I felt this might be a good topic to lead with as I resurrect my blog on craft advice: how do you get unstuck when you’re writing?

I’m going to attack this from a prose view as well as a plot/character angle, since I think that this is a larger problem with multiple possible causes. There’s sometimes a temptation to look at being stuck as a massive roadblock, but oftentimes it doesn’t require all that much to get yourself moving again.

Case 1: Prose, aka “I know what I want to write, but not how”

This is one of those problems where the solution is simple to articulate, even if it’s hard to do: write the scene anyway. Write it wrong. The main problem you’re facing in this case is the fear that whatever you make won’t be perfect, which is something you can smash through by the brute force of writing it poorly.

Once the thing is written, it’s much easier to see how to write it better. This is something that I call the Fanfic Principle– once you have some idea of what a structure might be, it becomes much easier to change it (as a fanfic writer changes settings or transports characters to AUs or even rewrites canon scenes to have more dramatic impact or from a different POV).

The solution here is easy: just write. If you’re working off an outline, then get a very basic version of the scene down that hits all the points you need to. Chances are, while writing it, you’ll start thinking of more creative ways to structure the scene. Once you’ve passed the initial potential energy barrier of actually beginning the work, it’s easier to keep going. Now that you’re solving the problem, your mind turns toward actually making the work fun.

Case 2: Plot, aka “I have no idea what to do”

For me, maybe ironically, this is the easier one to handle.

Oftentimes in this view, you have no idea what you want to do in this scene. Maybe you don’t have an outline or a plan (always my downfall) or maybe you do have salient points you want to hit but you’re not sure how to want to hit them. This is part of the fun side of writing that involves making the ephemeral into the real (the phemeral, if you will): how do you break down your massive idea into small enough steps that you can instantiate it?

The trick is the same as Case 1 (aka “you just sort of do it”) but with a different spin: here, you’re just going to go from waypoint to waypoint and not give yourself too much grief about how you’re going to get there. Chances are, similar to before, you’re going to get inspired and excited as you write. You’ll start thinking of ways to make things better or more fun as you’re writing and you can revise or change course from there.

If you’re feeling well and truly lost, then I’d go with one of my favorite things, the List of Ten. I’ve talked about this a few times on this platform (and others, probably, I honestly love lists of ten), so skip this part if you’re familiar.

A List of Ten is just asking a question and then answering it ten different ways. You can make “different” as strict or malleable as you need it to be, but you’ll find you get more mileage out of this exercise the more you ask yourself to be inventive and come up with very different angles of attack.

My first three ideas will probably be pretty commonplace and not terribly interesting. Ideas 4-6 will be more middling and we might start to have some more interesting things cropping up, but it’s around ideas 7-10 that you’ll find things get really weird and pretty cool. The more you force yourself to get creative, the more interesting you’ll have to be.

Let’s do an example together.

Q: How might instant travel work in my magical system?

1. Doors: You open a door (any door) and walk into another place.
2. Shadow: You walk into a shadow (large enough to fit you) and come out somewhere else.
3. Map: You point at a place on a map (you need to have a map) and you go there.
4. Breath: You take a breath and drop through the earth (for as long as you can hold your breath) until you reach your destination.
5. Dream: You imagine where you want to go (you need to be calm enough to picture it clearly, like 4/5 senses) and go there.
6. Name: You say the True Name of a place (like a phone number, also these Names are deeply hidden) and go there, like to a central teleportation hub, or a library.
7. Tattoo: People have charm bracelets of city/place sigils tattooed around their wrists and can instant transport there by touching the appropriate sigil charm. Only works when the inked magician releases the magic to initiate transport. Trusted personages/archmages have bracelets that snake up their arms.
8. Origami: You fold yourself up (or maybe you fold reality up, the part that contains you and a route to the place) until you can step into there. You just have to be careful you don’t fold anyone else.
9. Song: You have a different song for each place you want to go. When you leave one place, people around you catch a verse of wherever song you’re going to. To do it, you need to be able to hear the song in your head.
10. Secret Railways: Train stations exist between worlds/places in the world and you need to know where they are in order to use them. Do you need tickets? Maybe. What do tickets even look like?

As you can see, most of my beginning ideas are pretty basic (portal travel). By the time I’m getting to the later ideas, though, I’m cooking with gas– I have some pretty interesting things that I can start to build worlds around, whether that’s 10 (which is more traditional old magic with a modern spin) or 7 (honestly, my preteen self feels like this is the favorite). 8 I feel is just me doing Dog & Heron again with less time.

But you get the point: the more you force yourself to step outside the familiar, the more fun you can start to have building cool new things.

Case 3: Fatigue

What if you’re just tired because you’ve been creating a lot?

That happens too! Sometimes the antidote is a list of ten to remind yourself that you really are an endless idea factory (and I promise, you are– we can talk about the fallacy of “what if I use up all my good ideas” later). Sometimes, though, the antidote is rest. No one can work forever. It’s okay to refill the well and enjoy existing in this world full of art.

So then, rest.

Read a book. Not to like, steal their ideas or anything, but to fall back in love with being a reader. Do something completely different. Do a paint by number. Knit. Embroider. Make a weird little guy out of clay. You don’t have to be good at it; in fact, it’s almost better if you’re not. Do something where you’re not putting any expectations on the outcome. Go for a run or a walk out in nature, do something physical, learn a new language or a skill.

Sometimes by letting your mind rest, you’ll find yourself coming back to thinking about your story again. By giving your subconscious time to meander unsupervised, you may find that it’s come up with interesting thoughts on your project while you’re doing something else.

What are your favorite ways of getting unstuck?

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