Why Youre Staring at a Blank Screen Favorite beverage: Check. Comfy clothes: Check. Snacks: Check. Here you are, all set to write your epic and youâve already managed to drink and eat all your provisions without moving the cursor. What happened on this trip through imagination? Why did the boat never set sail? How come time is moving forward, but youâre standing still? In my case, I can always blame one reason: I didnât have a map. Sure, I knew I wanted to get to Awesome City. The problem is, thatâs all I knew. A story isnât what happens. Itâs how it happens. Did we take a boat? Fly? Was the airport crowded? Did the crew threaten to mutiny before we got aboard? There are generally two ways to write. One is to sit down and just keep writing until you get to some sort of conclusion. If youâre Stephen King and you realized halfway through youâve created far too many plotlines; you arbitrarily murder a few in the middle of the book. If youâre George RR Martin; well, you just keep writing more books and murder them at your leisure. The other way, used by lesser mortals like myself, is to have a plan. I sit down with a clear idea of the whole plot and then proceed to show my audience the story. I donât have everything figured out. Far from it. Mainly, I think of all the problems that are going to get in my heroâs way. I set them up to fail and then try to help them figure their way out of the mess. When Iâm staring at an empty screen and an empty box of Red Vines, itâs because I had an idea of what happened, but no clearly defined conflict. There was nothing pulling me the writer (and ultimately the reader) into the story. All I knew was that Ms. Z needed to find out some crucial information, like the dead manâs lungs were filled with salt water. Life is complicated. Storytelling is communicating all the interesting conflicts. When Iâm stuck like this, I have a simple solution: I get up from my keyboard and take a walk. Twenty minutes later, I inevitably have my solution and a renewed enthusiasm. To avoid this happening, I try to break my outlines into a clear series of conflicts. At each step I need to know what all my characterâs objectives are and whatâs stopping them. That makes it crystal clear to me at the start of each chapter what itâs about and when itâs over. This isnât for everyone or every style of writing. Some genres thrive on meandering plot lines that never really go anywhere. Romance and period books are often really just about spending time inside that world. Readers pick these books up for escapism, not clever plot twists or information. They just want to be somewhere else while they read them. When you write these kinds of stories itâs okay to take all the time you please. Often enough in those stories, once the relationship is consummated, itâs all downhill from there anyway. You can also write and write and then trim it down later. Thatâs the way documentaries are made. Some of the greatest examples of literature came from whittling away much longer stories. This is an equally valid approach. it just takes forever⊠Regardless of your approach, if youâre staring at that screen and your fingers arenât moving, itâs probably because you need to step away and ask yourself why things happened instead of just what. Check out my novel Angel Killer
Posted on: Thu, 20 Nov 2014 22:20:59 +0000
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