forum How to get past Writer's Block???

Started January 11, 2018 by @joufflucharlie

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An age-old problem of mine. Please help!!!

I personally get inspiration from other books, movies, or nature. What type of stories to you tend to write?

write anything and everything. write sentences that don't make sense. write entire pages with one word. kill a character that wasn't supposed to die. write someone else's reaction to that death. bring another character back to life in the middle of a scene. add a monkey. give someone a sword and a choice. make up a word and then use it in a scene.

my goal is to write every day and some days i just don't feel like it and i can manage two words. that's okay. just write, one word at a time.

Sometimes you need a push to just get you writing, even if it's bad. There's a website called Fighter's Block that's set up as a game. You pick your character and the monster you want to fight and then you set a word limit. You have to reach that word limit before the monster kills you, and if you stop writing, the monster does damage. The whole point is to just get you to write and not read over your stuff. To just put words down on paper without worrying about editing. It's helped me so much, I've written whole chapters on this thing in one sitting. And after you reach your goal, the words just keep flowing out of your brain. It's really great.

Something that works for me is to listen to epic orchestral and movie scores, I usually find myself starting to mumble out some speeches or monologues for my characters, even if you don't end up using them in your story which you probably won't, it makes it easier to hear the characters voice again. Music helps a lot with lyrics can but I find more success with instrumental, it definitely helps to set a mood for you as you write just like it would for dialogue in a movie.

I often choose to go write another story an do something else to completely take my mind off the thing I'm trying to do. a few days later I'll reread the story to figure out what was going on and find I have the energy to write again.
Something else you can do is talk about your story, your characters, the world they live in, to others and ask them what they think of it or what they would find funny to read about. I once typed out a complete chapter that way simply because someone said it would be fun to have a fight scene between two characters who disliked each other.

When writing I usually get writers block and don’t know what to write next, most people say to just write it doesn’t matter what you write just write. I do find this helpful, but I find it more helpful to go back and edit my work. When I do that I end up expanding in between some parts or finding something belongs somewhere else, and all of that helps me because it usually gives me an idea or it reminds me of one I forgot. Or it reminds me of a detail I forgot to include somewhere else. I may also find a sentence I am really proud of and it gives me motivation.

Set a timer and write literally anything, it doesn't matter if it's garbage or gold (I recommend writing games like "Fighter's block"), don't worry about mistakes, you can edit later. Write illogical shit and make it logical. Write whatever. Do something random, kill someone, make your character suffer (I highly recommend).