Writing has become such a major part of my life. I realized recently that, while my blog highlights my writing, it doesn’t talk about the joys and pains of this major part of my life. For the next few months, I would like to share some ideas about writing and hear what you have to say. I’m also inviting any writer in the audience to join the conversation. Let’s talk in the comment section. If you’d like to guest post on Writer Wednesday, shoot me an email and let me know.
For the next few weeks, thought we could talk about the places and situations where we get stuck. You know those moments when the writing grinds to a halt. Everything we write is like spins us deeper into the muck of our own minds. We’re stuck.
Where to do you get stuck in your writing? What do you do to get out of it?
While there are a few places I get stuck, one place I always get stuck is right on the edge of a character getting injured, hurt or struggling. If you’ve read my fiction, you know that my characters suffer great injury, suffer, and struggle. Even when I know the story is going in that direction, I will stop writing, come up with excuses, and basically spin my wheels for a long, long time before I sick down and force myself to make the character suffer.
For example, I knew that Honey Lipson, from Denver Cereal, would have to fight her sister. I knew that the moment she appeared in the story. I also knew that she would end up paralyzed. In fact, I did a variety of research around how people get paralyzed and how paralyzed people live.
When the time came, I couldn’t bring myself to write the scene where she becomes paralyzed. I wrote everything else, but that scene. My mind was already caught up in grieving her injuries, her loss, long before they happened on the page.
Forced by the weekly deadline, I pushed myself back into the chair to write the scene. As the author, I must believe the character can overcome whatever happens to them – even when I want so badly for it not to happen.
What would you have done? How would you have overcome this stuck place?
Proposed schedule for Writer’s Wednesday:
- Stuck places ( November)
- Seeking inspiration (December)
- Finding time (January)
- Getting it out there (February)
- Who’s your reader (March)
Or something like that – let’s not get too tied down here.
Since the stuff I write tends to be factual…I’m the last person to know anything about writing a novel…
However, I would probably decompose each character, their interactions with main and minor characters in the storyline…adding the dialogue etc…then merge it all together…
I get stuck on happily ever afters. All the stuff leading up to it is great, I can usually pound my way through, but finding the right place to end is really difficult for me. I usually find that I can’t figure out an ending I like and make excuses to move on to the next project on the list!
Hi Claudia, this post seems scarily appropriate to me right now! At the risk of going ever-so-slightly (completely) off-topic, I am currently participating in NaNoWriMo and just posted on Monday about how I am completely blocked. I know where my characters need to be, and I know what is going to happen to them once I get them there – but I cannot actually seem to manage to get them there!
It is so nice to know that a ‘real writer’ has similar issues to the one I am experiencing right now! I would love to see what others have to say on this too. Meanwhile, off I go to try to get the next 20,000 words out by Sunday…!
Abimbola – Where do you get stuck in your factual writing? I like your ideas for a novel!
Karin – Maybe you don’t make ‘happily ever afters’? Sometimes I think it’s really hard to say goodbye to characters – it’s almost like a death. Good for you for knowing where you get stuck.
BubbleBoo – I’ve had that problem. Sometimes, I just skip ahead, write what’s available then go back. good luck with it!
OG…I approach the writing with a detachment that allows me to do what needs be done with a character or specific piece of poetry. While there is always emotional investment in the character, hell the story over all is the thing and if some fictional being has to go through, to get through then that is their fictional fate. The investment is after all is in telling the story.
TWMark – I bet that kind of detachment is particularly helpful with all the intense, emotional poetry you write. Good for you for finding a way to make your beauty happen. I like the idea of detachment, and do finally get around to it, because of course, you’re right – the story must be told.