Things don’t always go to plan, when writing a story. For instance, the protagonists in my latest story are currently frozen in time, as I try to work out what they are going to do next. It’s as if they’re at a stage in their journey where they have to change course and head off in a slightly different direction, but they don’t know which direction to go in.
Oh, I know where I want them to end up, pretty much, and I know roughly how they are going to get there, but it’s the details that are currently eluding me. Do they turn left or right when they leave the door? Do they stick together or split up, and (maybe) get back together again later? One of them has a secret. Does it come out now, or later, and what are the knock-on effects from the revelation?
So, they are on a sabbatical at present, sitting by the side of a pool somewhere in the storyverse, sipping cocktails and asking each other “Where do you think he will send us next?”
When I come to a sticking point in a story there are a number of courses of action that I could take. One is to abandon the story for a while, like I am doing with the story in question. Or I could force the narrative onward.
This second course of action is generally much harder, but on occasion I have taken it. Generally it means I write a few words, maybe a sentence on two, then play a game or take the dog for a walk. Then I push it a step or two further. And so on, until the log jam breaks and the words start to flow more freely.
This works for me. I know, though, that other people do things differently. There are many tricks to break the log jam, which is sometimes called a writer’s block. For instance there are web sites which produce a random sentence, often of the form “<subject> <verb> <object>” with maybe few random adjectives thrown for good measure. I can see how this would help, if the writer’s narrative fit the suggestion reasonably closely, but often this is not the case. (Others may be luckier than I am, of course).
I can’t say that I suffer from writer’s block, though. I’ve shelved stories for up to a decade or so, but that more because I wanted to do other things than because I can’t advance the narrative. It’s more temporary loss of enthusiasm than a block. But it does bring the narrative to a temporary halt.
Most of my stories have been or will eventually be published on Amazon and Kobobooks. Here are the links to my Author Pages.
[Please note, I’ve decided to share my stories here only as PDFs. If you would prefer a different format, for example, an ePub file, just let me know through my feedback form.]
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