If you’re experiencing the agony of being unable to think, unable to write, and unable to gain any inspiration at all, then read on. This article’s for you.
What is Writer’s Block?
If you’re reading this article, chances are that you already know the answer to this question!
Writer’s block is what happens when you sit down at your desk, open up a blank page, ready to start writing, and… find that you just can’t.
What To Do If You Have Writer’s Block
Step One: Assess the Cause
When experiencing this unpleasant scenario, the first thing to do is figure out why you might be suffering writer’s block.
Once you know the cause, it’s often easier to find the solution.
The most common reasons for writer’s block are usually:
- Perfectionism: The fear that your writing isn’t good enough can lead to a resulting loss of motivation.
- Unrealistic deadlines: This is often linked with perfectionism. If, for example, you told yourself you’d write your first draft in two weeks, finding multiple examples of writers who’ve pulled off this supposedly easy feat, you might be beating yourself up mentally if, after the first ten days, you’ve “only” written three chapters. If so, you’ve likely set yourself an unrealistic deadline for this particular story, and the less grief you give yourself about failing to meet it, the better.
- Exhaustion and stress: Your writer’s block may be your fatigued mind screaming at you to stop writing and take a break.
- Loss of inspiration: Often linked with exhaustion and stress, you may have lost the ideal writing flow state. If you tend to believe that all good writing comes from a state of inspiration, this can be a crushing experience.
- Insufficient planning: Even writers identifying as pantsers (who like to free-write their first draft with no planning whatsoever) can struggle at times when writing, if the story stops speaking to them. In these cases, you may not yet know what your story is actually about. This can cause you to struggle with an excessive amount of choices for where you might next take your story and its characters.
Your writer’s block may be caused by one, or more, or all of these causes.
But worry not, for you’ve come to the right place!
At Fictionary, we can help you work through your reasons for writers’ block and find healing fixes.
We’ll have you energised and back with pen and paper/ keyboard in your fingers in no time.
Let’s look at some solutions for the above problems.
How to Get Rid of Writer’s Block
It can be tricky to figure out exactly which of the above reasons applies to you.
So, the next step I recommend is:
Step Two: Discuss your Writer’s Block with Friends
If you don’t have writing friends to discuss your block with, the solution here is easy: join the Fictionary online writing community! You’ll make loads of friends quickly, including writers who found multiple ways to work through their own blocks, and who can offer support and advice.
It’s worthwhile talking through your problems with friends because this helps you dig deep into the reasons for your block. You may discover that perfectionism is at the root of your problem, rather than, say, loss of inspiration.
If you’re an introvert who can’t bear the idea of discussing your struggles with others, then I recommend journaling as a way to get to the root of your problem.
Consider using some prompts such as:
- What is my greatest writing fear?
- What do I most want to achieve with my writing?
- Why do I write?
These questions should shed light on the psychological issues which might be causing your writer’s block.
If you sit down to journal and your writer’s block once again kicks in, preventing you from answering your own question, this suggests you might be facing exhaustion and stress. In which case, you have your answer!
Step Three: Chooser the Best Strategy
You can use any of these solutions for any of the causes, but it’s worthwhile first trying the most targeted technique for the specific cause of your writer’s block.
For Perfectionism:
- Free write: One of the best solutions for overcoming perfectionism is to give yourself permission to write badly. Sit down, assign yourself a certain time period (say, half an hour) and let your words flow out onto the page without judgement or analysis.
Remind yourself that the vast majority of early drafts are bad drafts; that’s just the way of things. You’re probably facing a battle between your love of creating, and your ego. Don’t let your ego win. You don’t need to write perfectly; your value as a writer doesn’t come from your impeccable skill and ability, but rather from your willingness to learn and grow.
We all suffer at times from fragile egos which lean towards self-sabotage, but the writers who overcome this are able to accept a strong novel is something we journey towards, growing along the way, not something which you’re born with the ability to write.
- Write for the love of writing: Take a break from your current project and write for the joy of it, not to prove your worth as a writer.
For Unrealistic Deadlines:
- Reassess the deadline: If you can’t drop the deadline entirely, reassess what’s reasonable and give yourself a new deadline.
- Remind yourself of what’s reasonable: Talk with other writers on the Fictionary community to remind yourself of what constitutes a reasonable expectation.
- Make set times for writing and stick to them: The only solution for when you have a non-negotiable deadline! In this case, look next at my advice for Step Four.
For Exhaustion and Stress:
- Take a break: You can’t struggle your way through this one. You need to rest.
If you can’t bear not to write, then consider writing something completely different from your current project – something that feels like taking a rest or a holiday from the project that’s stressing you out.
