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Let's Brute Force our way through Writer's Block. (LAST RESORT)

Vida Paradox

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Hi Everyone! Vida here!

I uhh... I have been struggling with Writer's Block before and I broke through it, so I'm going to show you how I brute forced through it...
Maybe it could be useful for anyone here? Sorry... just a bit nervous... OH! And you don't need to follow all the steps, just pick one you think would work for you. (should've probably make a list instead of a step).

Let's begin shall we? Ahem...

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So, I'm sure you've all had it. That feeling of... unable to put words into paper... Whatever you type, only gibberish came out.
Some say you gotta chill, relax, take a walk. Some say you just have to read the story from the beginning. Try and revive that sense of wonder and curiosity and happiness you once had when you just beginning to write the story. Some say you just have to stop for a bit and let the idea incubate a little more.

If you did all that and nothing come out, (and you're very, very desperate) then let's Brute Force ourselves through, shall we?

Part One: Mind Set

Don't feel bad about having writers block. Instead, you should be GLAD to have a writer's block. Why? Because that means, your story and/or project is SO AWESOME!

It's so awesome that it just cannot be done with a half or even full effort. It takes a LOT of time and effort to finish a story as awesome as the one's in your head. And the best part is...

You Are the Chosen One! You are the only one in this world who can finish this EPIC story of yours. Why? Because that story came from you! It came from your imagination, a fantastic culmination of all your life, experience, and memories. The story is YOU and you are one tough cookie.

In other words you and your story are both awesome! You guys just have massive, very real obstacle, stopping you from embracing and working together. It takes both of you to do this, yes, both of you, the story and the author has to work together. Doesn't make sense? Let's keep reading.

Part Two: Throw Stuff into the Wall, see what sticks.


Now, I want you to sit down and write gibberish. No, seriously, just write literally anything that comes to mind that very loosely tied in to your story. You cannot, and I repeat, You Cannot Tell the Quality of Your Writing BEFORE You Write It. There might be a gem hiding inside your head that's just, doesn't sound that good when you imagine it, but a true masterpiece once put on paper (or word document).

As for the story, your job is to stop being so needy to be complete. Stop telling the author that "I'm not Good Enough" or "Everyone will cringe when reading me" or even "My Author can't Possibly Finish Me". Just stop, okay? The first part is to just truly finish the story. Let them scribble nonsense into you! Let them experiment on you! Trust me, your author wants the best of you. You are a part of them. You are the author of your own story.

Now where was I? Oh yeah, part three...

Part Three: Let's Grab a Microscope.

You write gibberish, you throw an entire dictionary into a wall and the wall breaks. BOOM. Shattered, just like your heart after realizing that Santa is a lie. So now, you gotta stop being a child and be a scientist, or a programmer. Grab a microscope, zoom in your document (I meant this literally, you want to zoom in and word wrap your document) and just start reading one page before the writer's block.

Read it VERY SLOWLY, like you're about to send an essay to your Very Angry English Professor after you hijacked his class with a Let's Play.

Notice every word, every delivery of sentence, every movement of the character, every frame of the scene, and try to find IT. Find the anomaly, the rip in space time, the cursed sentence, the broken letter, the WORD. You have to find it you have to find...

Literally the Writer's Block.

Pin point where exactly the story suddenly shifted a little. Like, a little blink of static, it's going to be hard to notice it. But it can be anything. It could be a cheeky character line. An ominous foreshadowing. A brand new plot point. Anything! Anything that makes the story that follows it feels out of place and it could be anywhere... Like I said, you want to zoom in your document for this one. Just look for it, for the event horizon that cannot be connected to any words or sentence.

Now, once you think you find it, just destroy it. Don't write anything else there, don't try to patch the wound. Just destroy everything after that anomaly. It's shouldn't be too far from the block itself so... I think it's fair bet. Then, after that, you rewrite, and be careful this time as the writer's block might still be lurking around after all...

