Beat Writer’s Block: 20 Proven Ways for Fiction Writers
I’ve faced a blank page with no idea what to write. But I’ve not only overcome this seemingly impossible obstacle myself, during three decades as an English teacher and through running creative writing workshops for staff and students, I’ve also helped thousands of people get words on the page. Below are techniques I’ve found that work.
1. Freewriting
Pick up your pen or pull your keyboard towards you and simply write what comes into your head. Don’t stop. Don’t edit. Don’t write complete sentences (unless you’re very unusual and think in them). Set a timer for three minutes and then go. Get down the words that come into your mind. Your piece mightn’t make sense. It might be repetitive. But you will be thinking something, if nothing else, ‘I can’t think of anything.’ Write it down.
Everyone thinks during their waking hours. This exercise is about getting something in your head on paper. Nobody has no ideas — nothing to write. This exercise proves it.
Sometimes an idea for your next story will come out of free writing. Even if it doesn’t, you’ve banished the blank page. That’s what matters. You’ve shown yourself you’re a writer who can and does write.
Next, take a topic you’re interested in and free write about that. If you can’t think of a subject, you could try love, the environment, murder, the weather, education, or daily life. The secret is not to stop, even if you have to write the same words three times because that’s what you’re thinking.
Look back at what you’ve written. Is there a phrase that strikes you? Give yourself another few minutes to let your subconscious explore it.
Freewriting doesn’t give you a finished text, but it does overcome the blank page and generate exciting ideas.
I sometimes take it one stage further and write in complete sentences. The secret is to make sure you don’t stop.
2. What if …?
R L Stine recommends imagining something is different from the world as we know it. What would be the consequences? What if cars could fly? What if plants had intelligence and moved? (The Day of the Triffids) What if a teenager wrote about dying of cancer? (The Fault in Our Stars) What if Martians invaded? (The War of the Worlds) What if young people from feuding families fell in love? (Romeo and Juliet, West Side Story)
You can change this around to what it would be like to live: with Tourette’s Syndrome; as a slave in ancient Egypt; at the North Pole; in the year 2050; in a care home; on another planet; after a natural disaster; on a small island. What is different? How do people cope?
3. Start with a picture.
You can use any painting or photograph that has people in it. Who are they? Why are they there? What are they doing, feeling, and thinking? Where are they going next? If they are talking, what are they saying?
If you use famous paintings, don’t feel constrained by what the original artist intended or what anyone else thinks. Mona Lisa could be Gertrude Smith in your hands.
4. Re-tell a story.
Take someone else’s plot and write another story using it. You could set one of Aesop’s Fables in modern London. The Canterbury Tales could be set in California in the 1890s. Move a fairy tale to a spaceship. The plots of two novels could be mixed to make a new one. Roald Dhal’s Revolting Rhymes is his take on classic stories like Little Red Riding Hood.
If using other people’s plots was good enough for Shakespeare, it’s good enough for me.
5. Use headlines or news stories.
Invent the story that goes with a headline. What is the story behind ‘Headless Body in Topless Bar’? What about ‘Midnight Massacre’?
Alternatively, take the story and re-write it. One of my favourite poems, Rabbit in Mixer Survives by Roger McGough, is based on a newspaper article about a bunny escaping from a cement-making machine. The original text was entertaining, but little else. The poem is a profound exploration of how we mistreat older people in our society.
Robert Frost’s powerful Out, Out — is based on an emotionless newspaper article of fewer than 200 words.
6. Take a line from a song.
Pick a lyric you like and make it the opening of a story. Of course, it could be dialogue. What could follow ‘I’m begging you please don’t take my man’? Who said, ‘Put me out with the waste’? Don’t be constrained by the original; use it as a springboard to get you started.
7. Become a famous person’s relative.
I was initially skeptical about this approach, but it has never failed to produce outstanding writing from teenagers and adults. Pick a famous person, imagine a relative of theirs and write about an incident from their perspective. Carol Ann Duffy used this technique in Elvis’ Twin Sister. I’m proud of the pieces I’ve written from the point of view of Helen of Troy’s daughter and Bruce Springsteen’s child.
How did Ronald Reagan’s horse feel about him? What did George Washington’s father think about the felled tree? How did Margaret Thatcher’s niece view the introduction of the poll tax? What did Gough Whitlam’s wife think when he was sacked as Prime Minister? How did John Lennon’s grandmother react to Imagine?
The relatives don’t have to be real.
8. Start with an issue.
Pick an issue you feel strongly about, whether it’s capital punishment, gun laws, plastic or starving kids. List five people who might feel passionate about it. For example, if you were doing smoking you might have the boss of Philip Morris, someone suffering from lung cancer, the child of someone who died because of smoking, a nicotine addict, and a libertarian. Next, imagine that two of them meet. Write the conversation they have.
Alternatively, start with a theme, such as ‘violence is ultimately self-destructive’. Who might the victims be? How have they been affected? Who are the perpetrators? Why do they do it?
9. Start and hope for inspiration.
Don’t dismiss this out of hand. I’ve done it more than once.
