Do you suffer from Writerus Blockitis?

[IronParrot]

After several attempts and rewrites over the past three years, my full-length novel is still on the fourteenth page.

Anyone else having a similar problem? Of course. Now fess up.

[Gwaimir Windgem]

You bet I do! The furthest I ever got was like fifty pages. And that one was just total crap. I wrote like 40-some pages of another, also total crap. Another one was slightly better written, and I think was up to like page 30-some. Then there's the one I've been working on most recently, which is I think like 20 pages. And finally, we have the one I plan on doing which doesn't have anything at all.

[Lief Erikson]

Originally posted by IronParrot
After several attempts and rewrites over the past three years, my full-length novel is still on the fourteenth page.

Anyone else having a similar problem? Of course. Now fess up.

After about three years of working on it, my full length novel is currently about 420 or so pages long . I have had writer's block before, in the past, and I probably will have it again sometimes. My plots are so structured nowadays that there's not much room for it, though, so it's very rare now that I get a writer's block.

My earlier books or stories that I wrote were really, really pathetic. But I was inspired as I wrote them, and even though my writing might sometimes be bad, at least I'm willing to keep with it. And if you keep with your writing, then you keep improving. Practice and reading are the two keys (To good writing; they don't have much to do with writer's block, in my opinion). You can't be too critical of your writing; it's better to let others be critical of it for you. You can constantly improve it and recognize when it's not good, but if you just wait till it's as good as the pros, who failed and failed and failed before getting anywhere, then it's not likely that you will get far in your book.

[Gwaimir Windgem]

Uch, I'm not very good at making structured plots. I have a BASIC idea, and it usually gets further than that, but not really structured.

[Elenka]

My "structured plot" gets altered so much in the making that it simply collapses after the initial chapter. So much for structured plots.

Yes, I get writer's block. A lot. But I survive. I just find a handy book, read a bit, find a phrase to write a book around and write the first eight or so pages.

[Lief Erikson]

Oh! Structuring the plots is one of the funnest parts of story writing!

I start with just the semblence of an idea. Just ideas that come from various places; sometimes from my imagination suddenly. We all have experienced that.

Those I finally collect into the very basic story outline. That outline undergoes major transformation and shifts as I think of better things; I'm utterly merciless with my basic plots. I write and struggle and delete and rewrite and consider until I finally come up with a coherent plot. Then I throw that plot out and start over, because it's not good enough.

But at other times, the inspiration is there and it just explodes forth. It's probably not necessary to be so picky about your story plotline as I am about mine, but my book is really huge (as you know)and will be much longer. So I've had loads of time to think about what I'm going to do next, and because my book is so long and I know that whatever comes next is going to also be huge, I'm naturally very picky about what I'm going to be spending the next few years writing .

Anyhow, after your basic plot is though up, and they don't have to be nearly that complicated, then you have everything pretty well linked up. You know what becomes of characters and where they end up. You know what the plot is of the story and what happens.

The scene by scene plot comes after that, in which you identify what happens within each scene of the book. Here's a small excerpt of the scene by scene plot to a plot I threw out some time ago:

From the scene by scene plot to The War of Darkness
The enemy defeat the good army at the bridge because of the behind attack, and the enemy close in on Delener, the wizard council.
Morciis musters his Sorocs and journeys to Elerev himself to oversee the destruction of Delener.
Calian watches the events taking place in Erinosad from the magical kingdom. The people of magical land are saddened when they hear of the terrible destruction.
Morciis destroys the Point of Light, leveling the entire mountain. He continues to Delener.
The forces of evil attack again and again, and finally break through the gates. The Tiger Force fights to the end, and most of its troops are eradicated. Aenra survives with several others. Delener is destroyed and the wizards all perish. Junsin himself is killed by Morciis. Tirdin rejoins the evil ones, and is brought to Erena.
The survivors of the Tiger Force flee to the Jag.

So, it's just taking under a microscope what's going to happen. You don't have to choose conversations, and things do often come up that you haven't anticipated. Often those lead to further plot developments, and those can be really fun to think about and add in or delete. But having a structured plot is very, very important, for with it you can see where you are and where you're going. Scene by scene ones tend to reveal difficulties you hadn't anticipated, and during the plot writing most difficulties that could become writer's blocks are overcome.

[Lief Erikson]

Originally posted by Elenka
My "structured plot" gets altered so much in the making that it simply collapses after the initial chapter. So much for structured plots.

Yes, I get writer's block. A lot. But I survive. I just find a handy book, read a bit, find a phrase to write a book around and write the first eight or so pages.

Oh yes, definitely plots get alterred a lot in the beginning. They get alterred a whole, whole lot. And you delete things you don't like and change things- if you simply can't think of things, then you wait until you can. The plot gets messed with a huge amount, but that is supposed to make it stronger, not weaker. For me, it does. The weak plot collapses and falls apart and the stronger plot endures the test. If it can't endure the test, then is it likely to be any easier in writing?

[Ninquelote]

I just got over a three-month bout of it.

My style of writing is very hard on me, I pressure myself into using alot of description and nearly no action. So I pick something that happens in that particular chapter, and mould all the description leaning towards that particular something.

I have yet to do it with multiple somethings.

[Ninquelote]

But I'm always, always stuck for names, which throws me into (at most) a weeklong writer's block.

[Lief Erikson]

Well, with names I cannot really help you, because I don't know why they're so easy for me. I'll take a crack at it.

