Breaking Through Writing Roadblocks
I wrote about 12 intros to this paragraph that I then deleted because I didn’t like them, so we’re off to a great start with this one. Sometimes, I think I am the most roadblock-prone writer in the world. Some days, I can barely string three words together – and then I delete those 3 words and start over. Some days I stare at the document for so long that I think I black out because it’ll be 45 minutes later and somehow I’ve lost a thousand words. Some days I realize it’s been a month since I even opened my manuscript and I still can’t think of what I need to say to progress the story. Roadblocks, mental blocks, writer’s block, whatever you want to call it – it’s the worst. But here’s the thing, there’s only one way to get over it, and that’s to go through it. If you don’t confront writer’s block, you’ll lose valuable time in your writing or possibly never return to it again.
I know, pushing on when the ideas aren’t flowing is much easier said than done. There’s a reason that most of us prefer to wait for true bursts of inspiration to write. However daunting it may seem, it’s important to push through even when that inspiration isn’t there. Sometimes it’s more important to stay on a consistent writing schedule which means writing even when you don’t feel like it. Sometimes your inspiration is hiding on the other side of your roadblock. Sometimes you just need to put your big girl panties on and get things done even when you don’t quite want to. It can be really hard to know how to get through it, and nobody has all of the answers -- especially not me. But here are 4 dependable methods that I use that might help you, too.
Write Things Out Step-By-Step / Descriptively
Sometimes, writer’s block is brought on when your brain seemingly refuses to think what might come next in whatever you’re trying to write. Whether it’s struggling to end a sentence, scene, or chapter, at times your creativity only seems to want to carry you so far. When this happens, it can be really helpful to take a step back and list out or describe what needs to happen next. Instead of worrying about writing in a way that fits the tone and writing style of your project, simply list out what needs to come up.
For example, let’s say I’m working on a Cinderella adaptation, but I’m stuck on the scene where my Cindy character puts together her outfit for the party:
Cindy scanned the list several times in disbelief. She was done. Somehow she’d finished every task on the list. She’d always been determined, but this felt almost magical. For the first time in a long time, things seemed to be going her way. Until, of course, she remembered that she still had to dress herself for the party.
Using a step-by-step method, instead of focusing on continued writing, I might make a list like this to direct my thoughts.
Cindy feels frustrated
Cindy remembers she has her mother’s dress in her closet
Cindy reworks the dress
Cindy encounters her stepmother
At this point I know the 4 things that I have to write next in a way that allows me to order my thoughts. Taking a step back like this can be helpful because instead of getting lost in too much detail or forward thinking, I can focus my energy on the next bullet point -- in this case, writing Cindy feeling frustrated. If I’m still stuck, I can go back in and add more details to the list and make changes to update it.
Cindy feels frustrated
Cindy searches through her closet for anything passable
Cindy remembers she has her mother’s dress in her closet
Cindy tries on the dress and realizes it needs updating
Cindy gets an idea for how she can use her old clothes to make the dress modern
Cindy gets to work cutting and sewing until she has her dress
Cindy puts on her dress and goes to tell her stepmother she’s ready
For me, it never takes more than 2 or 3 iterations of working through the list to get at least an idea of what I can immediately write to close out a scene. The words I write might not be as good as if I was writing from a place of inspiration, but they’re still typically helpful.
Another version of this, if you’re not a list thinker, is to do the same thing in paragraph form, focusing on the details that are important for you to convey. A descriptive paragraph form of the list I made above might look like this:
Cindy gets frustrated when she realizes she has nothing to wear. She flips through her closet but just when she’s about to give up, she remembers her mother’s dress. She tries it on, surprised it fits, but then realizes that it needs updating. Newly determined, she decides that she can make the dress work if she cuts up some of her other clothes and sews pieces on as dress accessories. She immediately gets to work, and soon she has her dress ready to go. The only thing left is to confront her stepmother and tell her she’s ready to go to the party.
This text certainly isn’t my novel, but it’s a description of what I’d like to happen next in my novel. I like this method especially when I’m feeling creatively blocked because typically writing the descriptive paragraph uses a tiny bit of creativity that can sometimes be just enough to get me over the edge. With either of these methods, I’ll re-read what I’ve typed and add or change details until something I write resonates with me. From there, I use these tools as a checklist or guideline for my writing in case my brain drops the thread again.
Imagine Conversations between Characters
For me, the pressure to write -- especially the pressure to write something that “sounds good” -- can be overwhelming to the point of blockage. Instead of writing what comes to mind, it’s easy to agonize that things are “wrong” or “not working.” Occasionally, it’s even true. Even so, it’s never productive and transform into a feedback loop where the more frustrated you get over things not working, the more things seem to not work. For me, this comes up especially often when I’m trying to write dialogue.
The strategy I’ve adapted to combat this, therefore, is also dialogue-based. In order to break the feedback loop, I typically go to a new document. I put in my first quotation mark and then simply write out the dialogue. I don’t put any she said, he said, or any descriptors. Even if I write something that a character would never say, I just keep rolling onwards with how characters might react. Just like in improv, this method asks you to just keep saying yes to whatever comes out of one character’s mouth and keep going. The only differentiation I use between lines of text is line breaks and quotation marks. I do this until the conversation feels like it has reached a natural groove.
Following our Cinderella example above, here’s what this might look like for the conversation between Cindy and her stepmother.
“Della, I’ve completed the chores I’m ready to go to the party.”
“Looking like that? Absolutely not.”“I hate you!”
“Excuse me how dare you!”
