General Writer's Block thread

There are no rules in writing; only what gets you the results you want and what doesn't. Some writers do prefer to just put in a placeholder when they can't come up with a way to write or depict something so they can get on with the story and just come back to it later. If that's your jam, more power to you.

I mean, I think there are rules in writing (or heavily recommended guidelines at least), it's just that when you're experienced enough to know what you're doing and what works for you and your style, you can ignore ALL of them. And get away with it. So yeah, functionally, there aren't any rules. Most newbs would benefit from following some though.

How can I tell if my characters are way too angsty than they should be or are their angst justified?

Edited by Andermann on Apr 5th 2019 at 4:05:04 PM

YMMV, but I think this is an issue where execution trumps concept, so you might want to consider how their angst relates to the story's central conflict. Is it a character flaw that they need to get over? Are they traumatised by something that happened to them? Does it seriously affect their relationship with the people around them, maybe drive away someone who cares a whole lot about them permanently? Do they hang on to the source of their angst to power them with righteous fury, or do they end up getting manipulated or radicalised because they're too deep in self-pity to think critically? There are a lot of ways to weave sorrow, insecurities and trauma into your conflict, as long as you're clear on what the causes and effects are.

How do I preserve dramatic tension when I literally have two legendary warriors, three elite-level adventurers and the second most powerful being on earth on my team?

Either make bigger threats or have the tension be interpersonal or something similar. not all threats are about punching the other guy.

How do I convey emotion of a character who only has minimal expression?

If they're not a viewpoint character (which would allow you to convey their emotions to the audience through their internal monologue) and the story isn't written in an omniscient viewpoint (which would similarly give you the liberty of showing this character's internal monologue alongside those of others), the other characters (and the audience) might not be able to tell what this character's feeling without spending enough time with them. This is a fine source of tension and conflict, and can unnerve the others, and sow suspicion or mistrust between Stoic Character and the others until they show the others what they're about.

Since they do feel emotions, they will more than likely have subtle tells that might look meaningless when one is unfamiliar with the character, but which people will start to pick up on after a few weeks to months of interacting with Stoic Character and placing these little tells into context with Stoic Character's later actions and words. Things like the character pausing for a second before responding (still in their usual cool tone) when angered, or looking away when in a good mood, or setting their jaw so they don't look afraid, or the subtle way they hold their head or choose their words when they're feeling this or that.

You've asked a lot of questions, and I have to ask- do you read much narrative fiction? I started reading novels again after years of being forced to in school and not having any time or energy in college, and I've been finding it to be a great way to learn how to convey all kinds of stuff in my own writing. There's really nothing like learning by example and practice when it comes to art.

Edited by CrystalGlacia on Apr 15th 2019 at 10:10:30 AM

Oh, man, I don't even remember when was the time l willingly read a book, I don't even remember when was the last time I read a book, I used to love reading fiction.

When it comes to constructing an overall plot, building the world, and plan out how everything will go and how it all connects, I have no problem, but when it comes to the actual writing is when it all come crashing down, I don't know how to write, everything just kind of stuck in my head.

I tried to read some book, but the crippling depression and pressure to succeed in life kind of got in the way while I'm struggling to decide whether I should write or not everyday.

I mean, I tried to write a little everyday, and I delete everything at the end of the day.

I have been trying post my character on hero critique thread for three month now, haven't been able to finish it.

I kind of wish I can transfer my brain to someone less fucked up in the head so they can actually write the damn thing, at this point I don't even expect to finish the writing myself.

It's been sitting in my head for six years now, and I haven't finished chapter one, hell, I haven't even finished page one yet.

Edited by Andermann on Apr 16th 2019 at 12:12:22 AM

This is not an uncommon experience. Different people have various ways of dealing with it- bearing in mind that what works for someone else may not work for you (and that is also not an uncommon experience), I can share some approaches with you.

• One way is to write something else, something unrelated, that can clear your head. Writing two different stories at the same time may sound like twice as difficult, but for some people, it doesnt work that way. Focusing on something else (typically something fun and easy) allows the sub-conscious to "let go" and free associate for a while. When you come back to the original story, you may find it begins to write itself, at least for a while.
• Try inspiring yourself with something tagenitally related to your story. I often use music- when I want to write an action scene, I listen to epic soundtracks, when I want to write a frightening scene, I listen to horror soundtracks, etc. (I find movie soundtracks stimulate my writing mind somehow).
• Sometimes I take one scene from the larger work that I want to write, maybe even a single image, and write that up as a self-contained mini story. This breaks things down, and you stop worrying about how this scene will relate to a later or an earlier scene, which I find to be a real creativity killer. An added benefit is that if you write enough of these, you can often link them together and voila, you've written part of the larger work.

Hope some of that is helpful. I am sure that others on this thread have their own techniques for dealing with this kind of writers block.

How do I preserve dramatic tension when I literally have two legendary warriors, three elite-level adventurers and the second most powerful being on earth on my team?