Now, if that still doesn't work...

Part Four: Grab a Telescope

You looked into the story, you've waved around your Geiger Counter, you find no fluctuations in Hume and no anomalies. Then, what? Does that mean the Writer's Block doesn't exist?
OF COURSE NOT! WRITER'S BLOCK DO EXIST!!!!

It's hiding by stretching up it's form over the course of the story. So now it's time to grab the telescope and zoom out. Step away from the computer, yes, I'm serious. Then grab a paper, physical paper, a pen not a pencil, and write a summary of your story. Like, literally, just write it. You can peek if you want, but you absolutely should NOT copy anything. Embrace your laziness of writing manually and trim away the story all you want.

Now, while you write, I want you to really take note on which part feels odd. Any disjointed piece of plot point, an event that feels just... so out of place... within your story. Then you... N-no, no! Put down the BFG, you want to be subtle this time, since this peculiar specimen is hiding in the earlier part of your story. Now, I need you to locate the weird part you've wrote on paper on the document and pin point where exactly it all fell apart.

What you are looking for is a piece of character portrayal that feels out of place. A piece of detail that makes no sense to be put in there. A piece of abandoned plot hook. A plot hole. Really, just find the anomaly. You'll find it, trust me, it might not have anything to do with one another, but it's there. You can feel it, you WILL know that there's something wrong there that severely impacts the rest of your story.

If that doesn't work, when you've write down the story again and again and found nothing wrong with it...

Part Five: Take a Sharp Left Turn

There's a chance that the story, that cheeky little bugger, wants you to make a twist in that scene. A twist that is just a complete opposite of your current idea. Say, your writer's block came when struggling to write a family dinner scene. But you know what? Maybe the story doesn't want that, maybe it wants the dinner to be laced with poison because the maid got hypnotized by the big bad.

Try and force a twist into your writer's block, reason with your story. Which leads us to...

Part Six: Write Even More Gibberish.

Throw absolutely everything you can think of. Kill that writer's block with interesting new plot or unexpected development. Fight fire with fire. FIRE THE SHARKNADO!!! And if it doesn't work? More GUNZ!!! Add in more and more details! More twist! More crazy ideas that'll make the reader ask, 'What is even happening!?!!?'. And just keep going until the writer's block is dead.

Then you nuke it!

Part Seven: Clean Up the Aftermath.

Now, the aftermath should have you either giggling to yourself, or regretting ever following this advice. In any case, your story should be a total mess right now. HOWEVER!!! You can still pick up the leftover from this battle. The peculiar atmosphere, the playful idea, or maybe the interesting concept of where the story could've gone to. If you're successful, the Writer's Block should've blown to pieces and those pieces are shards of your long lost imagination and inspiration.

If all this works, congratulations! If it doesn't work, then... Maybe post it in the forum? Lots of people gather here after all to deal with Writer's Block. Also, of course, this is not an actual last resort. And I sincerely apologize if I somehow offend any of you for writing this.

And As Always, Thanks For Reading ^_^

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Bonus Part: The TRUE Last Resort.

Write a Fanfiction of your own Story. Preferably a Fix-Fic.
 

Animad345

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I absolutely love this post, Vida! Gosh, the idea of writing a fanfiction of one's own story is boggling my mind...
 

TylerJK

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This is great, thank you! It’s a good reminder to me to A: not be afraid to discard something if it is anything less than the standard you are aiming for and B: just write something when nothing will come. I’ve used this technique before but it is certainly worth keeping at the forefront of my mind.
 

icedesperado

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Ha! This made me laugh. I agree that often times the 'block' is a single moment in time when the story (or imo, the characters) shifted slightly to the left, which then made everything that came after that point feel... off. I love those shifts, as a semi-discovery writer I do a lot of them, but every once in a while they lead me astray. It's a good reminder to go back and reassess those moments when they don't feel quite right.

Also, I enjoyed the sharknado reference. :D