What to Do When You Really Don’t Want to Write That Scene

By Janice Hardy

Some scenes are hard to write, and others fight you every word. Does that mean something is wrong with it?

In every first draft I’ve ever written, I reached a point where I forced myself to finish a scene that didn’t want to be written. It fought me for every word and took days to write, and I just wanted it done and over with. When it was really bad, it threw me right out of my writing groove.

But my outline said to do it, my daily plan said to write it, so I did. And it was terrible. It didn't matter what scene or which book it was in, it always turned out the same.

Eventually, I realized this was a huge red flag that something was wrong with the scene. 

If I didn’t want to write it, what made me think someone would want to read it?

Busta Scene: Getting Past Hard-to-Write Scenes

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Getting stuck in a scene can bring your whole writing session (and novel) to a screeching halt. Here are tips on how to move forward so you aren’t stuck forever.

The image of the writer who sits down at the keyboard and writes for hours on end is a nice picture, but writing doesn’t always work that way. Some days the writing flows fast and smooth, but there are just as many days when we struggle for every word. Most probably fall somewhere in between, with bursts of writing mixed with starts and stops as we figure out a scene or even a paragraph.

And then there are the scenes that slam on the creative brakes and crash our entire momentum.

Hard-to-write scenes happen to us all, but it doesn’t mean we’re blocked or that our story is doomed. It just means we’ve hit a snag for some reason.

A Tip for Getting Through Hard-to-Write Scenes

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

Even when a draft is going well, there’s bound to be at least one scene in a novel that gives us trouble. Maybe we’re not sure how it unfolds, or we’re missing a key emotional component, or it might even be that we’re not ready to write it or just don’t want to deal with whatever the scene covers right now.

When this happens, we usually get stuck. It might feel like writer’s block, but it’s not—it’s just a hard-to-write scene.

This happened to me recently, though it was more like four chapters (and entire story-structure turning point) than a single scene. These chapters cover the Dark Moment and launch act three, and there’s a lot of heavy, emotional stuff going on. The problem, is that I have a lot of stuff going on in my own life, so I flat out didn’t feel up to plunging myself into all that heartbreak and soul searching to do these chapters justice.

So I didn’t. Instead, I blitzed past it.

Why We Should Do Bad Things to Our Characters

By Janice Hardy, @Janice_Hardy

I’ve a favorite answer when folks ask me about how I write my characters: “Whatever doesn’t kill them makes them more interesting.” For me, putting my characters through terrible situations is how I discover who they are—trial by fire. Until I force them to make the tough choices and face the hard truths, I don’t truly know them.

But this can be hard for some writers. They love their characters, and being mean to them actually hurts.