Archive for category Writer’s Block
What if???
Posted by smokingpen in On Writing, Writer's Block on September 22, 2007
When I have a willing accomplice, and it really does require a willing accomplice, I like to play a little game I call, “What if???”
The basic premise to the game is you take a situation and you propose a “what if” to it. Take the fat dude on the street. What if that man was really a woman? What would happen? What would be different about the situation? Describe in detail.
The last time I really got someone to play this game with me was my friend Tina. Tina was in law school. We were out doing something. And I suggested we play it. The problem, though, was that I enjoy the game and Tina was placating me. Though an interesting individual, she lacked, sometimes, in the areas of creativity and, as such, the game didn’t last very long. I used to think the playing of this game was essential to marriage. Apparently not as I got married without ever playing that game with my wife.
What if is something that I may have discovered as a teenager reading my monthly issue of Writer’s Digest. I seem to recall an article about a writer who was called in to jury duty and the illustration, my memory is more of the illustration than anything else, was of a courtroom where elements changed frequently. I thought, “What if I could do that to the situations I see around me?”
Whether or not this started a world of imagining things or not, I’ve found it interesting to change things about some details in my head. One outcome of this is that the actual details have to be solidly in my mind and I have to be able to distinguish between truth and fiction; otherwise the activity is moot.
One example of “What if???” is an exercise I used to play with people: Describe your fist kiss and imagine it [insert location here]! For a while I would change genders of the characters. I would change locations. I would change circumstances. Interestingly enough, because of the nature of that action, the outcome was always, emotionally, the same though elements of the event changed. Setting became the old west. Setting became a mountain trail. Setting became a lot of things.
What if??? can be used, rather than a game, as a means of beating down a case of writer’s block or other fictional maladies. It can be used to move the individual away from the snag they’ve found themselves in and on to a different path that might help the protagonist or the POV (point of view) character move on to the next stage or setting in the story. The point of the exercise, though, is to put the reality you are writing aside and create something completely new, different, and nonsensical. Then move forward.
Next time you’re stuck, write a, “What if???“
Writer’s Block
Posted by smokingpen in On Writing, Writer's Block, Writing Fiction on August 29, 2007
There are movies and books that are dedicated to the (we are led to believe) common issue of “writer’s block.” These movies make the viewer believe that something strange happens to a writer and he or she is no longer able to put words in to sentences and sentences in to paragraphs and paragraphs in to cogent ideas. Somehow and in some way, bad magic or mojo happens and the outcome is a lack of ability to write.
I think it’s a load of ….
Writer’s block is a lazy writer’s way of saying they don’t want to move on to something else for a period of time.
What I mean by that is that a writer is working on a piece of fiction and hits a stopping point. They have a plan. The plan is to get the character from point A to point B. The writer plans for his character to meet a magical beast which will benevolently help the character to point B. However, once your character reaches the magical beast you hit a wall.
Writer’s Block!!!!
This is bad. After all, you had a plan. This was planned. The creature was (boringly) benevolent and going to help the character from one point to another. And then nothing.
No matter what you do, that creature just ain’t going to help your character anywhere. You try to write it this way, and that way, and then another way, and nothing doing, the creature fails your character and you as the writer and you are stuck at point A and not somewhere closer to point B.
Essentially, this is what writer’s block is.
However, I think this is crap. Stinky, smelly, fresh crap.
About a year ago I met a girl. I don’t remember her name. What she said, that stuck with me (though she did not say this to me) was, “I finally got over my writer’s block the other night. I wrote for hours.” At the time, I thought about asking, “What changed to fix the writer’s block?” But, in truth, I decided silence was better and decided to sit and work on whatever it was I was working on at the time. Whether or not she actually produced anything of value, I don’t know. What I do know is that one day she didn’t feel like she had the ability to write and the next day she was writing up a storm.
What I do know is that late night spurts of writing often produce crap.
What I do know is that when you find yourself stuck with benevolent beast not helping (properly) your character, something else is happening.
Something else is not happening to your character, something else is happening to you. Meaning, there may be another direction that was discovered as you wrote that you needed to follow for that character. Maybe the benevolent magical beast is not benevolent, but rather is actually rather malevolent and as such is helping your character with nefarious purposes. Maybe, just maybe, you need to write something else entirely.
And, it is the idea that you need to be writing something else entirely that I am going to follow, for the moment.
You see, writer’s block often comes at awkward times and it is my assertion that one of the causes of writer’s bl0ck is not an mystical inability to write, but rather, a personal inability to realize that your mind and efforts need to be repurposed for a period of time to something else.
Something else could be another writing project, a blog entry, freelance work, professional work, or even the activities that are necessary to live ones life. That’s it. Writer’s block is a personal expression of different needs. For a writer, those other needs probably manifest in other writing projects. For me, “other writing projects” are often representative of my blog, journal, school projects, or just dealing with something that matters to me at that moment.
Which then means that writer’s block is a lack of understanding, by the writer, on what they need to be doing. Moreover, writer’s block is the insistence by an individual that what they are doing, right now, is the only thing they can be doing. My solution for the magical condition is to take stock of one’s life, look at other projects, determine that they’ve 1) eaten and 2) don’t have something more important; and then, after all of that, to go out and stare at a blank piece of paper until they are willing to accept what it is they need to be doing (which could take a very long time) before they go back to writing what they think they need to be doing.