Tag Archives: writing advice

Work-in-progress, Writing

Busting a Writing Blockage

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So I’m lucky enough to have never experienced what most people think of as writer’s block. That iconic image of staring at a bright screen and literally having no idea what to write. That’s never happened to me. I have occasionally worried I might run out of ideas for stories, but inevitably something will strike me at the oddest time. I’ve had two ideas while listening to NPR so I give my local station a monthly donation because they are awesome!!!

I have gotten stuck before in a WIP (many times!), but I’ve never thought of it as writer’s block, per se because it isn’t that I don’t know what to write, I’m just having some sort of issue with my manuscript that I need to work through before I can continue. My subconscious knows there is a problem with the story.  And now after an epiphany about my current WIP in the wee hours last night, I’ve begun to think of what I typically experience as a writing blockage. The story is temporarily clogged, but with some prodding, the blockage will clear and the story will flow freely again.

Sometimes I don’t even realize I have a blockage until after I’ve figured it out. And then I’m like, oh I should have known there was something wrong with the story, since I’ve been so reluctant to work on it! Hopefully, others will be better at recognizing it than me because I have some ideas on how to be a plumber for your own story (am I taking this metaphor too far? I think I might be!).

This time I attributed my lack of eagerness for my WIP to still being burnt out from NaNoWriMo. I wrote 80k and there’s still so much story left! It was a little overwhelming. But I didn’t really worry about it because I’ve been busy with other writerly and productive things this month. So that’s my first suggestion: take a break. Do something else creative for awhile. Let your brain rest from one story to work on something else. Then, when you go back, you might see the problem more clearly. I realized that I was having my character do something because PLOT REASONS and not because she would actually do that thing. It made sense at the time when I was outlining, but when I was writing, it felt wrong. I pushed that thought away because NaNoWriMo, but my gut was correct. So I went ahead and revised the scene a little bit, toned it down some and now I’m much more comfortable with the direction.

If you don’t have time to take a break or don’t have another project to work on, try rereading what you’ve written. You may not want to start revising (you can if you want to), but think about the choices your characters make or the things happening to them, look for problems with the story that may be causing your blockage. Brainstorm some different choices for them. What would happen if they chose differently at a key point? Or maybe the problem is with what you’re going to write next. Brainstorm different ideas for where the story might go, maybe your brain is telling you you need to rethink the direction. Brainstorming is awesome because none of it is set in stone (and by stone I mean in-story words, which obviously aren’t set in stone, but may be hard to delete since you worked so hard on them). See where it takes you.

And finally, pick up a writing book. Something about plot and structure or character development or anything storytelling/craft related (I don’t think grammar books would have the same impact). Read a couple chapters and let your mind wander down whatever path it wants. Jot down notes. My brain is always sparking when reading books about writing, even if I’ve read the book before. And even if the book doesn’t relate to the issue you are having, you never know what connections your brain will make. Two of my favorites are Donald Maass and James Scott Bell, but there are so many writing books out there. You don’t even necessarily need to take any of their advice either, but if there are exercises, try them out. The main goal is to get your story flowing again.

Hopefully, I will remain blockage free moving forward and I hope you do too! But if the worst happens, maybe one of these ideas will help you out. Happy writing!

 

Work-in-progress, Writing

Coincidences and Connections

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In addition to working on my Dakotashi Book 2 revisions, I’m also brainstorming Book 3 and beyond. It’s possible I’m getting ahead of myself, but I like to know where I’m going, at least in a general sense.

I had two ah ha moments while working some ideas out that got me thinking about connections. One of the ideas from Donald Maass that really clicked with me was plot layering and nodes of conjunction. Plot layers are basically the things that your main character is dealing with that are not connected. For example, your main character’s case as a detective and the blind dates her roommate keeps setting her up on. A node of conjunction is a place where you see these to plot layers can connect. For example, the blind date turns out to be one of the witnesses your MC just interviewed or later turns up in the case as a suspect. Now the two plot layers are connected. (That was off the top of my head. I don’t write detective fiction.) Although it seems like coincidence, in a novel it helps build a cohesive whole with additional resonance for the reader. You can do this in revision, but it’s less work to do it while brainstorming!