“I don’t understand. I did everything you asked I - I completed the list, I did the chores. All of the chores. I know my dress isn’t great but -”
“Isn’t great? It’s an old rag with tattered clothes sewn on, Cindy. I’m not trying to be mean, but there’s a certain level of expectation that you, unfortunately, just aren’t meeting. Perhaps with more time, but you’re never going to get something appropriate to wear at this hour. I guess you can’t go after all.”
Realistically, it would probably take more than 4 lines of stilted dialogue for me to get into the groove and write something that made sense, but whether it takes 4 lines or 40 lines, this method allows you to remove the expectation of producing something good, and play around until you find something useful. Sometimes, if it’s not working, I’ll delete everything and start over again if that’s what it takes.
What I like about this method is that it forces you to write without judging yourself, forces you to just keep going, and often produces at least a few lines of dialogue that you can use as a starting point once you return to your actual project. And like improv, it gives you the freedom to take your work to new heights and to places that might surprise you.
Expand your Outline Backwards
Occasionally, I’ll try the step-by-step or descriptive method and end up stuck. I’ll try to write out dialogue and end up stopping after “Hi” “Hello.” When that happens, I know that I’m not just stuck on what comes immediately next in a scene or chapter, but on what needs to happen to carry my book from the current plot point to the next plot point in my outline. Sometimes, it’s hard to know how to get from “Stepmother tells Cindy she can’t go” to “Cindy encounters her Fairy Godmother in the forest.”
When I hit these roadblocks, it’s typically because there’s a gap in how I’ve thought about the story. For me, these roadblocks expose gaps in my outlines. Everyone plans novels differently, and this post is not about planning a novel. (Whenever I write about that, I’ll link to it here if that’s something people would find helpful, but I understand that not everyone uses outlines.) For me though, my outline is the living backbone of my novel and when I find a gap in one, it’s something I need to close. Even if you don’t outline, when you find a hole in your thinking it’s important to address it so that your novel proceeds forward with a logical flow.
What works for me when I find these holes is the tried-and-true method of working backwards. When I can’t think sequentially, sometimes what works the best is to go the opposite direction. Instead of the question of “what comes next” I ask myself “what had to happen before this for this to occur.”
The actual act of working backwards can look like many different things. For the sake of simplicity, I’ll use the list method from above to demonstrate how I might get Cindy to her Fairy Godmother in the forest. The sequence might not make sense, but that’s the point.
Cindy’s Fairy Godmother gets tired of her denying her magic and finally reveals herself
Cindy gets that strange feeling again but still does what Della told her and suppresses it
Cindy stops running near her favorite tree and cries
Cindy runs out of the house crying, not wanting to be anywhere near her step-sisters and Della
Della makes a distraught Cindy watch as her step-sisters are presented in their beautiful dresses
Stepmother tells Cindy she can’t go
However the working backwards is accomplished, this method is very useful for identifying the questions that might be unsolved details preventing you from moving forward. For example, with bullet point 3 I might wonder why Cindy decides to stop running, which makes me realize that she might stop near her favorite tree - perhaps even a tree that’s connected to her magic. Or, if I wonder why in bullet point 4 Cindy might run out of the house instead of running to her room, I need to answer this in bullet point 5 by explaining that just before that she had to watch her stepsisters come down the stairs in their dresses. In addition to exposing questions that might still be in your mind, this is also useful because when you flip it, you end up with a really nice sequential step-by-step like I discussed earlier because you know that every point flows directly into the point after it.
Choose a New Starting Point
Sometimes, the problem isn’t your thinking. You might know exactly what needs to happen next. You know who needs to talk to who and the logical progression of what needs to happen, but the words still feel stilted. You could end up with sentences like “Cinderella cried. She looked up at the tree. She felt a strange sensation but she ignored it, as usual. Then, her fairy godmother finally revealed herself.” Technically correct, but overly technical.
This, for me, is the point to press pause on a scene. I’ve pushed through entire scenes in this strained manner only to end up with pages of work that cannot be used and needs to be re-worked. When I push and I push and it doesn’t lead to any kind of breakthrough, I take that as a sign to reorient myself and start fresh. I do this by choosing another point in my story to start writing.
People have different feelings about this, but for how I think and write, I’m not a fan of jumping around in a story. My plot typically evolves as I write, and when I go ahead in a story I often end up having to completely revise the worked-ahead parts to match the new nuances of the plot. However, this is a lot better than writing nothing at all.
Looking at this evil stepmother scene -- if we’ve tried describing everything that has to happen next, isn’t making progress with Cindy’s conversation with her Fairy Godmother, and even working backwards and closing her mental gaps didn’t help -- maybe it’s time to move on to something else. This scene just isn’t working for her, but that doesn’t mean the entire novel isn’t working.
Taking a step back, the author might think about what made her excited to write this story. This is supposed to be a love story after all, but maybe she’s been writing for weeks and hasn’t even gotten to say a word about one of her favorite characters: P. Charming. She might take a step away from Cindy’s hidden magic, Della’s cold heart, the vapid step-sisters, and even the judgy Godmother in order to focus on the character she’s eager to write. She may be feeling frustrated about the scene she’s on, but even just thinking about the first time Cindy lays eyes on P. Charming has her yanking her pen or keyboard towards her and writing furiously.
Often times, there’s a few key scenes in our novels that inspired the passion for the project in the first place. When you’re really stuck, letting yourself attack one of those scenes can remind you why you were excited to start your project, why you love writing, and that you are a beautiful wordsmith and creative queen totally capable of tackling this project. At the end of the day, it’s that feeling that makes writing a novel one of the most amazing things you can ever accomplish.
That’s how I break through my roadblocks. How do you? If there’s anything that you do differently, if anything on this list helped you, or if there’s anything else you’d like to have me write about, please let me know in the comments below or on my facebook, twitter, or instagram.
