Writer's Block

When your story starts huffing and puffing to stay a float, then your reader is going to feel it too, and they too will huff and puff to stay engaged.

A scary thought, but It can be overcome with a little closer inspection.

I read a great quote yesterday, I'm paraphrasing here, but it went along the lines of "If your characters are just moving forward to further the plot then you got a problem. The plot needs to be moving forward because the character is making tough choices."

I think we are all guilty of this. We think, "OK, I just need to get my character to point B because when he gets there, this thing will happen, and then I can really get going from there," but if your thinking like this, then your reader won't let you take them to point B because they've already put your book down.

Your character must reach point B because they've made a tough choice between two alternatives to take action toward point B.

This is when writer's block is at its worst. If we are just chugging a long, then we are often trying to "fill up" the story with text in order to get to the next thing. This is wrong, wrong, wrong!

If your character is making tough choices, then the story writes its self.

Let me give you an example in the new novel I'm writing, "Ressentiment,"

Essentially the main protagonist and a group of followers are escaping an invasion, so they have fled into the forest and are moving further and further away from the danger. Eventually they reach a new area, where there is a farm and shelter, they can stay, perhaps fight the owner for it, or they can continue moving. I started to struggle at this point, and then I realized, there is no tough choice to make. Who cares if they find shelter or keep on moving, what's the pay off?

So I changed it a little. I made it so the soldiers that were invading end up following them into the forest, but they are a day behind, so they have to keep on moving. I also made it that the forest didn't contain any source of food. So to keep on moving may mean certain death, but if they stay and eat at this farm, then the soldiers may gain on them and the farm may be full of people who don't like their presence there. Is it worth the risk?

Now the story can move forward. A tough choice needs to be made. There are high stakes. Suddenly the writer is engaged in figuring out what happens, and consequently, so is the reader.

Economists call this "opportunity cost," when one choice is made, what is the downside of making that choice?

So next time your stuck, ask yourself, "are my characters making tough choices? Or are they just going through the motions to get to point B?" You will discover a wealth of inspiration there.

Greg

Where To Get Inspiration

As artists, the word "inspiration" conjures up images of some mystical force that transcends the logical mind, and through some spiritual process we are endowed with a connection to the infinite that delivers us sublime works of fiction. Or does it?

Inspiration to me has been used so many times that it's almost lost all meaning. It's really on par with the terms "god" or "love", where each has been used so many times that no one really knows what they even mean anymore. Is god some mystical bearded man that lives in the sky? or does it simply mean a form of infinite energy? or is it the Higgs Boson? And what about love? Is love two teenagers  fooling around in the back of a car? Is it an insecure male who thinks the girl he saw on the bus is the love of his life? Or is it a couple whose been married for 60 years?

Inspiration follows the same tune. Inspiration can just be a happy feeling, it can just be a motivation to start writing (perhaps driven from eating healthy that day or digesting a dose of caffeine), it can really be any type of emotion that leads naturally to putting finger to keyboard.

I say (excuse my french), fuck inspiration. Are you inspired 4 times a week to get up and jog or lift weights? No, but you do it because you know it will prolong your life, and possibly make you look attractive. Are you inspired to get up for work in the morning? Hell no, if your anything like me, the moment the alarm goes off you begin to question your entire existence. So why should writing be any different? If you wait for inspiration to strike, you're going to get nothing done, and you won't become a writer.

You need to approach your writing like you do any endeavor in your life. You got to "put the balls to the wall", and dig in if you want to see any kind of success. And really, its not that hard. Even if you only wrote 3 times a week, at 600 words a pop, which would take you what? 45 minutes to do if you type slowly? That would be 8,000 words a month, which would produce a novel sized piece of work in 6-8 months. If you did that without fail for 3 years, you could have 4-5 novels written, and I'm being conservative here. If your serious about being successful then you have to write more then 2,000 words a week, but if you can't, well, at least you can have 6 novels written.

My point here is that some days your not going to want to write, and some days your writing is just going to suck. But you got to do it. Because it's the crunching of the keys, in a regular routine, that produces results, and you also got to know that the first draft is the easiest bit to do. Just pump it out already! It's the editing process and the subsequent query letters that are the real hard part. So get it done.

So go get it done!