In 2018 I looked at one item in a list of writing prompts I’d given to a class of thirteen-year-olds. How could anyone make anything of that? I started writing about some characters. I soon had a thousand words and, more importantly, an idea. The words kept flowing. I now have a series of four YA novels. And I’m someone who always plans.
10. Revise something you’ve written before.
If you really can’t get started on something new, go back to something you’ve done before and make it better. Don’t waste the time you’ve got to write.
11. Don’t write the next part.
If you’re stuck on what comes next, skip it and come back to it later. Write another incident or scene. It is quite common for people to write the last section and then work out how to get there. I’ve written pieces that don’t join up and then found ways to make them.
If you’ve got some characters, write some scenes involving them. The pieces don’t have to be connected. That can come later.
12. Use writing prompts and exercises.
If you search online, there are numerous sites offering starting points. One I’ve used is WritingExercises.co.uk. Even if you don’t eventually use what you write, you’ll have written something, you’ll have practised your skills and you’ll have improved.
If you’re struggling with storylines, do exercises about plots. If you don’t have a main character you’d buy an ice-cream for, work on characterisation. There’s an exercise for everything.
Make sure you don’t fall into the trap of rejecting every prompt. It’s easy to be negative and achieve nothing. At least write five sentences for each suggestion. Sometimes writers are like TV channel surfers who forever scroll through the guide and never watch a programme — you can flick through prompts and exercises and call them rubbish, or you can commit, dive in and see.
13. Keep an ideas notebook.
Carry a notebook and pen so you can get down any brilliant (or not so) ideas you have when you’re out and about. Of course, you can use your phone or laptop if you prefer. I’ve tried voice notes and speech recognition because I don’t usually carry a notebook. But writing on the back of a till receipt or my shopping list works better for me.
I only kept an ideas notebook for two months. In it, I recorded story ideas, themes, dialogue fragments, and anything else I thought could be the spark for a story. But I gave it up because I felt I was wasting time writing down ideas when I already had plenty that needed developing. I’ll go back to using it if I get a dry spell.
14. Start with the six types of conflict.
At the centre of every (interesting) story is conflict. Defining that essence can give you a start. I’ve had students write down three ideas for each of the following types of conflict before they choose one:
— supernatural e.g. God, Devil, Fate
— human beings e.g. mother, boss, commanding officer
— living things e.g. animals, insects, plants, microscopic germs
— non-living things e.g. a mountain, an asteroid, a rocket
— inner self e.g. guilt, loyalty, love
— natural e.g. time, tidal wave, cyclone.
Try writing down a couple of sentences for each idea. Don’t just think it: put the words on paper.
15. Start with a character.
Invent a character and then give him or her a plot. Start with simple things like name, age, height, and weight. Develop a list of things he or she likes and dislikes. You can include a pet peeve, for instance, hating chewing gum on pavements and under tables. What are your character’s dreams and insecurities? What sort of childhood did he or she have?
You will never use all the details you’ve developed here, but you have got over your writer’s block, and you may have given yourself an idea for a story.
If you’re still stuck, invent another character that is completely different. Now imagine they get stuck in a lift together for several hours. How do they react? What do they say to each other?
16. Turn off your inner editor.
We all have some bad ideas, but that’s different from saying all the ideas we have are bad. Instead of judging a story before you’ve written it, get it down on paper and then evaluate and improve it. A mediocre idea written down can be made better: an empty page can’t.
A very bright student who was an unbelievably good writer for her age handed in a blank page at the end of one test. ‘I couldn’t think of a really good idea,’ she said. I had to point out that any of a number of bad ideas would have got her half to three-quarters of the marks straight off. A blank page scored zero.
Perfectionism, particularly for a first draft, is over-rated and often destructive.
17. Re-write a story from a different perspective.
This exercise can take two different forms. You could take something you have written in the third person and make it a first-person narrative (or vice versa). This change can alert you to angles and ideas that you haven’t had before.
Alternatively, take a well-known story and write it from the perspective of one of the characters. For example, write the story of The Three Little Pigs from the wolf’s point of view. How did the executioner feel about chopping off John the Baptist’s head? Re-write part of War of the Worlds from the artilleryman’s perspective.
18. Get some exercise.
When I’m stuck for an idea or how to start, I go for a walk or get on my bicycle. A bit of fresh air and getting the blood pumping make a big difference for me. However, I make sure I concentrate on trying to generate an idea or run over possible wordings. I focus on the problem, not the scenery.
Sometimes, if I need several ideas, I take a piece of paper and a pen. Every time something relevant comes to mind, I scribble it down. That way I can’t forget it before I get home.
19. Use constraints.
Surprisingly, setting constraints can make things easier. Paradoxically, boundaries set us free because they limit choices to a manageable number. If you can write about anything, you have infinite possible subjects.
One play I wrote had to have thirteen female characters who all had approximately the same number of lines. It had to have one scene and be twenty to twenty-five minutes long. The actors wanted it to be horror, and the proposed audiences were classes of year seven students. Once all those parameters were made explicit, it was much easier to come up with a plot.
20. Don’t put it off and don’t give up.
Sit down in front of your computer or take a pen and a piece of paper. Start. Don’t say you aren’t inspired. Don’t make excuses about your muse. Write. And enjoy.
You can overcome writer’s block.
