There comes a time in every writer’s career when they find themselves stuck. The words and ideas aren’t flowing like they used to. Production stalls out. Panic sets in.

If you’re a career writer like I am, that panic is compounded by the fact that writing pays your bills, and when you aren’t producing new books, your income drops. The best way to make a solid living in the new publishing landscape is to publish often.

For a year and a half, I produced a minimum of one book every other month. And it was easy for me. (Please don’t hate me for saying that.)

Then 2018 hit, and it stopped being easy. While I don’t believe in writer’s block, I do believe we can become stuck or we can stall out.

When Less is More: Taking Away Elements to Fix a Problem Scene

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

This week's Refresher Friday takes an updated look at how killing off characters (or taking things away from them) can fix a scene that's not working. Enjoy!

Sometimes the best thing you can do for your story is to knock someone off. I once talked about killing off characters, and that earned me this delightful tweet from @rlbelliston:

@Janice_Hardy Haha. I have a writing friend who, every time I get stuck on a scene, tells me to just kill someone off.

A funny off-the-cuff statement? Maybe, but there's truth in these words as well. Because sometimes looking at who you can get rid of is the perfect way to fix a scene that's not working.

4 Reasons Readers Stopped Caring About Your Story

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

It’s one of the biggest dreads writers have—will people care about my story? We worry when we write it, we fret as we hand it off to our critique partners, we pace as our beta readers review it, and then we frantically check for reviews after we publish it.

It’s nerve wracking.

It’s even worse when that feedback comes in and verifies that, yes, something isn’t working. And the most depressing of all? Is when that feedback can’t tell us what’s wrong or how to fix it.

When Your Muse is Missing in Action

By Jana Oliver, @crazyauthorgirl

Part of the Indie Authors Series

In every writer’s life there are days when the words flow like a raging river over a waterfall. Nothing gets in your way as the sentences and paragraphs and pages pile up. Then there are days when you should be cranking out 1K or 2Kwords and you’re lucky to get 500, and most of those are iffy, at best. Even worse, your Muse decides to take a vacation, as in a “head to the beach” type of holiday where there’s nothing but chirping crickets left behind. We’ve all been there, even though I’ve heard authors claim that’s never happened to them.

Is Your Story Stuck? 5 Questions You Need to Ask

By Laurence MacNaughton, @LMacNaughton

Part of the How They Do It Series

JH: Anything that helps with plotting is welcomed with open arms in most writing circles. There are so many moving pieces to getting a novel right, it can be hard keeping track of them. Luckily, Laurence MacNaughton has a handy way to make sure our novels have all the key elements they need for a solid plot. Please help me welcome him to the lecture hall today.

Laurence grew up in a creaky old colonial house in Connecticut that he's pretty sure was haunted. He's been a bookseller, printer, copywriter and (somewhat randomly) a prototype vehicle test driver. When he's not writing, he bikes and hikes the Rocky Mountains, explores ghost towns and wrenches on old cars. Laurence is the author of It Happened One Doomsday, The Spider Thief, and Conspiracy of Angels. Try them free at www.laurencemacnaughton.com.

Website | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads | Amazon | Barnes & Noble | iTunes | Indie Bound

Take it away Laurence...

Stuck on a Scene? Just Say No.

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Whenever I'm stuck on a scene, I return to the basics. I look at the goals, conflict, stakes, and if that doesn't fix the problem, I look at the structure itself. Classic scene structure ends in two ways: the protagonist gets her goal, or she doesn’t get her goal. The answer is yes or no.

There are more subtle variations of this (with entire books to explore it), and a multitude of options to illustrate the outcomes, but it really does come down to that simple question: Does the protagonist get the goal? Yes or no?