Names with e and i are generally more gentle. For names that are meant to be a strong, solid character I often have a Th or an Ar in the earlier parts of the name. Having a "non" at the end or a "rar" often have some good characters attached. "en", mixtures of things with the "e" in them tend to be more gentle and nice of names. Harsh sounds tend to be more abrupt, using g, r, k, more guttural sounds sometimes, or sounds that are hard and abrupt.

But those are some general things, only. My names generally just mold themselves to the character I create. The name sounds "in character" for the individual, so I use that name.


Your way of using description is very, very different from how I write. It sounds very good for practice on description, but it sounds impractical to me for most writing situations. If you want to keep the reader's interest for an extended period of time, anyway.

From what I've read, your description is really beautiful. You're doing precisely as you mean to, and you're doing it well. But make more actions, more dialogue, just more things happening, and I'll be able to enjoy it all more easily. Rather than catching myself reading only a few words in a paragraph sometimes.

Your descriptive practice is really wonderful and it'll be great; your skill with that is probably a lot greater than mine at the present. But make things move a bit quicker, please .

[Ninquelote]

I'll take that into account.... However, for the first few chapters, it's just really character intoduction. Each chapter shows a small bit of the character each time. Perhaps I should just group them all together into one big chapter.

Don't worry, around the second to next chapter, something quick-paced will happen. I'm just not hasty. Like a few other good trees I know.

[IronParrot]

Plot structure is not as much of a problem for me as procrastination... I have a plot together, just not on a very precise point-by-point, action-by-action basis. It's those details - and their sequencing - that trips me up.

[Gwaimir Windgem]

Yeah, what he said.

[Lief Erikson]

Procrastination is solved by incentive. I don't allow myself onto Entmoot during weekdays until I've written two pages into my novel. There's my motivation .

[Coney]

Hmm, a few things will cause the old brain to seize....

Romance in fantasy stories: I struggle with this a lot (I have a chapter that has gone through it's seventh re-write).........The romance scenes either turn far too mushy or they become too shallow :/ ........ I think one of my major problems is that I've not read enough believable fantasy-romance (btw, I think the only way a guy can write believable romance is to have his work proof-read by a woman, our idea of fantasy-romance and thiers can be very different.) I think Romance should have a thread all to itself in this forum .

Travel: Or more specifically, the timescale thereof....... I usually mess this up, mostly because I hate sitting down working it out (as one of my friends once pointed out, "ok, 130 miles, in four days, on horseback, is possible but not in the middle of a forest!")....ho hum

Shave, shower and shishkebab: (or probably better titled "let 'em rest and bathe).......this is something (s) I usually forget to describe :/

Currency: AAAGGRRHH Gold crowns, silver pieces and copper plebs.........How many times have I used these??..........inventing new currency is tricky..........introducing how it works into the storyline, even more difficult.

Politics: Another little hurdle........I'm constantly trying to come up with new political systems for my fantasy work.......I can't write another that is based around a monarchy or autocracy......I've read a thousand of 'em.

Well, those a the things that will slam the door on my creativity, once the writers blockage has affected my pipes I just put the manuscript into the cabinet and go work on something else, I'm not the kind of person who can sit and stare at a blank page.........with me inspiration is a fickle beast, it'll only arrive when it wants to.

[Gwaimir Windgem]

Is there religion in your world? If so, Theocracy might work. I read an interesting article about how the ancient Druids basically controlled their entire society.

[Coney]

Originally posted by Gwaimir Windgem
Is there religion in your world? If so, Theocracy might work. I read an interesting article about how the ancient Druids basically controlled their entire society.

Coincidentally enough, my own version of a Theocracy is what I've used in one of my stories

Creating new religions is one of the things I enjoy most about world-building (plus having a character be religious or not can really help shape his/her personality).

[Lief Erikson]

Many of those different things deserve topics to themselves . I'd love to discuss most of them .

Currency I have largely ignored up to this point in my book. Only on two or three occasions did I bother with using any money or discussing it. I'll be changing that some other book down the line .

Travel can be a pain. I am not very organized in working out my distances, and what modes of transportation have what speeds. There I tend to just ignore the difficulty also though.

Time can be a bit of a hurdle for me. I notice that's something you didn't mention, but occasionally I mix things up. Someone who really likes my book sometime down the line will probably look at it closely and see . . . "Hey! That journey took two weeks for this person and a month for this other!"

Politics and romance I enjoy writing . Politics I absolutely love getting into, up to my throat and over. My book is full of them, every aspect and from every perspective. Including the costs on economy, though without getting into exact amounts of money.

Romance I think I've been doing fine with so far, primarily by simply letting feelings between people grow over time and through journeys or shared experiences. But in my novel thus far, I've not really focused very hard on a romantic aspect, so I might have trouble with that and simply not know it.

I'd like to see new threads on some of these different things . Writer's block isn't the best thread to contain many of them.

[Coney]

Originally posted by Lief Erikson
I'd like to see new threads on some of these different things . Writer's block isn't the best thread to contain many of them.

Agreed, Lief (and others of course) please feel free to start them

I would start them myself............but time won't allow (next essay starts tommorrow). I'll certainly read them with interest

[Elvellyn]

I get writers block all the time. It is so annoying. I can never get very far in a story because I either a) run out of good ideas b) forget all of the good ideas I had or C) give up.
I have trouble coming up with names. Usually I try to develop their character before i give them a name, but before I get a chance to do that I get buried under all other aspects of te story and the whole plot just collapses. That would be about the time I give up.