Keep writing and resist the urge to press the delete-button. Eventually you will have the story down on paper and can work on making it sound exactly like it does in your head. Make each sentence perfect and telling enough. Rewrite, add and clarify. Not everyone get it perfect or precise the first time around. It can take several drafts until it looks and reads the way you want and with each draft it will improve some more. Just focus on getting the story written, even in a really basic shape and then you can build on that.
A couple possibilities. Maybe you need to shelf the idea until it gels a bit more. But what I think is more likely is you have a series of events in mind but are missing the "connective tissue." What drives the characters to move from one event to the next. In other words, yhou have a storyline, but tou don;t have a network of plots. A plot is comprised of an actor, a goal or objective, a motivation, and an opposition. The motivation is what drives the actor (character) toward the goal, and the opposition is what pushes the actor away from the goal. An opposition is often another plot. Plots can often overlay, with the same actor, possibly the same goal, but with different motivations and oppositions. The combination of all these plots is the plot network. Identifying the plots that drive your story may make your story flow more naturally. Read What is Plot Creation and Development? for more information.
Don't push yourself to write the chapters. You may have such a strong idea in your head for the main parts but do not know where to begin. Do what Tesoro said and write it! Rewriting is where you are at already without the story. Sometimes trial and error is a good thing. If you don't like the opening, don't throw them all out after you write them. Those could end up working in the end. Some writers hate this, while others love it: have you considered trying to use foreshadowing as the first chapter? Worth a shot.
If writing random chapters isn't working, write some scenes which you think has to in the story some how. More often than not you will be able to find out tge deepest desires of the mc from those scenes. Then follow Cogito's advice.
Might I suggest just pushing on with the writing? Your first draft will almost never come our as you had envisioned it in your head. But that's what the editing process is for. Until you have a first draft down on paper, you don't really have anything. Your story is some abstract, unformed concept and idea known only to you, and doesn't "exist" in any meaningful way. But once you have a first draft written, even if it's not what you had anticipated and hoped for when you started out (and it won't be), you can get to work on it. Wrestling a story into submission is all part of the art and craft of writing. The idea that they have to produce a ready-to-eat slice of perfection straight onto the virgin white page is what, in my opinion, holds most new writers back. That level of perfection takes work, and a lot of editing after the initial writing. By all means, do and try whatever you need to in order to get into the feel of your story, but at a certain point you have to just take it head on else you're never going to get it written.
Something that helps me when I'm a little stuck is to write out scenes with my characters in them. The scenes don't necessarily have any place within the story and sometimes they're just paragraphs of dialogue, but I find they help me better understand the characters and the setting. It might not produce anything to use in your story but it's a good little exercise that I find can help you build ideas.
For me, it occurs when I think of something else to write instead of what I had originally planned. Then I'm at a fork in the road and can't make a decision, and then that leads to me wondering if any of those ideas are good and struggling to find a new, better idea, and then I don't make a decision at all!
Writer's block...Vile nemesis I slay with...Well...something more intimidating than a mere red pen. A fighting wit, maybe.
Sometimes people who are feeling down won't write because they believe they have to be in a certain mood. But some very good stuff has come from writers who suffer from depression. If you lose a loved one, now is the time to write about it, if you win a fortune, now is the time to write about it.
If inspiration isn't coming, I try perspiration. I go back and edit, polish, revise and that usually gets me into the swing and the rhythm of it. Coffee helps, too.
Writer's block is something I've struggled with before. In the past, I would lose interest in fighting to think of what to write, and move on to something else. This time it's different, the plot I'm working on is my baby and near and dear to my heart. But I've come down with the worst case of writer's block yet, I haven't managed to get past page 2. I have the whole plot figured out, and I'm always bubbling with new ideas, but the beginning has me whipped. I don't know what to do. Help?
Don't start at the beginning if it's the beginning that's got you stumped. Is there any part of it that you can write? Write that. Then print it (or cut it out of your notebook) and stick it on the wall. Then write another bit - even if it's just a paragraph - cut it out - stick it on your wall. Keep going and you'll have a whole book before you know it. (And a very messy wall) Who says this has to be a linear process anyway? Not entirely my idea - see "How to write a Novel in a Year" for more inspiration. Hope this helps Lally
That's how I write, well with the exception of printing and taping it all over my walls lol. I never, ever have started anything at the beginning, I always start with whatever key scene(s) that have popped into my head. The rest comes in time and often when I'm not trying to think about it. I'll be doing something mundane and BAM! Ideas are born.
