I'm curious as to what forms of writer's block us writers have had to deal with. Mine is this: I know what my scene is, where it's going, what's happening, who's saying what, etc... but I can't articulate it. It wouldn't be so bad if I could just come back to it later, after writing something else, but as it so happens, if I do that, I'll have lost the Moment where I had the scene clearly in mind. Details will shift, and it'll throw me off. It's also a trying to figure out and establish what are the important elements in the scene vs. the superficial details -- something that the screenplay format helps with. To illustrate, screenplay format is very visual and doesn't bog itself with details or minutia. Instead of describing a young woman at a table studiously marking up a score of music with colored pencils, rulers, and whatever other tools she uses for a performance she's conducting, plus whatever might be on her mind, etc, I'd do something like this: Code: INT. ROOM - DAY WOMAN at table. Marks music. Conductor's baton nearby. So: What types of Writer's Block have you encountered, how have you dealt with it?
The answer to that is self-hypnosis. I'm seriously. Lean back in your chair, close your eyes, and dream that scene. Dream it. Play it out on the silver screen of your mind's eye. Do it over and over and over and over and over again, until you can do it with your eyes open and your fingers on the keys. Eventually, you'll be able to do the last part right from the start, all the way through, without stopping. Dream it as you write it.
One of the reasons I'm such a slow writer is that I've learned that when the words aren't there, they aren't there. You can sit and stare at the blank page all day and it'll still be blank when the day is over, or you can go do something else. Preferably something mindless. Putter in the garden, clean out a closet, paint the hallway...do something that keeps your hands busy but leaves your mind floating free. It'll come when it's ready, and not before. You can also make yourself crazy writing whatever comes to mind hoping to force it, and you end up with word salad. Eventually something will stick to the page, but I find that method exhausting. At least the other way I've got a weed-free yard, clean closets, and a nice-looking hallway, as well as a break in the logjam in my brain.
there's only two things I could put into words: 1. i'm a perfectionist. I know, that sounds odd coming from a typo machine who's too lazy to proofread a forum post. but it's a scattershot things. i'm sometimes slower at work than they would like me to be because i want to do it right, damnit, not just get done. As that applies to writing, i find myself obsessing over details in the early drafts than can be ironed out later, so I keep going back and re-plowing ground I've already covered. The other thing, and the bigger issue, is that i struggle with creating dramatic tension. The book I'm working on now, which I feel passionately is going to be very very good, is about 1/3 done - and I'm confident the last 1/3 will take maybe a month to do. but the bridge in the middle, how I get from A to B in such a fashion so as to compel the reader to go with me, has been a huge struggle. I think I finally have that worked out, at least in principle, but every long-form story i've ever tried has had the same problem.
I let it sit in my head hoping it will stew enough to "be perfect". Finally, perfection never comes, and I go "fuck it, just write down what I've got up there in my head". I spew it out, wrangle the typos best as I can....and I'm completely unhappy with it. It's worse than I imagined. ...bet you think a part comes where I look at it years later, and go "oh, that's actually good! ". Nope.
What Garamet said. Except I do two other things . . . if I'm stuck, I'll work on another story for a bit. Or I'll write in my journal, which almost always helps. Usually I start a story because a scene has popped into my head fully formed and I need to figure out how the characters got there and then what happens to resolve it. For example, the novel I'm currently struggling with began as two scenes . . . a man on a sailboat fighting a monster storm, and a castle on a strange shore that's shaped sort of like a seagull with upswept wings. I thought it might be a short story at first, but as it grew in my head I realized it was a novel. As such I have notes and sketches for it, which help with the writer's block thing a little, but I'm currently at one of those points where the characters haven't told me what they want to do next, so I'm stuck. I also revise things every time I go back and re-read them, so that slows things down. I'm adding a whole new opening to this novel, starting the story a little earlier than I first planned.
So punish them for that. Really. Make something bad happen to them and let them yell. You have vays uff making zem talk!
I've noticed that when I've a scene forming in my head, it's almost always smack in the middle of it, and while it's easy to go from there, it's very difficult to mentally force myself to backtrack and establish the scene.
I see no one has a problem with writers block in this thread. Just kidding. Hey what did the woman do with the baton? Just kidding! I try to find something to inspire me. Lately I record what is in my mind, it feels awkward but it helps me put ideas out, and then I listen to them later.
Not quite, Diancanu -- It's a problem establishing a scene that's in media res in my mind, trying to give it a starting point so there's context. In other words, trying to give it the necessary framework for the scene. These aren't backstory scenes.
So? Write it as a flashback, so that technically, you're moving forward, THEN, paste it on to the beginning, and BAM establishment scene! It's writing, you can do anything.
Should be easy. Catalogue every single thing that's in the scene. I mean everything. Every single thing you depict in the scene (and by 'thing' I mean both objects and people.) Make a list. Then pare out everything that isn't moving or talking (or being moved or being talked about.) Now that you've got that list, do this: On a separate line, write one sentence explaining how that thing got to the location where the scene takes place. Protagonist. The love interest. The villain. The guy running the coffee stand that your protagonist directs all of one line of dialogue to. The stray dog that runs up and sniffs the love interest's crotch. The hurled rock that hits the villain in the back of the head. Write down, in one sentence each, how all those things got into the frame of your mental camera. When you've done that, delete the carriage returns so that all those individual sentences are all sentences in a block of text. Now rewrite that into a narrative. Expand where inspiration speaks up.
Aw, gawd, that's miserable. My philosophy is the diametric opposite, I hate over-explained lingering detail, just give the reader a model kit to fill out the blank spaces themselves. Tell 'em the guy was sitting in a urine scented vomit encrusted frat house. Everyone can imagine that.
Well, now, the reader doesn't have to see the results of that list I told Bick about. It's more for Bick, so that he can jump start his process. There's nothing wrong with in medias res for the finished product -- but when you get stuck in that opening moment, sometimes you get traction enough to roll out of the rut by backing up. The items/origins list trick is one way to do that.
