I have the story but the words won't come

Write something else. Give yourself some distance from the first novel and the sequel, and then go back to it.

A break might help. Work on something else in the meantime.

When I hit something like this, I ask: Why don't I want to write it? It is a loss of motivation, so I search out why I'm not motivated to write it because the reader might not be motivated to read it.

Read, too. Reading might make you think: I can do this. And even, I can do this better than he/she can.

I feel that way sometimes.

Panic and frustration kill the ability to see through the fog. It doesn't matter what it is - it's happened to me with crafting, gaming, making the computer work, writing... when you get frustrated and annoyed with yourself, yous top being able to see your way through.

I'm seconding a bit of a break. Nothing huge. I also find going for a walk or a run very useful if I'm stuck on anything. Don't take music - the point is that your brain is unoccupied. Because you're silent, both verbally and mentally, your brain can tick over without you getting in the way. I've had a lot of 'aha!' moments on walks.

the obvious thing to try

If you can't the opening started, just start writing anywhere, The end, the middle, or right when the action starts.

Openings are hard, and can paralyze you, because you're trying to do so many things at once.

The funny thing is, if you pretend you're starting w/the second chapter, and jump right into the action, well, it may be become a great opening. I think my openings are some of my worst writing, because I think too much. Don't think, just do (at least to get started.)

folclor said:

So I'm writing the sequel to my debut novel. I've already written through three drafts of it and so I have bits and pieces I want to keep, but the opening is something I'm fighting with.

I keep beginning my rewrite and... then I can't get past about page 3 because... I don't know why. I know what happens next, but the words won't come out.

Any advice?

Click to expand...

I can see two possible solutions:

1. Power through your story. Get the first draft done, then revise/rewrite/change/scrap anything you need to. But just get it done first.

2. That may not be enough. Just today, I decided to stop working on a novel I have been trying to write for a long time. I finally decided there must be a reason I don't want to write it. Fortunately, all is not lost. Some of what I have written I will be able to recycled into another project.

Of the two, I would recommend the first. Option two is fairly drastic, after all.

I've had this problem many, many times. Two things usually work for me.

1. Just write. I know this is easier said than done, but if I usually just sit down and start writing, without worrying about quality or anything like that. This will at least get words onto paper (or screen). You can always go back and edit and re-write.

2. Sometimes I'll go to my local bookstore and just start browsing through my favorite genre of books. Looking at the covers and the descriptions on the back is inspiring, for some reason. This almost always gets my creative juices flowing to the point where I'm itching to get home and write.

Writing is very much a mental game. Writer's block happens. The key is not to dwell on it too much (I know, easier said than done).

folclor said:

So I'm writing the sequel to my debut novel. I've already written through three drafts of it and so I have bits and pieces I want to keep, but the opening is something I'm fighting with.

I keep beginning my rewrite and... then I can't get past about page 3 because... I don't know why. I know what happens next, but the words won't come out.

Any advice?

Click to expand...

Leave the book for a while and come back to it later.

The best advice I've heard is that when the words don't come, talk a walk, work in the garden, read a different book. It's the same that nearly everybody has said, but I think it's good to let your subconscious figure it out. Best of luck!

folclor said:

So I'm writing the sequel to my debut novel. I've already written through three drafts of it and so I have bits and pieces I want to keep, but the opening is something I'm fighting with.

I keep beginning my rewrite and... then I can't get past about page 3 because... I don't know why. I know what happens next, but the words won't come out.

Any advice?

Click to expand...

If you know what happens, then spit it out in point form for now and 'write' it later more fully.

I know this feeling all too well. I usually just do what Wilde at Heart suggested. The words will come eventually.

I had writer's block a couple of weeks ago, so I just stopped writing. Weirdly, I came up with about a half dozen good ideas for stories, but I never wrote anything down. I think sometimes our minds just need a break.

This is why I do NaNoWriMo. Skipping ahead usually works for me. But I'm having the same trouble with my first novel. I have a great opening and a great ending (well in my head, the images is great, the words not so much) but I can't get the middle at all. Maybe I should start working on that again after having worked on other things for the last few years.

Good luck!

I second taking a break.

A week off, exploring a new city, doing something new or something you haven't done in a long whole gives you the distance/perspective that can help a ton.

Write 'stupid', just let the words blurt out on the page without worrying if it makes that much sense. When you've rambled through a couple of pages of text, go back and start editing...

Have you heard about how Bono of U2 writes a song?

It starts with a choon. Maybe a guitar riff. A drum beat. A melody. A hook. The rest of the band bring their ideas to the party.

Then Bono improvises words as sounds to fit the music. At first his words aren't even sentences and aren't even in English. They are snippets, phrases, bits of foreign languages, made up words, baby speak.

http://www.atu2.com/news/the-songwriters-u2-where-craft-ends-and-spirit-begins.html

Then edit, edit, edit. Move ideas around, play with sounds, swap, mix and match.

Repeat until done.

Don't worry that the first few attempts are rubbish. That's perfectly okay. Withhold judgement until much much later. All too often we fall out of love with something because it doesn't look good at the beginning.

Take these hands
Teach them what to carry
Take these hands
Don't make a fist
Take this mouth
So quick to criticize
Take this mouth
Give it a kiss

The other way to start is to find the sentence that defines the entire work. "In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit." "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times".

A final thought - and this is a Once theory and not U2, so is almost certainly not as good! I like to start and end a story with bookends. I nearly always have a scene or an idea at the beginning of a story (or even a piece of non fiction) which is then echoed at the end. A bit like the Hobbit or LOTR starting and ending in the Shire.

That way the reader knows that the story has ended, and it is right that it should end where it does. It also provides a framework for a character arc because the main character should be both recognisably the same and also noticeably changed by the process.

Thinking about the bookends often helps me to frame the first and last words, or at the least the first and last scenes/ ideas.

Sometimes these bookends come to me before I start. At other times they appear magically during the writing process. Purely a personal thing but it works for me.

Don't do it?

Sometimes when I'm like this it helps me to write around the scene. Like just write a big block of description of the setting, or what the characters look like, what happened that morning that led up to the scene, etc. Not with a view to any of that going in the story, but just to help set the image of the scene in my head better. The more vivid it is, the easier it is for me to write it.

For one of my novels, I just have the first sentence and the last two sentences and can't for the life of me write anything in between even though the ideas and images are in my head. I like bookends too, but this particular one won't be that.

Interesting tidbit about Bono.

Openings are difficult. Write more stuff that happens later, and worry about the opening later even than those. Connecting the dots doesn't have to start at dot one.

caw

Definately been there...multiple times before. Congrats on the debut! Sounds to me like maybe you have pressure to write now for the first time. I don't know your situation, but if you were writing on your own time with no pressure to meet a deadline and no expectations other than those you put on yourself, and now you are suddenly writing with the pressure of being a published author and knowing you have a name that is out there now and trying to live up to the success of your first novel, it could be causing a blockage of the story flowing out of you because it's a new/unfamiliar territory