Getting over Writer's Block
The empty computer screen stares back at you expectantly with the cursor flashing in admonition at your lack of inspiration. Performance anxiety enters your head and you think nothing creative will ever be born there again. You impose pressure on yourself to write something, anything, to free up the flow.
Deadlines crowd into your mind and increase the anxiety further. You type out a few sentences and read them back to yourself before heading straight for the delete button. You know you are facing one of the greatest fears of all writers; writer’s block. It’s a common, debilitating, but thankfully entirely curable, condition. It hits professionals and amateurs alike, and the battle with writer’s block will last throughout your entire writing career. So how are you going to manage it?
There are a range of strategies to help you fight against this scourge and you will probably need to change tactics over time. Some of the remedies below should be helpful, but you may need to try a combination if singly they are unsuccessful.
1. Tricks of the Trade
Writing exercises can be a great for stimulating the creative process and getting you writing again. There are many to choose from, and I include a short selection here which have proved to be useful for me in the past.
Fictionalised fact: I found this an exceptionally good technique for creating short pieces of prose, and actually got a short story published that was born from this technique. Given that you are struggling to write and cannot seem to find a way forward, rather than persevere and become more frustrated, put pen and paper to one side and read a newspaper or magazine. I find the local papers which have a greater reliance on human interest stories the best.
While you are reading, look out for any articles that interest or fascinate you. Start thinking around the article, about the characters that inhabit that world, what they have been through and their futures. Write a short story based on the article and the thinking you have done around it. Do not be confined by facts and what has been reported, use these merely as a jump start to your imagination. Change as much as you like to get a good dramatic piece from this. Things you should definitely change are the character names and probably any place names.
You will be amazed at the results this technique can achieve.
Search engine: Using an Internet search engine, type a name into the search box (someone you know or fictitious, use the phone book if you struggle to think of a name). Choose one of the links on the first page of returned results at random, I find biography or social network sites best. Read a little about the person described and then try to imagine a typical day for them. Then think of some terrible disaster that might befall them and write a short piece describing how they would deal with that. For example you may find someone who is a baker in a small community. You can imagine that a bad day for him might be if the oven breaks down and he cannot bake. You could build a story of how his day pans out as a result. May not be that interesting for others to read, but you may find a home for that character in your future writing. Anyway, at this stage it is about getting your flow of writing going again.
Use your enemies: Think about someone whom you dislike. The stronger your feeling about that person the better for this exercise. Now think of a time when you were in conflict with this person. Describe what happened and how final resolution was achieved, or not. The twist with this exercise is to write in the first person but from the point of view of your adversary. Think about what they were saying and why. This is not only a good technique for getting past writer’s block, it helps your writing generally, for when you have to write characters that are very different from yourself. it helps you find these characters motivations and voice.
Famous book, minor character: Remind yourself of a favourite book or film, such as Alice in Wonderland. Now think about one of the minor characters from that story, the white rabbit perhaps. Now retell the story but from their perspective. This is an excellent way of getting you writing while producing some inventive and interesting character. This one never fails for me.
There are a range of other writing techniques you could employ, examples of which are easily found on the Internet. But let’s suppose that you don’t find writing exercises stimulating or useful. What else might you try?
2. External stimuli
One of the great generators of ideas and inspiration, is other people. This could be achieved in a variety of ways. Two particularly useful things to do are:
Writing groups: Join a writing group with some like-minded writers who can help bolster your spirits when you are flagging, but more importantly help you work your way out of problems and deal with bouts of writer’s block. They may need to do no more than reassure you, but they can also be sources of inspiration and point out things to you that you hadn’t thought about. I find other writers particularly helpful when my writer’s block stems from a lack of confidence in what I have written. Their support and insights can help you realise the value of what you have achieved and can spur you on to write. Of course, you can return the favour when they hit similar problems.
People watching: Another good way for getting inspiration is to watch people and listen to what they say. On the bus or train you will find lots of opportunities for studying how people behave, and you can set your imagination going. Thinking about what they might be doing, where they have come from or where they are going. Try to write a few lines about how they make you feel. For example, is the young man with the tattoos and piercings intimidating or the young girl with her mother crying because she wants something? There will be a range of characters that you can describe and place in situations where you can play out what has happened to them. It is surprising just how many ideas you might get from observing strangers.
3. Internal stimuli
Another source of cures for writer’s block comes from your own brain. You just need to unlock it to set the flow going.
Stream of conciousness: This is basically sitting down and writing whatever comes into your head. It may not make any sense, it may be unrelated ramblings or you may even get a coherent piece of writing from it. The trick here is not to think too much about what you doing. Pick any word at random and use that as the first word of your exercise. For the next ten minutes just pour out whatever you think. Don’t worry that it isn’t good writing, though you may surprise yourself with just how good it is. This exercise is merely to get words on the page. Once you’ve written your stream, read it back; you will find some pearls there.
Connections: This is a little like the exercise above, but instead of writing prose, just write a sentence or two about ten randomly chosen words. You might want to think about how the words make you feel, or the sensations they bring to mind or maybe even just write their definitions. It is simply a key to getting ideas out of your head and onto paper. If you get sidetracked and want to write a lot more about one word, do it. Do not allow the exercise to control you, you get from it what you can and use it to your advantage.
