This is the final (for now, to be fair) episode of the Writer’s Block series. I thought the last episode would be the final, but as we’ve been discussing the series in staff, I realized that there’s still one more thing I have to say about Writer’s Block.
On some level, we have to assume it’s going to happen. At some point. And as a #Strategic, I do feel like it’s important for us to be prepared for it to happen, if we know it’s going to happen (or if it is likely to happen). So I want us to start working on our Stuck Lists.
The Stuck List is something we first started discussing in WBF in 2015 when I felt like I wanted to develop a tool for writers to get unstuck in their manuscripts. The problem was, of course, not everyone gets stuck in the same way, and that means, not everyone gets unstuck in the same way.
So instead of developing a “stuck list” that any writer could use, I started encouraging writers to make their own Stuck Lists. Here’s how we start.
First, you have to look at the patterns from your own manuscripts. Look backward and think, “how have I typically gotten stuck in the past?” and “what has been the common theme in the parts of my book that trip me up?”
The second step is to look at how you fixed those problems. Was it time? Was it research? Was it a walk in the park? Was it phoning a friend? Whatever it was, that’s what we want to notice. What was working? (Even if it was, “eventually, I just had to start writing again,” we still want to know that data.
Then, the third part is to look for things that can simulate whatever that “unstuck” moment was created by. Are there particular things that you can do to restart the engine? That’s where the Stuck List comes in, particularly.
The first two steps are important. Because of course, we want the Stuck List to have the highest strategic effectiveness that it can have. Not just to be a list of things we’re going to do because someone told us “writer’s block” gets cleared by whatever thing is on the list.
So what I always do when I talk about Stuck Lists with writers is to talk about why they’re stuck, which is all about answering those first two questions. So, here are some common “why” answers, and then some common things to put on the Stuck List to get you out of those stuck places.
1. You might be stuck because there’s a part of the story you can’t see yet.
When this is the case, and we’re typically seeing a Strategic or an Intellection or Context or Ideation at play, then the fixes have to be related to the Strength‘s stuck reason. Strategics often need that one piece of information that will change the roadblocks. That means you might have to go looking for it. Research some element of the scene you’re on. Or of the place you can’t see beyond. Intellection commonly needs to process (which often means a list of “incubator” activities to check off–while writing this post, I had to go dry my hair and make breakfast, and I’ve found that all of the “morning ablution” activities are on my incubator list, so I’ll sometimes take a second shower in the middle of the day just to re-simulate that time). The Context might need a piece of information about the character’s past, or something that didn’t happen that should have. For that, I typically suggest going to archetypes (the Heroes and Heroines book is one, the onestopforwriters.com thesauri are another). (This can also work for Input, btw.) And when an Ideation is stuck here, they often need something new to riff on, so they might actually need to go watch something on TV or read another book or have a conversation with someone to get some new fodder.
Whatever has worked for you in the past, it’s important to keep track of those things. They should be at the top of your Stuck List.
2. You might be stuck because you’re headed in the wrong direction.
I see this the most often with Connectedness, Individualization, Strategic, and Intellection, but it’s by no means limited to those Strengths. With Connectedness, I’ll often suggest the “random writing prompts” style of writing, to get your mind off the direction you were headed in. And I mean random. Some friends and I used to do a palate cleanser called “Poetry of Three Things” to start every writer’s group. We’d each pick one thing, and then we’d all say them out loud and we each had to write a poem using those three things. It was so unrelated to anything I’d been working on, it was a great way to get me writing words and thinking about something other than the book, and it always got me unstuck from the book, too. In addition to being really cool to write poetry again. For Individualization here, I always encourage some kind of analysis or research into the person you’re writing. There’s something about them you don’t know yet that you need to go searching out. Archetypes or thesauri might work, but it might also work to just read about psychology, or to read blog posts of people who are like your characters to hear their voice. Many of these tactics will work for the same “why”, although the palate cleanser has to definitely be something that works for you.
The “random writing prompts” I mean are the ones that come out of those big books to get you unstuck from writing. There’s one actually called “Writer’s Block” and it’s shaped like a big block and it’s a cube full of random prompts for writing. I have a book on prompts, and I just opened it to this one: “You have been given $100 on the condition you must spend it all on yourself. What will you do with your money?” This kind of prompt engages different parts of your brain, while still engaging the creativity center, so if there is Intellection resistance, it can sometimes shift the Intellection into gear to write about something else so you can “background process” the thing that’s stuck.
