Solution and Supreme Solution also.
Gidday True North, since you started this so I will address this to you but offer it as something all could possibly use.
For me it is very simple. I lie down, in bed, I close my eyes and force myself to day dream. I write about a Special Ops TEAM that does special things.
So I close my eyes and visualise the team, I walk them around, pick the flowers, smell the air, drink in the atmosphere, friendly or unfriendly, I let it roll. When it slows up, I take them and put them in another spot, and start more, not again, just more and something different.
I did this a short time back, just for an hour. I had my two mains at base and challenged them to "booby trap" "Track 21", 21 miles of tuff going, apparently, I haven’t "seen" it all yet.
My first scenario saw me approach it with humour and mischief in my mind, something I haven't done b4 in the four completed works I have and unpublished.
Anyway, the first squad they had to booby trap for were an elite squad of 25, a standard number for me in a squad. The elites creep every mile and yard of the way. They got to the 20.5 mile mark and hadn't seen or hit a single booby trap. They had wasted close to their three hour time limit to complete the track, having touched all the checkpoints along the way.
Walking thru the clearing, one guy steps on a very tight wire, just one inch off the ground, impossible to see or detect or avoid. It sets off a trip wire not ten feet behind the squad. It also twangs to make sure they see it and know something has gone off.
They have to go back.
Then my team use sound effects, the pulling of a grenade pin.
The click of the grenade as it goes LIVE! Others.
The hero is a sniper, he has his .50 cal sniper rifle and of course, he is an immaculate shot. He waits til their Sgt is dead still, has finished all jaw movement in fact. He draws a very careful bead on the guys beret, which is sitting just a fraction too high and is begging to be plucked from his head.
BOOM.
The shot rings out and the beret flies from his balding head. Someone swears "they are using lives rounds.. expletive".
They trigger a remote dummy grenade lob.. the squad hits the deck..
You can see where I was taking this..
There was NO booby traps, had they just walked straight ahead they would have completed within their allotted time and not broken a decades old, perfect record.
Making things worse, they forgot to look for the beret.
The TEAM has it. They race back to HQ. The flag pole is 125 feet tall, and perishing thin at the top bit. But sure, enuff, there is the beret and everyone can plainly see that no one over 150 lbs would dare to risk the thin top bit, it should snap under any healthy man's weight. Just as well the second main is a girl eh?
Where are 25 big burly hero type elite troops going to find a boy, or girl and get them to the top of the flag pole safely and down again.
Perplexing eh?
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So I took my normal and generally very serious killing machines, and allowed them to have some real fun, build rep, develop genuine inter force rivalry and hatred, probably to be explored in depth at some later time.
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So, I day dream when I need a fresh idea, plot, perspective or to clear the infamous blocks.
Actually I don't actually BELIEVE in writers BLOCK as such. We all have them, most last more than a minute and most last less than a year, how is that, you fall in between somewhere, perhaps?
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Now, for my Supreme solution.
How much do you want to make this work, good, even GREAT?
Take the biggest wall in your house.
Get a ladder or internal scaffold. Go to the very top and in the centre, write your prime plot/premise. Draw a box around it. Then write all your sub plots and threads to the left and write, box all of them, even put your mains up there too.
Draw lines between things that interact and relate to other things, chars and plots. Draw a box around every idea and plot, draw those lines, no matter how far they go up or down. Use a different colour for different important bits.
Do your LAYOUT BIG. If your book is BIG and going to be even bigger and better than you have ever done b4.
This is somewhat radical.
It will dominate you, your house, family, friends and visitors alike. You will be drawn to it and see links you never even considered were possible but on the wall, they are obvious and sticking out.
Would that fit with you?
With your other ways of doing things?
With your family and others?
It is big, it is Supreme, is that something that might help you?
874 words, wow, I have out done myself.
