Breaking Through Writer’s Block, Part II: Starting (and Finishing!) Your First Draft

Last week I discussed the fact that so-called “blocks” can take many forms, and come at any stage of writing. They have different root causes, many based in fear and uncertainty. Since our minds shy away from discomfort, we find it easier, in some ways, to simply not write – until the pain of not writing becomes great enough to propel us into action for a little while, at least.  

I shared some strategies that work for any stage – before starting, while drafting, and while revising. But there are some specific strategies that are best for particular stages, and today I’m going to share ones that are particularly good for those times when you don’t know what to write. Or, once you’ve started, that help you keep going through that all-important first draft. 

Strategies for unblocking before you start a new project: 

First, consider whether you need a fallow period. It’s okay to not rush into something new. Try “filling the well” with fun non-writing creative activities to get out of your head and allow your imagination to replenish. Take long walks, explore a new museum or neighborhood, try sketching, painting, baking/cooking or whatever new creative form you like. Watch a documentary or a movie. Read a ton! You may fear that you will never have a good idea (or any idea) again, but you will. Like a seed under the soil, it just needs time to develop. 

Allow yourself to experiment. Use writing prompts from books, the internet, story dice, or whatever you’d like to use. Write random scenes (one way to do this: pick ten words, then challenge yourself to use them in a scene). Write poems, or script for the movie you wish they’d make, or write down, “I remember...” and go from there. If you do one “I remember...” every day for a week, you may just find the seeds of your next story. Allowing yourself to write without the pressure of a “publishable” piece can open things up in new ways.  

Once you have an idea, remind yourself that this is a draft. When I wrote my last book, I didn’t even let myself think of it as a book. I wrote it longhand, in short scenes in no particular order, allowing the characters and situations to develop without the pressure of A BOOK. I allowed myself to do research and follow whatever paths looked interesting. Sometimes this meandering doesn’t amount to anything. I’ve started stories that could have been books, but that I didn’t end up wanting to commit to. I walked away, with no regrets. If I want to go back, I can, but I still learned just from the attempt.   

Strategies for unblocking in the middle of a project: 

Revisit your WHY: What was the initial inspiration for this project? Why were you drawn to write it? Write that down. So many of us never stop to think about why we are writing a particular piece. It might as simple as “to entertain.” But most of us have a deeper why, especially for a book-length project. What drives you to write this book, specifically?  Why are you the best person to write it? 

What is your Point? Does your book have one? If you can’t nail it down in a sentence, then you may be meandering, wandering lost in the woods of your prose with no path to follow. It can be a cliché: Love conquers all. Or not: We all have an authentic voice that lives inside us that will tell us what we need, if we can only learn to heed it.  The point is the spine of your story. It’s the guiding light that you should be constantly tracking toward.  

Ideal Book Review/Nightmare Book Review. This is a great exercise from Jennie Nash’s Blueprint for a Book, which I and other Author Accelerator coaches use. With this, simply write a sentence or two that people might say in your dream review, and then in your nightmare review. Compare them to what you have actually written. This can illuminate a great number of things, such as whether or not your point is clear, if the pace is dull, whether your book might appeal to your ideal reader, or other issues that may be coming up.  

What are the Stakes of your story, internal and external? Again, if this is something you struggle to identify, that may be the issue with your block. Stakes are important because they let us know the meaning the story events have, to the external world as well as to your protagonist personally. For example, if your story is a political thriller that takes place during an election season, the external stakes might be whether or not the candidate the protagonist is working for gets elected; the internal stakes might be something like the protagonist’s growing realization that their chosen candidate is actually someone who betrays all the ideals she holds dear, who she believes must not get elected at any cost.  

 
Write the scene you want to write. Sometimes we’re blocked because we know where we want to go but we don’t know how to get there. If you are burning to write a particular scene, get it down. In the writing, you may discover the backstory to that scene that allows you to write the scenes leading up to it.  

Beware “sexy next book” syndrome: When you’re blocked with one project it’s usually a signal to your unconscious to pop out a brand-new story idea that seems so much better than the one you are currently working on. If you heed this siren call, you may be one of those writers who ends up with ten half-written, never-finished projects. You may need to make some notes about the idea, or find a way to deal with it, in order to proceed with your current book. On the other hand, some writers benefit from having multiple projects on the go, so if the fire for one flags, they can turn to another. If that works for you, go for it. Just be aware of which kind of writer you are and whether “yet another book” is just an excuse not to write the one in front of you.  

Remember, the goal is to get to The End: It doesn’t have to be perfect or pretty, just done. You can’t revise if you don’t have a draft to edit. Make as many notes as you have to of things to go back and change later. One trick that seems to work for me (although I don’t necessarily advocate it) is that about halfway through, I start to really know my characters and story, and also have a pretty good idea of how I need to lay that first-half foundation for the second half to work. I then go back and revise the first half, and then proceed with the second. It doesn’t mean I won’t need to do more first-half revision, but if I start to feel things getting too far out of whack, it makes better sense to me to revise at the halfway point and get at least the basic story I want to tell down. I call it my “half-pants” method. Yep, I just coined it.  

There you are: some strategies geared toward helping you start and finish your story. Try them and see if they work for you! 

Next week, we’ll tackle blocks to the revision process, which can seem like a long hard slog – and how do you actually go about revising, anyway?