A notebook for fiction writers and aspiring novelists. One editor’s perspective.
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A Few Common Obstacles.
(And a few possible solutions.)
I’ve been hanging out in Reddit.com/r/writing for a few years now, lurking and occasionally offering comments and suggestions (as u/writer-dude) to new, struggling and/or curious writers. What I’ve discovered on Reddit are many of the same concerns and issues that I’ve confronted while editing clients’ manuscripts. Typically, I can assist confused, foundering or sidelined writers by presenting modest solutions to these six prevalent obstacles. Often times, a writer can self-identify (and overcome) such potential roadblocks and pitfalls. For anyone who might feel lost in the fog, allow me to point you in the right direction. In order of increasing concern:
6. Overcoming Inhibitions. The fear of failure is real. So is the fear of success. A fear of ridicule. The fear of isolation (AKA: Squeezing out sufficient writing time). The fear of upsetting friends or family. A fear of not writing a perfect novel…. the list of potential obstacles is quite lengthy. Some call it ‘writer’s block’. Or procrastination. Or ‘waiting for inspiration.’ The real reason(s) for not writing likely has deeper psychological and/or emotional roots. (But this condition is curable!) Is this you? LOOK HERE.
5. How to write effective (or scintillating) dialogue. Don’t know? LOOK HERE
4. Overcoming one’s own ineptitude. Don’t have a clue how to write a novel, but starting out anyway? Afraid you’ll never have what it takes to start or finish? The best way to learn is actually to begin writing. You need not begin a novel or a short story, simply write what comes to to mind. Experiment and explore. Make mistakes and discover ways to improve. However, comprehending the fundamentals of being an author (LOOK HERE), as well as digesting Filmmaker Noel Burch’s The Hierarchy of Competence, can be an essential guideline to perfecting your craft.
3. Plowing helter-skelter through one’s plot with little regard for scene-setting (equally as important) and character-development (ditto). A great novel should seamlessly blend plot momentum with sufficient scene-setting (where/when/why are we in this particular scene?) and character-development (or else why should we care about these uninteresting people?) Unsure? LOOK HERE.
2. Motivation. (Finding it, Keeping it). There exists two separate (but equal) qualities a writer must possess to write — and finish — a work of fiction. The first is creativity. We’re either born with it or else we take great pains to develop it. (See: Fundamentals.) Creativity is all butterflies and daffodils, rainbows and unicorns. We concoct a lavish daydream, refine and embellish it at our leisure (and that’s the fun part) until we eventually <sigh> attempt to reveal our visions to the world.
The second quality is persistence. (AKA, patience, perseverance, perspiration. A bunch of other P words.) And this is when shit gets real. A writer must begin to dissect, develop and revise that daydream, word by word, page by page, chapter by chapter. For some of us (most of us?) that’s the long haul. The marathon. The sojourn toward potential madness. And yet it’s that excruciating exactitude that a novel demands of a writer. Creativity is a right brain attribute. Developing and writing our daydream is pretty much left brain. A writer must ultimately decide to spend long hours, making tedious decisions, dealing with criticism, confronting many IRL issues (all those pesky things like jobs, family, trepidation and self-doubt.) We all face such challenges, and many writers won’t prevail. Some do. But to complete a novel, we need to engage both the left and right sides of our brain.
1. Getting Stuck. The most prevalent obstacle (by far) is a novice writer beginning a novel (or story) but very quickly becoming mired in the enormity of such a venture. Many newbies have a vague idea or a partial concept in mind and begin to write in earnest—sometimes 3 pages, sometimes 30—but then what? Once the inciting incident (usually a novel’s opening) plays out, how does one proceed to create an entire, enticing, integral book-length manuscript?
Maybe you sincerely yearn to write a novel. Let’s say that you have a nifty premise about a giant meteor hurling toward Earth. So you create a nice scenario—a young protagonist who’s perhaps an amateur astronomer and who discovers that pinprick of light hurling toward our planet. The inciting incident in the 1998 flick Deep Impact, BTW. And without creating a definitive inciting incident, you may find yourself spinning your creative wheels.
Once you’re able to define your story’s beginning, and know or intuit a potential ending, entire new worlds of possibilities will open up. So many options. So many tentacles. Will the meteor strike? Will it miss? Will we send astronauts into space with nukes? Or launch a rag-tag team of unlikely geologists to save the world (a la Armageddon)? How does once successfully stitch together a coherent, dramatic, conclusive tale? By writing one page at a time. When you find yourself stymied or cornered or fresh out of new ideas, and you’re still midway through Chapter 1, sometimes writing those next 300-400 pages can feel insurmountable. So take a deep breath and stay in the moment. Stay in the now. (Worry about all those other pages when the appropriate time comes.) For now, all that matters is a single page.
One possible solution! If you’re writing in linear, chronological order (as most of us do) and you’re feeling increasingly bogged down, perhaps skip a few scenes or even a few chapters. Pick up your story line at some exciting future point, finish that scene/chapter and then see if you can connect the story from where you’ve left off. I’ll also often write or draft out my final chapter as soon as my ending becomes reasonably clear. I find that by having an ending in place, even a vague outline—it’s far easier to continue my story toward that goal. If I know where I’m going, and why, and my characters know where they’re going, and why, it’s far easier to get there without any wrong turns or unexpected obstacles.
Another potential solution! If you find yourself midway through a decent story, enjoying the ride—but suddenly find yourself lost or writing toward a dead end, stop writing! If possible, give yourself a short break (a few days or a week to clear your mind). When you return, delete (or put aside) your last scene or chapter and restart your story from there—but in an entirely new direction. Give yourself a few options. Maybe outline a few possible ideas that bypass or eliminate the obstacle.
Occasionally a writer may stray off the path of righteousness and suddenly we’ll find our sorry-ass brains mired in the cerebral muck. So by backtracking a few pages (or a few chapters, if necessary) and discovering that proverbial fork in the road, we can choose another way forward. Because very often this change of direction (or detour) will break the log jam. I’ve often used this tactic, and usually with success. However, you must be okay with cutting entire scenes, even chapters, and maybe killing a few darlings along the way. But it’s certainly worth the loss if it gets you back on track.
Other possible solutions….
Q. So, how to proceed?
A. Outline.
Q. Still feeling creatively stymied?
A. See: More Common Obstacles
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