So it made me feel extra special to think of two ways to add connections so close together. I don’t know that either is exactly like what I describe above in terms of plot layers and nodes of conjunction, but I think that any connections that weave plot elements and characters closer together are a good thing. The first is for Book 3. I was thinking about a problem that Dakotashi is going to be dealing with and figured out a way to connect it to the over-arching story that’s going to be threading through these first several books. This will help tighten plot elements together.

The second is for some other time in the future, not sure when yet, but it connects someone who is going to be very important to Dakotashi’s future to someone who was very important in his past. I’m really excited about this one because it will make this relationship have more emotional impact even when it is still new. This one in particular would seem like a coincidence if I explained it without context, but built into the story, the reader will have the context, the characters their specific reasons to be when and where, and in the end it will seem more like fate!

Is that all vague enough? Sorry about that!

Work-in-progress, Writing

Revision Update: The Map

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Last night I finished the map for my revision. Or I think I did. It took awhile.

Like I said in my last post, I identified some areas that I think I can improve in my book. Most of the problems stem from, even though I intentionally put in scenes that serve more than one purpose, much of my draft being single layered, as in only one thing happening at once. Part of that is because Dakotashi can be pretty single-minded. Part of it is also I don’t always see how things connect or how they can connect until the first draft is finished and lay it all out. Then it’s like fitting together and rearranging a puzzle.

This time I used Scapple, a kind of note board from the creators of Scrivener. You start with a blank “page” and then add notes that you can move around and connect with each other with dotted lines or arrows. You can change text and border color and even border shape. So for my revision map, I wrote a short descriptive name for each scene (which I’ve already done in Scrivener b/c I don’t divide into chapters until later in my process) and then I started adding stuff, moving things around and seeing what connected/seemed to work better. All while keeping in mind the goals I had identified for my revision.

Scapple Revision Map

Here is screenshot of the first couple of scenes. The rounded black borders are the original scenes. Green is new material in a current scene. Blue is combined and Blue with a jagged border is moved and combined. It turned out to be pretty linear (with offshoots). If you look at what I did while brainstorming before I wrote the book, you can see that one was really free form.

Scapple Character Web

Then, I wrote a synopsis based on the outline to see if I could get everything to fit and flow. I did have to refer to my draft some to remind me exactly what was going on is some scenes. I have thought of a couple of problems that will necessitate some further refinement, but I think what I have is workable.

Next Steps: Expanding on the details when I put everything back into Scrivener for a more detailed outline moving forward. I’ll probably do some nitty gritty character and relationship progression work as well. I will be trying to follow the Revision: Plan for Attack that I thought of a couple years ago, refining/changing as I see fit.

Writing

Perils and Pitfalls of Plot

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It’s been a long time, but I’m back with a topic that I’m excited about. Plot.

Plot is essential for any book, even literary ones. But my novel (yes, I’m still working on it) isn’t literary, so it’s supposed to have a great plot. I think i started with a great concept and a plot that worked ok in my mind before I finished writing it, but somewhere between the middle and the end it died. And I was having a hard time figuring out how to fix it.

Enter a writing book. I’ve read lots of writing books, but not so many about plot. So, I bought Plot and Structure by James Scott Bell and it was great. It stimulated my imagination and I’ve worked through some issues in my book using the concepts that he laid out, and I think it’s much better. He has examples from both commercial and literary fiction, but the commercial side is heavy on the thriller/suspense/horror novel. That was the only fault I had with the book, I would have liked to see examples from a wider range of genres.

Bell’s book helped me figure out that I had two main problems. First, there was nothing really compelling my protagonist to the climax, she was just going because I needed her to to finish the book. There were reasons, but nothing so essential that her choices felt like there was no other choice. Second, the conflict between my protagonist and my antagonist was not direct enough, not central enough to the story. It was there, but not at the forefront. So I redid my plot, scene by scene on notecards, changing things and hopefully making them better.

The core of Song of the Prophecy is still the same, but I was able to solidify and tighten everything–well that’s what I think will have happened when I finished my rewrite. I’m hoping to be able to send it out to agents in the fall and I now don’t think that’s an unrealistic goal!

Wish me luck!