1) Have trouble happen to someone they CARE ABOUT. If your friend/relative gets kidnapped, the main thing people are concerned with is getting them back.

2) Alternately, as mentioned before: The issues they're against can't be solved with punching/stabbing. Maybe they're good at fighting, but the war they're in is also political and they are legit out of their element, and have to get help from actual politicians. Or maybe they have to rescue a literal boatload of hostages, and the fighting is mixed with unfamiliar sea-related perils.

2) Have the legendary warriors and second-most-powerful-being suffer Crippling Overspecialization or a Fatal Flaw that gets them into trouble (maybe by heading back to Solution 1?).

With my story Moonflowers where the antagonist is a force of nature, he is still a Celtic fairy and has made one EXTREMELY prideful mistake that will eventually bring him down. See, he cursed an American family to die on Halloween, then forbade any American spirits and European gods to help unless he's physically trying to kill them. But he doesn't care that the family he cursed is also Asian, which means that even the depowered Filipino gods can basically walk up and punch him in the face.

I feel weird if I use the same verb too many times, is that normal?

That's a good sense to have.

I cringe if I use the same verb more than once on the same page.

I cringe if I use the same word more than once in a paragraph.

At the risk of sounding like the resident contrarian, twice the same word in close succession is still a lot better than an unnatural-sounding paraphrase that obviously exists *only* to avoid repeating the word.

Sure. No-one's saying you should go to unseemly extremes to make sure you don't repeat yourself.

Notice that I myself used "I" twice in the same sentence. Context is everything.

"Snape!" ejaculated Slughorn.

When I'm writing, should I focus more on "What should my characters do?" or "What would my characters do?"

Because what Alex should be doing is helping people and saving the world, but what she would do is lie on the ground a take a nap.

Edited by Andermann on Apr 27th 2019 at 6:05:05 PM

When there's more than one viable option, your characters should do what would best serve the overall story. And the case you've given is not either/or.

Having the character go and work towards saving the world despite desperately wanting rest could be used to show the character's discipline, their recklessness/foolhardiness, or some combination of the two, depending on the outcome of that character's choice and how the character and others think/speak of it. However, the reverse- having the character take a nap despite fully understanding that the world needs to be saved -could be used to contribute to showing the tragedy of making just a single person bear the whole world on their shoulders and how nobody is equipped for that (especially if they just pass out the moment they get some quiet), or it could be used to show the character's selfishness, like if they didn't actually need the extra sleep. The case of the character napping without fully understanding the direness of the state of the world could also be used towards the tragedy angle. But the expected, obligatory route of just saving the world without any sort of other nagging feeling or thought is the least dramatic of all of your options. The dilemma of "rest/self care, or saving the world" is part of the plot of a lot of the novels of The Dresden Files.

I really do think reading some novels would help you out a good deal- even just reading for entertainment, just because I want to see what happens next, I've learned a good deal about how narratives actually work.

Edited by CrystalGlacia on Apr 27th 2019 at 8:33:24 AM

This might be a personal thing, but I do try to overwhelmingly favor the "what would the character do?" approach. But with the caveat: once the character's personality is solidified, once I know who they are. When that happens I try not to treat them merely as figments of my imagination, but as separate entities from me. At that point I'm not an author anymore, I'm just a spectator who writes things down.

Getting there is the hardest part, though, and I am using the "what they should do" as a tool for accomplishing that. Once there is enough consistency within the character's actions, once their core personality is revealed, then my approach changes. I do not get there most of the time, though. But getting there is very important, because I think that it's characters who should be driving the story, not the author. Otherwise the events of the story will feel forced and contrived.

And while reading novels is a good advice from technical standpoint, getting to know people would be more beneficial, since you'll need something substantial to reflect in your stories.

Edited by Millership on Apr 27th 2019 at 6:33:42 PM

The way I've begun to approach storycraft now is that plot, characters, setting, and theme are all intertwined, and together form a single package in the form of the story. Character actions drive plot just as much as they inform the setting and contribute to the theme. In a situation like this where the writer even needs to weigh such different courses of action and is likely regarding each with the same amount of weight in-story, something major has probably not been decided or realized yet, and selecting the wrong course of action could misalign the other pieces of the story. If you're going for a traditional save-the-world epic and you have the protagonist lay down for a nap for the wrong reasons in the wrong situation, and you don't want to follow through with what that should logically do to the story, then something is going to have to give.

I should have written that it should serve the story, not the plot, so I've edited accordingly. Not trying to argue my way's the only one; just explaining where I'm coming from. Getting multiple interpretations is the beauty of asking in a public forum, after all.

Edited by CrystalGlacia on Apr 27th 2019 at 11:44:02 AM

I like to let the characters do what they would naturally do, given their character traits, and then experience the consequences of that, which should lead to some sort of character development. Oftentimes, when I do this successfully, I am surprised at the end result.

How and when should I depict subtle things my characters do and some background events in writing? These things are usually more subtle in visual media but seems very on the nose in the forms of writing.

Can you give an example?