Plot points A, B, and C need to be connected, Oxford comma be damned. "Write the major plot points first," some terribly clever person said, and here they lie, individual chain links scattered haphazardly. Avante-garde as it may be to publish them in this lonely state, allowing the readers (oh please let there be readers) to link them for you, dispense with that idea and tell me: What tricks do you use to push through these wastelands and fill in story gaps? This issue has been a well-fed walrus chilling out on my thoughts for as long as I've been writing, and is a principle antagonist in my fight to finish a story for once. Here are a couple of the tricks which help me. Write descriptions of characters yet to be introduced or even conceived in the same prose you would normally use for the story. This helps me flesh out character personalities and relationships, but more importantly, it helps me find story roles needing to be filled. It also helps me add texture and life to the setting, as sometimes the characters are so minor I never actually use them, but it gives me an idea of what kind of people occupy the setting. Write descriptions of very specific parts of the setting. I'm talking a single room in a single house. This gets me thinking about the little things, the details which make a setting feel real. I could think of more, but I'm very interested to hear what techniques help all of you the most.