3. You might be stuck in a hard emotional spot and need to take a break.
Many of the Relationship Building Strengths have some kind of emotional attachment to the characters that means they feel what the characters feel. Empathy, Connectedness, Relator, and Developer all have some traits that can present like this. When that’s part of your makeup, it’s important to recognize that we don’t want to feel those really bad feelings, either. And sometimes, we don’t really want to put our characters in those situations that produce the bad feelings, but we know we have to. Still, subconsciously, there’s the resistance. For me, I find it important to say, when you’re wired to be responsive like this, it might extend to your characters, and then it’s important to take care of your mental and emotional health when you know you have to go write those really demanding or hard scenes. And if you find yourself resisting, then we need to find ways to combat the resistance. That’s why I often suggest deep connections (and sometimes intimate connections) with the people who fill us up, before we have to work on those things. Fill the tank first–and have a list of things to do to fill the tank–and then tackle the deep emotional stuff.
Sometimes, too, just knowing it’s coming and preemptively filling the tank can be enough to get us over those humps. These Strengths are major gifts in the writing, and stewarding them well is so important!
4. You might be stuck because you’ve written yourself into a corner.
This often happens to pants-ers (or plotsers or anyone on the continuum of discovery writing, and it’s often the source of the greatest tension in the book (which is good for the readers, too, because they feel the same stuck-ness). If it typically takes you a long time to get out of this place, I usually encourage reaching quickly for the things that we “finally” do in the end to get unstuck. Calling a friend or another writer is often a good source of having to struggle through that thing. The good news is, if you set people up for success to help you, even if you don’t take any of their ideas, it will still be a success. It’s important, if you’re not the kind of person who typically takes ideas from others, to let them know that ahead of time. Let them know that the process of throwing ideas around is very helpful, even though you rarely take the actual ideas that you all discuss during brainstorming. I always tell people, when I brainstorm, we’ll come up with the 15 ideas we can think of, and then my Intellection will go home and think of the 16th idea that we couldn’t see at the time. And that’s what I love about Intellection. But it often means that my friends would think they weren’t helping me when we were brainstorming because I didn’t use any of their ideas. I found that preparing people to be their most helpful is a great thing to keep friendships intact. 🙂
5. You might be stuck because you lost the plot.
Sometimes, we get so interested in the ordinary lives of our characters (writing them talking with people, eating food, sitting around and talking) that we forget how long it’s been since we’ve had an action point or a pinch point. In those moments where we’ve lost the plot, we need reminders about what needs to happen next. My two favorite places for this are KM Weiland’s Character Arcs book, and the Writer Unboxed blog post about questions to ask when you’re stuck. These are definitely good places to go when you’re stuck on plot, and I like the fact that they’re asking questions.
There’s also a really helpful short video (I think there’s language in this one, so be forewarned!) on how to create dramatic tension that I find really helpful for understanding how to create action that creates action. I link to that here, because I think that’s also plot-related. Tension and stakes are the two most common things that stop writers from writing. So understanding either the “therefore” clause from the video, or some form of scene and sequel writing can be helpful to that plot-style of stuckness.
Okay, so let’s say that you know you suffer from a couple of these types of stuck-ness.
Get out a sticky note or a piece of paper.
Write out the words on whichever number above tends to happen to you. (And you can put them in your own words, as well, if you’d rather.)
Below that, write either the questions that you need to ask yourself (I find that questions work the best because they require an answer from you) or the activities that you need to do.
Then put this up somewhere you’ll see it. Somewhere to remind you, don’t just sit there being stuck. Do something about the stuck-ness.
Sometimes, your Stuck List is comprised of two words:
“WALK AWAY”
Because that’s the thing that makes you get unstuck.
But whatever’s on your list, put it somewhere you’ll see it. Tape it to your desk. Stick it on your monitor. Tack it to your corkboard. Whatever works for you. The point is that you will see it when you’re stuck and remember to do the things on the list.
I know what you’re thinking… “But, Becca. I’ll remember. Trust me. I’ll know I’m stuck.”
But data is against you. Most of us don’t realize we’re stuck early enough. Most of us are surfing Facebook or working on other things before we realize we’re stuck enough to try to fix the problem.
Watch for the signs. Watch your brain. Watch your words. Look for the stuck-ness and apply the Stuck List.
Any thoughts?
To read more posts, check out Patreon