Hi Folks,
This will be a simple post, but possibly the most helpful one you’ll ever read. When a friend and professional writer (Alison Naomi Holt, see Alison Holt Books) stopped by the writing seminar I was conducting while she was in town last month, she said this tidbit of advice was “the greatest gift” I had given her.
If you’re a writer, chances are you’ve gotten bogged down. This happens a lot and it happens to all of us. Novelists might be tooling along just fine until they hit 20,000 words or 40,000 words; they they’re stuck. Short story writers often get bogged down just before what they believe will be the ending. You have no idea where the story’s going, or the characters are doing something completely out of line with what you think they should be doing, or the plot takes an unexpected twist. Again, this happens to all of us. The only difference is how we react to getting bogged down, what we do next.
And that’s what makes this a simple post. When you get bogged down, you will do one of two things:
- You’ll use being bogged down as an excuse and you’ll quit—you’ll assume the story isn’t really there or it isn’t ready yet or it isn’t worth the time to “figure it out” or some other excuse and you’ll set it aside or drop it “at least for now”; or
- You’ll finish it.
If you choose to simply stop writing the story and move on to the next one, you’ll end up with virtual reams of electronic stories piled up in a Someday file in your computer or notebooks or on those odd little bits of paper you have crammed everywhere. If you’ve done this before, you know what I mean. If you haven’t, trust me, I know. Before April 2014, I often failed to follow Heinlein’s Business Rules for Writers. (Number 2 is “Finish what you write.”) Okay, but if you choose to continue, how? Easy. As Dean Wesley Smith advises, just
Write the next sentence.
Then write the next sentence. Then write the next sentence.
This is writing into the dark, remember? If you don’t let the story surprise you, how can you expect it to surprise the reader? You don’t have to know where the story’s going; you just have to trust your subconscious to write it for you. So just write the next sentence, then write the next sentence, then write the next sentence. If you trust your subconscious and Just Write the Next Sentence, most often it will work. You have only to try it to see. No, correction—you have only to practice it to see. The first time you try it, it will work but it’s so easy that you probably will think it’s just a fluke. So trust it. Try it again, and again, and again. Not only will you no longer be bogged down, but you probably will be thrilled that the story has taken a turn you never envisioned.
But let’s talk about those turns for a moment. If I’ve tried writing the next sentence and still feel hopelessly bogged down or lost, usually it’s because I missed a turn somewhere. I look for places where the story should (or shouldn’t) have turned. If I find one that grabs me, I use Save As to rename the file (I usually just add a numeral to the original file name; I do this so I’ll still have the original file) then continue writing from that point. Now I’m back to Just Writing the Next Sentence. And if I’ve simply lost the story, I stop writing, file that story away for the future and begin another one. The point is, Writers Write. We don’t think about writing or try to figure out how to continue writing or try to find something to do other than writing. We sometimes get bogged down, but we don’t allow ourselves to become mired.
Next up, Overcoming Writers’ Fear. ‘Til then, happy writing!
Harvey
PS: With my seminar series winding to a close, I have a lot of handouts left over. If you were unable to attend and would like to purchase the handouts, they’re available for $2.50 each, postage paid. Email me at h_stanbrough@yahoo.com or harveystanbrough@gmail.com and let me know which handout(s) you’d like. Available right now are Writing Realistic Dialogue, Narrative in Fiction: Whispers from the Background, and Writing Flash Fiction. Others will be available later.