TECH: The End of Writer's Block! (YA moldy oldie...)

[mbarker.livejournal.com]

Original Posting 1 August 2011

Writers Digest, February 1993, pages 25 to 27, has an article by Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff with the title, "The End of Writer's Block!" Maya points out that sometimes changing the way you look at something -- or what you call it -- can help solve the problem. She explains that her own victory over writer's block began when a melodramatic friend announced that she had writer's block. In savoring the image, Maya realized that there's an implication of something solid there. Some kind of barrier that has to be overcome.

However, considering her own encounters with the blank page, she realized that it was more a lack of ideas -- a gap, not a block. And thinking about it as a writer's gap... Well, you don't need demolition, you need construction. You need to build a bridge across the wasteland. Maya's own  answer to how to do that is to start with sheet of paper, and put down some stepping stones. You might not have very much to start with, but that's okay. You're going to build on that in little steps.

Maya describes using this method starting with a title, a what if question, some characters, and a fuzzy sort of dream. Starting with that, she made a diagram -- beginning on the left-hand side, the end on the right-hand side, and the what if question on the top edge just for reference. Then she started brainstorming ideas, big, small, whatever, and dropping those into the middle. Just bubbles. What would illuminate the ideas? What kind of a setting? What kind of a condition? Then roughly what kind of conflicts? Feel free to move things around.

After a while, there's a solid line of bubbles from beginning to end. Go through and check it -- is anything missing, are there extra pieces that should be dropped, is there any better order? Don't forget the secondary scenes, and the setups.

Then, transform those bubbles into writing. Maya says you can either write directly from the diagram, or do an intermediate synopsis. There are still design choices -- first-person, third person, parallel? What kind of viewpoints? Linear or some other structure?

Maya also points out that while writing, she uses a rolling outline. Whenever she finishes a chapter or segment of a story, she immediately writes down the plot elements or scenes that she wants to include in the next segment. Those notes become the outline for the next section. By always writing down where she's headed next, Maya pretty much avoids writer's gap.

One other trick that Maya recommends, especially for long projects, is to stop at key points during the creation and at the conclusion to go over what you've written and make a synopsis. Take note about what happened in each chapter or segment, what the discoveries were, and what conflicts came up. This gives you an overall view. It forces you to look at your work as a whole, and to think about pacing, flow, scene order.

Maya points out that whether you're a discovery writer or an outline writer, you can use a bridge diagram and rolling outlines to help make sure that you don't fall into a gap.

So, there you go. Instead of bashing your head against a brick wall (writer's block), try putting up a bridge across the gaps.

And keep writing.