What is writer’s block, exactly?
Well, Google defines writer’s block as “the condition of being unable to think of what to write or how to proceed with writing,” but that’s kind of a useless definition.
No one is ever unable to write. Unless you have some form of mental impairment or learning disability, literally everyone can write. It may be difficult to come up with story ideas, or write well, but literally just the act of putting one word in front of another to create sentences is something that anyone can do, all the time.
Writer’s block makes it difficult to write well, not impossible to write at all.
Now that we’ve got that out of the way, here’s the next problem: There are heaps of different ways for writing to become difficult. It’s kind of stupid to lump them all together into one term, really. The point of words is for them to mean a specific thing, so that when I say them, you think of the thing I wanted you to think of because that’s what the thing I said means. (Did that make sense?) But when someone mentions writer’s block, I’m left wondering, “Which type do they mean?”
Here are five of the things people mean when they talk about writer’s block:
1. No ideas. This is when you want to write something – fiction, usually – but you have no idea what to write. This is probably the hardest form of writer’s block to solve because you can’t just “push through it,” the way you can with the other kinds. Of course, if worst comes to worst, there are a fuckton of writing prompts on the internet to get you started. Plus, I think it’s helpful to let go of the idea that your idea has to be perfect or amazing. Ideas can come from anywhere. Just look around the room and come up with something random. Five minutes later and you’ve got an idea for a desk lamp that fights off an army of pencils using an alarm clock. Now, obviously that idea’s shit but if you do a bunch of them in a row and allow yourself to be stupid and crazy, your brain juices will start flowing and eventually you might think of something you like.
2. No motivation. This is when you have something to write, but you just… can’t… seem… to be bothered… Oftentimes this is caused by laziness, but sometimes it’s indicative of some deeper problem with your story that you haven’t quite put your finger on yet. Unfortunately, the only way out is through. Write anyway, even if you don’t feel like it. You can come up with a reward system. Or a punishment system. Or both at the same time. If your problem is laziness, your ‘writer’s block’ will go away with discipline and routine, but if your problem is something deeper that’s bothering you with your story, you’re going to need to do some serious thinking: Why have you lost passion for the project? Did you have passion for it to begin with? What is the story really about? Are you having trouble connecting with the characters? Have you fleshed them out enough? Is the POV working for you? Is your plot engaging enough? And so on.
3. Plot hole. This is when your writing comes to a grinding halt because you can’t figure out how to get around a plot hole you’ve just discovered. Plot holes are the worst, and solving them isn’t easy. But there’s always a way. You’ve just got to put on your problem solving hat and bang your head against the desk until you figure it out. You need to ask yourself why every single element in your story is in there, until you find one that can be changed to make everything fit together. Sometimes this requires sacrifice. Once I was writing a story where I had my heart set on someone setting this building on fire, but when I finally got around to writing it I realised that it didn’t make any sense for him to light a fire. I tried for a whole day to figure out a way for it to make sense, but in the end I just had to cut out the fire idea entirely. In hindsight, I’m not even sure why I was so into the idea in the first place…
4. Sentence no sound good. This is when you keep deleting everything you write because you’re convinced it sounds awful. “The cat sat on the mat…” No, that’s clichéd. “The cat sat gently on the…” No, Stephen King hates adverbs. “The cat prowled over to the red mat where…” AGH! Why am I so awful?! This is usually a combination of perfectionism and insecurity. Maybe you recently got some criticism on your writing and it killed your confidence, or maybe you’re feeling pressure to do a fantastic job. The answer is simple: No sentence sounds good before it’s been revised a bunch of times. Don’t worry about how it sounds, just get it on the page, don’t stop to edit. I repeat: do not stop to edit.
5. Just not feeling it. This is related to the motivation one, but it’s not as simple to fix. This is when you are writing, but something feels off. You’re not getting sucked into the story the way you usually do, you feel like you’re going through the motions. Sometimes you can push through and you’ll become more invested as you go, but other times you need to step back and figure out what’s wrong. Are you writing a section of the story that just isn’t very interesting? If so, the reader is going to notice that too and you should find a way to shorten it or add more conflict to it. Or maybe the section you’re writing is fine, but you’ve forgotten why you’re writing it in the first place. Open up a new Word document and write about why the scene is in there, what the main conflict is, what the emotional resonance should be, blah blah blah. Hopefully, you’ll fall in love with it again. If not, it’s not the end of the world if you need to ditch it and work on a different idea that you do care about.
Those are my five forms of writer’s block. Keep in mind that there is often overlap, and you can experience multiple forms of writer’s block at once.
Now I have to go, I suddenly have the urge to write an epic fantasy about a tyrannical desk lamp and an army of rebellious pencils…