Writer’s Block is Just an Excuse for Broken Storytelling

Writer’s block is not a spontaneous drain of energy nor a mysterious lack of motivation. Writer’s block is not a gift lost nor a muse turned sober nor is it any of the other many crutches—both poetically descriptive and self-aggrandizing—creative people like to use when progress gives way to the allure of the sweaty Caol Ila highball resting just within reach.

Writer’s block is simply a symptom of denial.

The romanticized author icon has motivated many budding writers, perhaps more-so than story itself has, replacing the interior dreams of textualizing an experience on paper with the egoed dreams of book tours and store signings. This worship has trained writers to ignore the road bumps and hiccups that shape the path between writing and have written. Those bumps and fits, though, are signs of eventual catastrophe, a catastrophe we like to call writer’s block. So what’s a writer with a shitty story to do?

First, accept that something is broken.

Your grandmother doesn’t know story

I know, I know, you are a genius. I can ask your elderly neighbor all about the light bulbs you replaced for him last summer, and I’m sure those gold star stickers from that second grade spelling test still sparkle on the refrigerator door. Both proud accomplishments, sure, but neither the old man nor your grade school teacher know story.

When one claims writer’s block, he is often voicing (though generally quietly) the acknowledgement of an impediment, but rarely looks deeper without harking back to the lost muse (or reaching for that Scotch). That nagging feeling, that sense of impediment, those subconscious ticks, should never be ignored. Never. More on this later.

For now, it’s important to understand the motivations of the story process itself. The story process can be a dick, and really, we can’t blame it? Like it’s a living organism, the story process will do everything possible to thrive. That means keeping your fingers on the keyboard for as long as possible. As long as your story has weaknesses, your fingers must remain moving, and therefore the process lives. Writer’s block keeps the process alive.

Your job is to kill the story process by perfecting your story.

Hunt for what’s broken.

You are a mechanic, not a driver

Writer’s block has nothing to do with motivation (if the story is working, you’ll have plenty of motivation). It has nothing to do with a weak plot (plenty of great books are weak on plot; The Great Gatsby is “guy moves into a house next to rich guy”…that’s about it). It has nothing to do with your own seemingly problematic writing environment (Chuck Palahniuk wrote Choke while bound up in a hospital bed; you aren’t allowed to complain). Most of the time writer’s block is simply your brain’s reaction to a weakness in your story.

Imagine a road trip. You need to drive from Dark and Stormy Night, Colorado all the way to El Fin, Indiana (with a stop in Shitty Metaphor, Missouri, apparently). Eventually, given enough wrong turns, construction detours, potholes, and crowbar-wielding victims of your latest dine-and-dash, your car will stop. When that happens, you don’t wait and pray for magic to get you going again. You instead think about ways to fix the broken vehicle. Sometimes all it takes is gas. More often, it takes the focused attention of a trained mechanic. Your job as a writer is to develop a mechanic’s eye.

Finding your broken elements is all about refusing to ignore the signs. Those times when, reading your story aloud, you stumble a bit over your own tongue: that shouldn’t be ignored. When you re-read clunky sentences multiple times: that shouldn’t be ignored. You pause to weigh the worth of a particular line, a particular character, or even a particular setting: that should not be ignored. That visceral reaction in your gut—tiny though it may be—SHOULD NOT BE IGNORED.

We’ve all done it. We’ll justify a weak 10% by insisting on the strength of the remaining 90% of the story. But when trying to break through a bad case of the block, that 10% simply cannot be ignored. That 10% could be the key to regaining your momentum.

Fix what’s broken

Each sentence tells you what sentence comes next

You’ve found what doesn’t work, but you aren’t sure how to fix it. Where to start? How about at the beginning?

Every word you put down on the page fuels the remaining story. So go back and mine your previous sentences for what should come next. Imagine this as the first line of your story:

“Jill swallowed another pill from the collection of unmarked bottles in her freezer.”

This single sentence implies many questions that, whether you like it or not, are now part of a contact you’ve created with your reader. Your reader will expect to know:

1. Who is Jill?
2. What kind of pills is she swallowing?
3. Whose pills are they?
4. Why are the bottles unmarked?
5. Why are the pills in her freezer?
6. Why does she have so many pills?

Every one of these questions must be answered or at least addressed (unless the story supports a reason to avoid the questions). When these questions don’t get answered, the story tends to veer off-course, eventually leading to that feared block.

Analyze your story so far. Be meticulous. Mine every previous sentence for ways to move forward. Explore character motivations, especially via dialog. What are your characters really saying? You put the words in their mouths, so spend some time understanding what those words mean. Are your characters really doing what they should be doing when they should be doing it?

Sometimes, a simple change of perspective can reinvigorate your passion for the story. Change the font size, the font type, or the font color. Audio record yourself reading the story, and listen to the recording objectively. Do anything to rewire your brain enough to get things moving again.

Be willing to admit defeat

Eight year-olds aren’t expected to write Crime and Punishment

Be willing to admit that you just might not be ready to write the affected story.

Imagine for a moment a budding eight year-old writer. His first story tells of a bear cub as it happens upon a beehive, destroys said beehive for the honey inside, and then feels terrible about doing so. One can easily accept an eight year-old to be capable of a remorseful bear’s emotional ebb and flow—if not, at least capable of grasping the plot arc. Now, imagine that same eight year-old writing Crime and Punishment. Ridiculous, right? An eight year-old may have the capacity to understand the basic arc of Crime and Punishment, but absolutely couldn’t create the book in its entirety (and who the hell would want to read that book).

Apply that same age and maturity differential to your current writer-blocked story, and suddenly it doesn’t seem so strange to put off a story for a few more years.

But never delete those temporarily-failed stories. Save the files, store them away in an abortions folder (though, rename it because you don’t want family to find that). If the story is worth re-examining, it will happen.

* * *

Your grandmother doesn’t know story

You are a mechanic, not a driver

Each sentence tells you what sentence comes next

Eight year-olds aren’t expected to write Crime and Punishment

This advice should not be ignored.