Author's get stuck sometimes, just can't get a handle on things, just can't see the way forward in a story.

Stuckness

Well let's face it, everybody gets stuck sometimes.

It's that feeling of knowing what you have to do but not knowing where to start, not having that spark to create a way forwards. It creeps up on us in different guises:

• I have to publish my book, but it just seems overwhelming.
• I have to write another chapter, I have a plan for it but I can't flesh it out.
• My mind is blank, calm, emotionally flat and completely useless to me.

If it doesn't happen to you then that's a good thing.

What Can I Do?

It's easy: Start at the beginning and keep going till you get there.

But where do I start?

This isn't the first time it's happened, so what did I do last time?

B**ger! I was so happy to get past it last time that I didn't make notes.

I need a list. Lists are great. Actually, I need lots of lists because there have been several different contexts for being stuck.

So, let's give it a title and start creating a list in a document of some kind and create the document in a new folder / directory. It should give an understandable problem to build a solution for.

Example: Unwritten Scene

I'm going to go through an unwritten scene in a story. I need to form the bones and gradually add the flesh:

• Write a sentence to describe the story in this scene.
• Where is the chapter set?
• What characters are in the chapter?
• What time of day is the chapter set?
• Is it inside or outside, describe the surroundings
• If the surroundings are outside then what is the weather like
• If it's night what state is the moon, full and bright or cloud covered. etc.
• If it's daytime then where is the sun in the sky, what are the clouds like
• if it's inside then describe the salient points of the room
• what sort of non character people and animals are at this location at this time of day.
• The surroundings will dictate what the characters are wearing, dig into that too.
• Rewrite the sentence that describes the story in this scene.
• How will the characters in the scene interact.

It's not a total answer but it's a start. Flesh out the things you normally put in a scene.

Example: Go Mad For Once

I remember helping my daughter write a personal statement for a job application. She doesn't naturally blow her own trumpet so we followed this procedure.

Start with this paragraph: I am brilliant at everything. I excel at whatever I put my mind to. Everyone thinks I'm brilliant. I get on well with everyone, because they all love me.

My daughter was horrified. The whole idea was to go through the things that have to be said and blow them out of all proportion. Most people find it uncomfortable because that's not what they do, so you can use the emotional reaction to fine tune each sentence.

In a scene of a story you could write it in a completely outrageous way. For example a teenager is called to the headmistresses office. Go off the reservation, far outside your normal style:

Charlie kicked open the door, walked in and sat on the chair in front of Mrs Chandler's desk.
She ignored him and completed the sentence she was writing, allowing time for the door to close itself. She raised her head slowly. 'Hi, Charlie. Do you need a smoke?' She said, offering him a ciggy. She undid a button on her blouse while he took a cigarette from the pack.

Yes, it's badly written pastiche, but right now there are words on the page. How would he open the door, how would he act on entering, how would she react to him. You can fix it. If you're lucky there will be a trickle of ideas in keeping with the actual story. 

AI

It would be remiss of me to ignore AI.

Before AI can produce a masterpiece there needs to be a prompt. You can probably manage that and come up with something. My own attempts with AI produce things that I don't like so I don't use it for writing, probably my loss and I may reassess later.

Unrecognised Analysis

Create something. Anything. Your stuckness is happening because everything you try is not matching up to what you want. That means you must be comparing what you've written to something in your head. Dig into your brain and see what you wanted to write.

Summary

It's possible none of these ideas helped. Sorry.

Remember to make notes as you progress from stuckness to flowing. It will probably happen again and you need to remember how you got out last time.