Fighting Fire with Fire
Writers live and die by inspiration. There’s no telling when or how much inspiration will hit you. Sometimes it’s hard to tell which is worse, a surplus or a deficit.
Too much inspiration and a writer can feel like she’s being pulled in too many directions. Too many ideas, too many characters and too much clutter can damage the direction of a story. It can also be aggravating if there are too many story ideas and it’s unclear which one to flesh out, because a writer can really only pick one story to throw her soul into. Maybe a second one to off-set the emotional demands of the first (like if a story is too dark or too light, writers will have a second story they’re working on to air out emotions and ideas they can’t use). After that point, the work starts to suffer.
Too little inspiration and a writer feels like she’s dead and it’s the end of the line for her writing, period. Uninspired writing isn’t always horrible, but that exception only rings true for a handful of writers (e.g., Charles Dickens but he channels that disgruntled-ness into his writing rather than it permeating around the prose). Writer’s malaise can seep into a story quite quickly and the reader will feel how exasperated the whole scenario is. It’s sort of like cooking, when the person can taste the cook’s passion and other emotions in the food.
Suffice to say, I’m suffering a little from Category A and a lot from Category B. I’ve had several (what seem to me at the moment) very good story ideas. I’ve got them sketched and scratched all over the place (I’m working on getting my scanner up and running to declutter those). Anaxarete, Elara, Prufrock, Confessions of A Fairy Godmother, and Aerie are all really good stories, perfectly delineated and waiting to be written. Then there’s my fanfic, which I’m sure I’m disappointing someone somewhere with because I know that Wake is beyond awesome but it won’t actually be awesome until it’s done.
I have a surplus of inspirational ideas, but for some reason I can’t get any of the stories off the ground. I can’t find the right place to start telling from. There are huge holes that weren’t obvious in the outline. Maybe the characters didn’t turn out quite the way they were planned.
Basically, I’ve got writer’s block in the worst of ways.
I’ve been trying different coping methods.
1) Stepping away from writing. -- Sometimes when you’re just too close to a story, it can get claustrophobic. No room to breathe. The problem with this method is that it can ruin writing stamina and encourage a writer to quit out of sheer lack of motivation. Needless to say, it’s like falling off a horse, not getting back on and deciding to go on the rest of your life without riding.
2) Doing more: Read, Watch, Listen, Learn. -- You don’t have to wait for inspiration to come, you can hunt it down.
A) Reading books similar to the one you’re trying to write can help by showing how others did it, what ideas are out there, and shaping your own to be unique or even reference something you thought was brilliant. Or read something completely different and find a really cool new angle that you can use in your story, like in a dark, post-apocalyptic story give the dark character an oddball sense of humor.
B) Watching movies and TV shows has pretty much the same effect, but it’s more visual which you might need as a push when trying to put together a fight scene or game scene that need to be visual.
C) Listening to songs that remind you of your story can is another route. I know lots of authors (myself included) who put together soundtracks to keep them motivated while writing, and it can help keep you in your writing frame of mind without having to write.
D) And finally, we arrive at the learning curve. Even if you’re having trouble writing, research and learn as much as you can about the topic you’re interested in writing about (writing about dragons, research every dragon myth or story you can). Or improve on your skills as a writer by learning as much as you can about grammar and punctuation and how to type properly (a lot of people who post things don’t realize they make tons of small errors with spacing, etc.). Or learn how to query and get into the industry, so that way when you are done you won't lose as much time looking for info about how to get in.
3) Fighting fire with fire. -- Or in this case, if you can’t write, force yourself to write. Maybe you’re just missing momentum to get your story where it needs to go. Take part in NaNoWriMo or host your own. Sometimes the hardest part of the journey is Chapter 1. No matter how good or bad it is, just do it. It helps to set goals for yourself as motivation, like you need to get to Chapter 7 in two months, otherwise you’ll waste time putting it off. Right now, I’m writing as many author notes on anything and everything, even stuff that won’t be a part of the story in its prose form -- motivations, inspirations, background notes. At least this way if I put the story on the shelf, I won’t be scratching my head later over details when I pick it back up. I have been writing for a while and know that this happens after you put a story away and return to it later.