QUESTION: James Scott Bell, says there are three types of plotters: outline people, no outline people and people who are somewhere in the middle. In the past I’ve been in the middle, but I think I may become a more pure outliner in the future. Which type are you?

Writing

ideas, ideas and more ideas

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I have to admit that I was disappointed in the critiques I got from the contest. They weren’t as detailed as I would have liked and some of the advice completely missed the mark. But any critique is only a tool for a writer. The person reading your manuscript never knows as much about your story as you do. More so in this case when they were only reading the first twenty-five pages. Often a critique is more useful for identifying problem areas than for figuring out how to fix them. Or a problem they mention may not be the actual problem, but something else is. Anyway, it’s up to the author to figure all this out and make the book the best possible.

I found that even though I didn’t get a lot of applicable adivce from the critiques, they did identify some possible problem areas, which got me thinking. Hence, the name of this entry. =)

I was hoping not to have to rewrite the beginning again because I’ve already reworked it several times. However, I think I may have to. Right now, each of the first three chapters (disregarding the prologue) focuses on a major character and their situation. They don’t intersect until later (chapter 4 maybe?). Anyway, it’s possible that this is too slow a beginning, although I like the idea of concentrating on some character development. I thought of a way to introduce all three characters in the framework of the current first chapter. I’ll have to write it out and see how it works. It might be too much information and too many POV that early in the book. I wanted to have a big chunck of Mavelle right away because she’s my protagonist, but that may not be possible. Although I could possible introduce the other characters without using their POV, it would just be harder to write. Again, I’ll have to experiment some and see what works best.

Writing

Writer’s Block

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Actually I don’t believe in “writer’s block” in the way people traditionally define it. At least not for me. I believe that other people believe in it and I suppose I should feel more sympathetic towards them, but most of the time when I’m going through something like writer’s block it’s more out of sheer laziness on my part than anything else and I assume if a writer really buckled down, they’d get over it.

However. That is not to say that I don’t get clogged now and then. And this I am sympathetic about, because I feel it always stems from a reason. And if you look at that reason, you can unclog yourself and start writing again. There are two types of clogs: idea clogs and flow clogs.

Idea clogs happen when you can’t think of anything to write about. I would suggest that you have an idea before you sit down to write, coming up with one on the spot can indeed be difficult. The trick is to be sponge. Open yourself to material while you are reading, watching TV, listening to the radio, talking to your friends and family. Soak it all in and if you have the glimmer of an idea, ANY idea, WRITE IT DOWN. It doesn’t have to be good now, you just don’t want to forget that you had it. The act of writing it down will reinforce it in your memory and while it’s there in your head it will bump and mingle with all the other ideas you have and eventually when you need to squeeze something out ideas will come.

Or if this doesn’t work and you still have trouble thinking of ideas, there are all sorts of writing prompts that you can use. Or you can pick some technique a favorite author uses and try and imitate it, starting with the technique first rather than an “idea.”

This probably isn’t very helpful, because I don’t usually have a problem with ideas. I have more fantasy novels in my head than I’ll probably be able to write in a lifetime.

The other type of clog is the flow clog. This happens to me a lot. It’s happening to me right now actually. This is what happens when you are writing something and for some reason you lose the thread or the spark and it stops flowing. For me this state results from one of two things. Either I have just lost focus and/or are avoiding writing for some reason that has nothing to with the story at all or there is something wrong with what I have written before or what I am planning on writing that my subconscious recognizes needs to be fixed before I continue. Sometimes if I identify to myself what the problem is and promise to fix it later, I can continue. Sometimes I can’t.

This is where strength of will comes in. If it is a lack of focus, I just have to buckle down and do it. If I sit in front of the computer for two hours and actually try to write, word WILL come, probably close to 2,000 of them, it it’s a work in progress, but if I don’t give myself that time because I’m not focused the words don’t have a chance. If it’s a problem I see, there may be something to letting my subconscious stew on the problem for awhile, but eventually, I have to again actually sit down and focus on what the problem is.

Writing is hard. Anyone who doesn’t think so hasn’t tried it. But blaming lack of progress on “writer’s block” instead of taking responsibility for your process, will not help you move forward. Identify what kind of clog you have and start plunging! Take control of your writing. It might be slow at first, but eventually, the flow will come back.