I sometimes do the same thing. There's no reason you have to start at the beginning. I started my novel with what turned out to be chapter four, though I didn't know where it would fit as I was writing it. I wrote a few more scenes after that, and those helped clarify where the novel properly starts. Then I was ready to write the beginning.
Definitely write another section if the beginning has you stumped. You'll probably find the solution by doing so - Ah! This is how I need to get here! But keep writing!
A technique I've been utilizing recently, when I come face to face with the blank page, is showing up prepared. I, by no means, believe in outlines, or anything of that nature, but I do believe in 'understood' concepts. For example, my father used to always say, "Take your arguement, and write it down. The first time your write it, it's going to be 10 sentences. The next time, 8, then 5, then 3, then 2, and then 1. When you've finally reached a point where you can simplify your idea to one sentence, you fully understand the concept driving it, and the idea itself." With that said, show up knowing what your story is about. When you know what your story is about, you've got your first sentence, you just never realized it. For example, I recently wrote a short story about my mother comitting suicide.. (stifle your condolances, she is very much so alive.) The story was about my mother, and what I experienced. The first sentence of the story is, "My mother knew how to leave an impression." There is the story, simplified into one sentence. Anyway, with that said, if you are finding yourself unable to go on, you may not completely understand your story, OR, you may have never given it a chance to come out on its own, by simply just writing. Sometimes your going to write, and delete, and re-write, and delete, before the idea strikes you, or the answer jumps out. I recently started a story, was way excited about it in the beginning, took a few days off and raged a couple Phish shows. When I came back, I had lost interest in the story, and everything I wrote felt boring, and mundane, as if my characters were just going through the motions, and had lost their spark. I just trudged on, with the idea that I was probably psyching myself out. When I showed it to a friend, he had no problem keeping interest. The emotional roller coaster is the journey a writer takes, that includes a beginning, middle, and end, along with periods of disinterest, confusion, anger, sadness, excitement, and doubt. If, at any point, you find yourself overwhelmed, breathe a little, and remind yourself you're human, and those feelings always pass.
Your father sounds like my old creative writing professor. He advocated that same idea. You should know your story and characters so well that you can tell it in a sentence. He also loved the Hemingway quote: "All you have to do is write one true sentence." And go from there.
lol... Well, he's is not a writer or a professor, though the former would suit him perfectly. He is an attorney, and that is his creative process when he develops a point of view, to strengthen the stance he is defending. He never goes into a trial unless he fully understands the problem at hand. If he cannot simplify the problem, then he doesn't fully understand it, and needs to do more analyzing. This example, he always said, can be applied in all aspects of life. But, the Mund-o-nator (as I often call my Dad) is quite right, and the technique allows for better understanding of anything. In terms of idea, when you understand the concept, you understand the direction. You then have insight, as to when the plot is veering off the path, or staying on course. You will know when your characters are reacting realistically, or in a way you're forcing them to react. It all starts with the one sentence, and Hemingway was absolutely correct.
Writing block has rarely affected me, but when it has, usually I save the document and then just write. It might be stupid and completely out of the plot, but you can go back and edit it or delete it later. If you outline, you should know where you are going and if you write on the spot, you just write and let your writing carry you.
Writer's block varies from person to person, but the best approach I've tried is writing the parts that come easily first. Here's why: 1. when it comes easily, you are letting creativity do the work; 2. when you do it that way, you maintain your vision of the story without accidentilly forcing it somewhere else; 3. you maintain forward progress on your book; and 4. its a great way to figure out how the beginning might go, as it would happen that the most action will be a direct result of the action before it, so all you'd have to do is find a suitable dilemma to lead to the acion you wrote ooor... you could take the hard route and just try tirelssly with beginning after beginning until you have one that fits-- which you would most likely end up changing anyway.
_____(Sniff-sniff....) Geez, this thread is OLD--still edible, though. You've just gotta pull out all the moldy bits. Anyway, this is where outlines come into play, ladies and gentlemen. If there's an outline in place, there's no need to get lost. That's because the story is already written. To make a Stephen King reference, all you're doing is dictation at that point. With the outline there, the story just keeps unfolding while you're just the dude writing out what the heck is happening. If the collective subconscious isn't talking to you anymore, then it's because you didn't take notes when it was talking. Make an outline, and roll with it. _____What's the alternative? Being stuck without anything to write, that's what! Writer's block is the collective subconscious saying, "I don't wanna talk to you unless you're good and ready." That, or it's a case of you saying that you don't want to write what need beings written. Now, if you've had that plan in place, the story in concentrate, the outline, that wouldn't have happened. Let me say that again; make the outline...or perish. Like gettin' stranded on the New Jersey Turnpike, yech. I hope to never go back to Jersey again!
