Writercon Recap #2
Jul. 30th, 2006 02:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lunabee34Breaking Writer's Block
These are tips from the panelists on how to either get going again in a scene where you’ve stalled or get started in the first place. I’ll not be attributing comments to their speakers, but the panel consisted of:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
yin_again, essene, Rachel Caine, and liz_marcs
1. Jump ahead from the block and write a future scene.
2. Go back in the story until you’ve found the “error” that’s causing you to trip over the scene and rewrite from that point.
3. Leave the piece alone for a period of time and then return.
4. Create an outline for your fic that contains the emotional journey you expect your characters to make instead of the usual plot points an outline contains. Knowing what your characters need to be feeling next can get you over the block.
5. Write all the scenes on note cards and jumble them around.
6. Scale back the fic.
7. Write at the paragraph or even sentence level rather than thinking about the fic as a whole.
8. Save the missteps to pilfer from later. When you’re blocked go back to this file for inspiration.
9. Exercise, go shopping, meditate, *do* something.
10. Just keep writing even if it’s crap. Put what you don’t like in brackets or bold it and then come back to it later. It’s much easier to fix something that’s already on the page than it is creating something from whole cloth.
11. Find your personal theme. Many writers write about the same issues in their fics over and over again. Thinking about how this fic will fit into your own personal canon as a writer can help deblock.
12. Switch the POV.
13. Put limits on yourself as to what can be in the fic or how long it can be.
14. Pick three objects or a song or a color or something else and create a fic using those elements.
15. Freewrite.
16. Ask people to prompt you or do a ficathon.
17. Collaborate with another writer.
I use many of these tactics when I write, but I also do some things the panelists didn’t mention (or if they did, I zoned out and ohsosorry).
1. Read! If I’m not reading fanfic, I can’t write it. This past semester when I couldn’t get online and read fic with my prior frequency was such a dry spell. But this summer, when classes were done and I could read again, I found myself being inspired.
2. Go back to the source material. Watch the shows again. Watch the movie again. Read the book again.
3. Change the tense of the piece. The tense that you use has a lot to do with how the piece will resonate with a reader. For instance, the present tense always conveys to me a sense of immediacy or even urgency. Past tense is more removed.
4. Add dialogue. Think about writing scenes so that they are entirely dialogue.
5. Change the format of the piece. Break it up into small chapters. Run chapters together to make them longer.
6. Think about eliding some of the action. Don’t write the scene you're stuck on; show its aftermath.
Anybody got any other tips I didn’t mention?
These are tips from the panelists on how to either get going again in a scene where you’ve stalled or get started in the first place. I’ll not be attributing comments to their speakers, but the panel consisted of:
yin_again, essene, Rachel Caine, and liz_marcs1. Jump ahead from the block and write a future scene.
2. Go back in the story until you’ve found the “error” that’s causing you to trip over the scene and rewrite from that point.
3. Leave the piece alone for a period of time and then return.
4. Create an outline for your fic that contains the emotional journey you expect your characters to make instead of the usual plot points an outline contains. Knowing what your characters need to be feeling next can get you over the block.
5. Write all the scenes on note cards and jumble them around.
6. Scale back the fic.
7. Write at the paragraph or even sentence level rather than thinking about the fic as a whole.
8. Save the missteps to pilfer from later. When you’re blocked go back to this file for inspiration.
9. Exercise, go shopping, meditate, *do* something.
10. Just keep writing even if it’s crap. Put what you don’t like in brackets or bold it and then come back to it later. It’s much easier to fix something that’s already on the page than it is creating something from whole cloth.
11. Find your personal theme. Many writers write about the same issues in their fics over and over again. Thinking about how this fic will fit into your own personal canon as a writer can help deblock.
12. Switch the POV.
13. Put limits on yourself as to what can be in the fic or how long it can be.
14. Pick three objects or a song or a color or something else and create a fic using those elements.
15. Freewrite.
16. Ask people to prompt you or do a ficathon.
17. Collaborate with another writer.
I use many of these tactics when I write, but I also do some things the panelists didn’t mention (or if they did, I zoned out and ohsosorry).
1. Read! If I’m not reading fanfic, I can’t write it. This past semester when I couldn’t get online and read fic with my prior frequency was such a dry spell. But this summer, when classes were done and I could read again, I found myself being inspired.
2. Go back to the source material. Watch the shows again. Watch the movie again. Read the book again.
3. Change the tense of the piece. The tense that you use has a lot to do with how the piece will resonate with a reader. For instance, the present tense always conveys to me a sense of immediacy or even urgency. Past tense is more removed.
4. Add dialogue. Think about writing scenes so that they are entirely dialogue.
5. Change the format of the piece. Break it up into small chapters. Run chapters together to make them longer.
6. Think about eliding some of the action. Don’t write the scene you're stuck on; show its aftermath.
Anybody got any other tips I didn’t mention?
