Getting Stuck (Patreon)

On Last week’s post, CB commented, asking if I ever get stuck. If I encounter places where a story doesn’t want to be written. Thanks for the question CB.

The answer is that of course this happens. I expect every writer out there encounters a similar situation throught writing a stories.

He didn’t ask how I dealt with it, but I need something to write this week so I’ll talk about that.

First, why so I get stuck on a story?

That will vary. It could be as simple as overall exhaustion, or exhaustion as it relates to that specific story. It could be that the story simply doesn’t work, and I’m realzing that.

Exhaustion is probably the simplest to handle. I take a break…… if I can afford to. I don’t have deadlines, but I know myself well enough to know that if I stop writing for too long, It’s difficult to get back into it. It’s the main reason I write every day, to maintain the momentum. Avoiding exhaustion is also why I allow myself two 0-word days a month. That way if I feel myself getting tired on a project I can’t really afford to stop I can take a day off and usually that’s enough.

If it’s story specific and it isn’t a main project, as happened today, then I’ll switch to another project, either only for the day, or until I’m tiired of that project. Sundays should be Hemirtal, but it’s been getting tougher to work on it, and today I reached the point where I didn’t want to write it, so I switched to Wyatt’s story. I expect I’ll with on that until part 6 is done, then… who knows. Wyatt’s story is very fluid so I might stick with it and have him visit Denver once he’s done with Amarillo.

When the issue is that the story doesn’t seem to work, then my method is to keep on writing.

If the story has an outline, then I have guide so I’ll muscle theough the ‘bad part’, knowing that when I do the second draft I’ll now know enough about the story to resolve whatever the problem was. In his comment/question, CB mentioned that he’ll go back and rewrite it until the story flows again. That is something I don’t do. Primarily because I need to maintain the momentum. If I have an idea of how it should be fixed, I’ll leave notes in the document to help with dreaft 2.

If the story doesn’t have an outline, then it’s a little more difficult, because even with having an idea of where the story is heading, it’s usually vague enough it could got anywhere until then.

My usual method with those stories is to have my characters talk. Characters in my stories LOVE to talk. At times getting them to stop so the story till progress can be most of the challenge, but when I don’t know where the story’s going, I just let them talk, if nothing else, it fills the page, but usually something in the conversation will indicate where the story needs to go and I can pick up from there.

For those who’ve read Bottom Rung and some of my published books, you’ll note how much more I let the characters just talk in Bottom Rung compared to the published books. That’s mainly a result of having ‘limited’ space in published books compared to the web novel format. My editor had no issue cutting down needless conversation before a book is published, and with those, I let him do it.

When I publish Bottom Rung, as well as the following novels in the Dungeon Runner series, they will not be shrunk. They will be as large as they need to be, long conversation included.

Again, thanks for the comment CB

And with that. I, will wish you a good day.