For Loss of Inspiration:
- Spend time away from your desk, finding new sources of inspiration: Take a walk, visit a museum exhibition, read a book that you normally wouldn’t, watch some movies, chat with a friend you haven’t seen in years, make a new friend (on the Fictionary community!) read a newspaper (doom-scrolling doesn’t count), go see a play or concert or dance that might inspire you, or try a meditative technique.
- Try working on a different scene from your story, or writing your scene from a different character’s perspective: Sometimes a new perspective on your story is all you need to get the creativity flowing again.
- Take a course: If you’ve a Fictionary StoryTeller Premium subscription, you’ve access to multiple courses taught online via The Fictionary School for Writers & Editors which can help you find new sources of inspiration.
For Insufficient Planning:
- Rework (or make your first) plan: Often when you’re struggling with writer’s block, it’s because your story lacks a clear direction, or the narrative is starting to sag.
The simplest way to work through this is to step back, and assess what your story is about, and what’s needed to keep the plot moving in a strong direction.
If you’re a pantser, you’re probably groaning at this point.
But let’s face it: if purely pantsing your story (writing by the seat of your pants) was working for you, you probably wouldn’t be needing this advice right now. When writer’s block affects pantsers, it’s usually a sign that a little bit of planning could help.
In fact, a strong but flexible plan can help prevent writer’s block from occurring in the first place.
To examine in more detail why this is the case, let’s next look at…
How to Stop Writer’s Block from Happening
It’s impossible to stop writer’s block from ever hitting. Every writer will find themselves too exhausted to write at certain points; we’re all human.
However, with certain techniques, it’s possible to drastically reduce the chances that you’ll find yourself sitting in front of a blank page with no idea whatsoever to write next.
If you begin writing with a strong idea of what your story is about, who your characters are, and how the narrative’s structure will unfold as you write, your chances of hitting writer’s block will decrease. Moreover, if you do hit a bad patch, you can easily move on and write another planned scene, knowing that this will likely provide you with inspiration for the scene you’re struggling to write.
If you’re a Fictionary subscriber, you’ve access to many live courses which teach you how to structure and plan a story in depth. This will help you overcome any writer’s block you’re facing.
Step Four: Revise Your Structural Plan
A strong structural plan works to prevent writer’s block in the following ways:
- A strong structural plan ensures you know what your story is about.
To write a strong plan, you must first create a strong blurb and skeleton blurb.
This will prevent you going off in the wrong direction in your desperate attempt to overcome writer’s block.
If you’re using Fictionary Storyteller software to write your draft, you’ll be constantly reminded by the software to ensure each scene embodies your skeleton blurb, and that your characters never forget their goals.
- Goals (including scene goals, story goals and inner goals) are what keep stories moving: as long as your characters are chasing high-stakes goals and facing obstacles and conflict along the way, your story should keep moving.
If your story’s sagging and you don’t know where to go next with it, it may well be the case that either you or your characters have lost sight of their goals.
- Narrative arc plot points prevent your story from getting lost or sagging. If you don’t know what to write next, you’ve probably lost sight of what needs to happen at your next plot point, and what your characters need to learn before they reach that point.
To understand more about how plot points work, check out this article on story structure.
It’s natural for your story to develop and change as you write. A strong story plan should be a guide, not a straightjacket preventing you from exploring alternative directions. That’s why it’s important to develop a method for keeping your structural plan flexible as your draft unfolds.
Fictionary Storyteller software can help you here.
The software encourages you to begin your story with a skeleton blurb, full blurb and draft synopsis, which can be amended at any time.
When drafting your scenes directly into Storyteller, you can either write scenes in narrative order, or you can choose to write plot point scenes first.
Whichever you choose, the way the software is structured means that you can keep a close eye on where your plot points are, and that you’re working towards them as you draft.
The live classes on the Fictionary community will show you in detail how the software can assist you with this.
The optional artificial intelligence features can also analyse the goals, tension and conflict in your scenes as you write, letting you know if a scene is strong yet, or whether it will need more work before you continue moving the story forward. This helps prevent you taking unnecessary plot tangents, or moving a weak narrative thread forwards.
How Long Does Writer’s Block Last?
Writer’s block will last for however long it takes you to address its underlying cause.
If you’re so exhausted and burnt out you need six months’ rest, it will take you six months.
If you’re only struggling with insufficient planning, it will take you the amount of time required to create a strong plan.
If you’ve lost inspiration, it will last until you find yourself a new source of inspiration.
Conclusion
The best trick to overcoming writer’s block is to think like a strong protagonist. Writer’s block is the obstacle getting in the way of your goal: completing your story.
Every strong protagonist is proactive in how they chase their goals, and every strong protagonist must learn the lessons they need to learn in order to become the best version of themselves. Only through growth and development is a protagonist able to overcome the odds against them and achieve their goal.
So, become proactive. Dig deep into your own psychology, and don’t just wait for inspiration to land in your lap: chase it, overcome your inner flaws, grow as a writer, and never give up!