None of the above are sure-fire cures, but you should find at least one method amongst them that knocks your writer’s block on the head and gets you flowing again. Good luck and enjoy your writing.
Deadlines crowd into your mind and increase the anxiety further. You type out a few sentences and read them back to yourself before heading straight for the delete button. You know you are facing one of the greatest fears of all writers; writer’s block. It’s a common, debilitating, but thankfully entirely curable, condition. It hits professionals and amateurs alike, and the battle with writer’s block will last throughout your entire writing career. So how are you going to manage it?
There are a range of strategies to help you fight against this scourge and you will probably need to change tactics over time. Some of the remedies below should be helpful, but you may need to try a combination if singly they are unsuccessful.
1. Tricks of the Trade
Writing exercises can be a great for stimulating the creative process and getting you writing again. There are many to choose from, and I include a short selection here which have proved to be useful for me in the past.
Fictionalised fact: I found this an exceptionally good technique for creating short pieces of prose, and actually got a short story published that was born from this technique. Given that you are struggling to write and cannot seem to find a way forward, rather than persevere and become more frustrated, put pen and paper to one side and read a newspaper or magazine. I find the local papers which have a greater reliance on human interest stories the best.
While you are reading, look out for any articles that interest or fascinate you. Start thinking around the article, about the characters that inhabit that world, what they have been through and their futures. Write a short story based on the article and the thinking you have done around it. Do not be confined by facts and what has been reported, use these merely as a jump start to your imagination. Change as much as you like to get a good dramatic piece from this. Things you should definitely change are the character names and probably any place names.
You will be amazed at the results this technique can achieve.
Search engine: Using an Internet search engine, type a name into the search box (someone you know or fictitious, use the phone book if you struggle to think of a name). Choose one of the links on the first page of returned results at random, I find biography or social network sites best. Read a little about the person described and then try to imagine a typical day for them. Then think of some terrible disaster that might befall them and write a short piece describing how they would deal with that. For example you may find someone who is a baker in a small community. You can imagine that a bad day for him might be if the oven breaks down and he cannot bake. You could build a story of how his day pans out as a result. May not be that interesting for others to read, but you may find a home for that character in your future writing. Anyway, at this stage it is about getting your flow of writing going again.
Use your enemies: Think about someone whom you dislike. The stronger your feeling about that person the better for this exercise. Now think of a time when you were in conflict with this person. Describe what happened and how final resolution was achieved, or not. The twist with this exercise is to write in the first person but from the point of view of your adversary. Think about what they were saying and why. This is not only a good technique for getting past writer’s block, it helps your writing generally, for when you have to write characters that are very different from yourself. it helps you find these characters motivations and voice.
Famous book, minor character: Remind yourself of a favourite book or film, such as Alice in Wonderland. Now think about one of the minor characters from that story, the white rabbit perhaps. Now retell the story but from their perspective. This is an excellent way of getting you writing while producing some inventive and interesting character. This one never fails for me.
There are a range of other writing techniques you could employ, examples of which are easily found on the Internet. But let’s suppose that you don’t find writing exercises stimulating or useful. What else might you try?
2. External stimuli
One of the great generators of ideas and inspiration, is other people. This could be achieved in a variety of ways. Two particularly useful things to do are:
Writing groups: Join a writing group with some like-minded writers who can help bolster your spirits when you are flagging, but more importantly help you work your way out of problems and deal with bouts of writer’s block. They may need to do no more than reassure you, but they can also be sources of inspiration and point out things to you that you hadn’t thought about. I find other writers particularly helpful when my writer’s block stems from a lack of confidence in what I have written. Their support and insights can help you realise the value of what you have achieved and can spur you on to write. Of course, you can return the favour when they hit similar problems.
People watching: Another good way for getting inspiration is to watch people and listen to what they say. On the bus or train you will find lots of opportunities for studying how people behave, and you can set your imagination going. Thinking about what they might be doing, where they have come from or where they are going. Try to write a few lines about how they make you feel. For example, is the young man with the tattoos and piercings intimidating or the young girl with her mother crying because she wants something? There will be a range of characters that you can describe and place in situations where you can play out what has happened to them. It is surprising just how many ideas you might get from observing strangers.
3. Internal stimuli
Another source of cures for writer’s block comes from your own brain. You just need to unlock it to set the flow going.
Stream of conciousness: This is basically sitting down and writing whatever comes into your head. It may not make any sense, it may be unrelated ramblings or you may even get a coherent piece of writing from it. The trick here is not to think too much about what you doing. Pick any word at random and use that as the first word of your exercise. For the next ten minutes just pour out whatever you think. Don’t worry that it isn’t good writing, though you may surprise yourself with just how good it is. This exercise is merely to get words on the page. Once you’ve written your stream, read it back; you will find some pearls there.
Connections: This is a little like the exercise above, but instead of writing prose, just write a sentence or two about ten randomly chosen words. You might want to think about how the words make you feel, or the sensations they bring to mind or maybe even just write their definitions. It is simply a key to getting ideas out of your head and onto paper. If you get sidetracked and want to write a lot more about one word, do it. Do not allow the exercise to control you, you get from it what you can and use it to your advantage.
None of the above are sure-fire cures, but you should find at least one method amongst them that knocks your writer’s block on the head and gets you flowing again. Good luck and enjoy your writing.