As always, I’ll let you know when the block has been chiseled.
Too much inspiration and a writer can feel like she’s being pulled in too many directions. Too many ideas, too many characters and too much clutter can damage the direction of a story. It can also be aggravating if there are too many story ideas and it’s unclear which one to flesh out, because a writer can really only pick one story to throw her soul into. Maybe a second one to off-set the emotional demands of the first (like if a story is too dark or too light, writers will have a second story they’re working on to air out emotions and ideas they can’t use). After that point, the work starts to suffer.
Too little inspiration and a writer feels like she’s dead and it’s the end of the line for her writing, period. Uninspired writing isn’t always horrible, but that exception only rings true for a handful of writers (e.g., Charles Dickens but he channels that disgruntled-ness into his writing rather than it permeating around the prose). Writer’s malaise can seep into a story quite quickly and the reader will feel how exasperated the whole scenario is. It’s sort of like cooking, when the person can taste the cook’s passion and other emotions in the food.
Suffice to say, I’m suffering a little from Category A and a lot from Category B. I’ve had several (what seem to me at the moment) very good story ideas. I’ve got them sketched and scratched all over the place (I’m working on getting my scanner up and running to declutter those). Anaxarete, Elara, Prufrock, Confessions of A Fairy Godmother, and Aerie are all really good stories, perfectly delineated and waiting to be written. Then there’s my fanfic, which I’m sure I’m disappointing someone somewhere with because I know that Wake is beyond awesome but it won’t actually be awesome until it’s done.
I have a surplus of inspirational ideas, but for some reason I can’t get any of the stories off the ground. I can’t find the right place to start telling from. There are huge holes that weren’t obvious in the outline. Maybe the characters didn’t turn out quite the way they were planned.
Basically, I’ve got writer’s block in the worst of ways.
I’ve been trying different coping methods.
1) Stepping away from writing. -- Sometimes when you’re just too close to a story, it can get claustrophobic. No room to breathe. The problem with this method is that it can ruin writing stamina and encourage a writer to quit out of sheer lack of motivation. Needless to say, it’s like falling off a horse, not getting back on and deciding to go on the rest of your life without riding.
2) Doing more: Read, Watch, Listen, Learn. -- You don’t have to wait for inspiration to come, you can hunt it down.
A) Reading books similar to the one you’re trying to write can help by showing how others did it, what ideas are out there, and shaping your own to be unique or even reference something you thought was brilliant. Or read something completely different and find a really cool new angle that you can use in your story, like in a dark, post-apocalyptic story give the dark character an oddball sense of humor.
B) Watching movies and TV shows has pretty much the same effect, but it’s more visual which you might need as a push when trying to put together a fight scene or game scene that need to be visual.
C) Listening to songs that remind you of your story can is another route. I know lots of authors (myself included) who put together soundtracks to keep them motivated while writing, and it can help keep you in your writing frame of mind without having to write.
D) And finally, we arrive at the learning curve. Even if you’re having trouble writing, research and learn as much as you can about the topic you’re interested in writing about (writing about dragons, research every dragon myth or story you can). Or improve on your skills as a writer by learning as much as you can about grammar and punctuation and how to type properly (a lot of people who post things don’t realize they make tons of small errors with spacing, etc.). Or learn how to query and get into the industry, so that way when you are done you won't lose as much time looking for info about how to get in.
3) Fighting fire with fire. -- Or in this case, if you can’t write, force yourself to write. Maybe you’re just missing momentum to get your story where it needs to go. Take part in NaNoWriMo or host your own. Sometimes the hardest part of the journey is Chapter 1. No matter how good or bad it is, just do it. It helps to set goals for yourself as motivation, like you need to get to Chapter 7 in two months, otherwise you’ll waste time putting it off. Right now, I’m writing as many author notes on anything and everything, even stuff that won’t be a part of the story in its prose form -- motivations, inspirations, background notes. At least this way if I put the story on the shelf, I won’t be scratching my head later over details when I pick it back up. I have been writing for a while and know that this happens after you put a story away and return to it later.
As always, I’ll let you know when the block has been chiseled.