Category Archives: Writing Tools

A discussion of the various software that authors employ to write, plot, backup, and ultimately use to write a novel.

Understanding your own Writer’s Block

Craft & Skills Frank Morin Writing Tools 5 Comments

This is a topic I’ve been thinking about lately, and is similar to the recent post from Kylie on Unleashing the Muse

Although the topics are similar, I’m taking a slightly different approach so hopefully it won’t seem like overkill.

I recently watched the movie “Stranger Than Fiction” with Will Ferrell and Emma Thompson.  If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend it.  Very funny.  Emma Thompson is a novelist who kills her heroes, and somehow Will Ferrell becomes her next character and can hear her voice as she types and prepares to kill him.  Fascinating concept, moreso for the fact that Emma Thompson can’t quite figure out the right way to kill off Will Ferrell.  She gives a brilliant portrayal of a less-than-stable author suffering from writer’s block.  She goes to some amazing extremes in her attempt to get the right idea.

The following clip shows just how far she’ll go:  to an emergency room to view injured and dying patients to get real-life inspiration.

Stranger Than Fiction clip – Writers Block

As the clip so wonderfully portrays, some writers struggle mightily with writer’s block.

Do you?

What do you do about it?

I don’t suffer from writer’s block very often.  I spend lots of time in the early stages of story creation planning, considering different ideas, and fleshing out exactly what I want to achieve with the scenes, the characters.  Once that basic framework is nailed down, the actual writing of the story is pretty straight-forward.  The big exception is if a new, unexpected idea hits me while I’m writing a scene.

So am I just lucky?  Inspired?  Or do I not push the envelope far enough?

I believe that many times writer’s block is a symptom of one of these deeper problems:

  • Lack of clarity of a story’s mission or concept
  • Lack of understanding of the correct plot framework the story needs to build upon
  • Incomplete worldbuilding
  • Weak or inconsistent conflict
  • Trying to force a story down a direction that just doesn’t work, which the author may understand at an instinctive level, but lacks enough mastery of the craft to consciously identify the shortcoming and therefore begin the process of correction.

When have you run into writer’s block?  Is it at a particular phase in a story every time, or does it happen at random intervals?  How do you find ways around it?

As mentioned in Kylie’s previous post, one approach that often helps is the BIC_HOK (Butt In Chair, Hands On Keyboard) approach:  force yourself to work, to type, to drive yourself into “the zone’.   This actually works for me.  Sometimes playing the right music as I try to get into “the zone’ helps a lot.

Another way to help explore options is playing the “What If?” game.   Back up to the last part that worked in the story before you hit the snag that’s holding you up and start asking “What if?”.  Search for the most surprising, craziest possible twists you could add.  Or look at the scene and consider if anything similar has ever been done before, and then ask “What If?” you took the opposite track?

The worst thing you can do is just give up and say “I’ll write tomorrow.  Maybe I’ll feel like it then.”  ;or blame it on a Muse that just isn’t talking today.

 

Unleashing the Muse

Kylie Quillinan The Writing Life Writing Tools 12 Comments

Do you have a muse?  Does your muse have a solid form: arms, legs, hair, clothes?  Or it is an ethereal creature, more of a spirit moving quietly within your mind?  Writers throughout time have held close this image of a muse and many have fervently believed their muse to be the wellspring of their ideas.  The ancient Greeks believed in nine muses, the daughters of Zeus, who inspired writers, poets, artists and musicians.  Perhaps the idea of a muse is to ease the pressure on ourselves.  When the words won’t come, it’s not our fault – it’s because the muse has temporarily abandoned us.

 My ideas originate from deep inside of me, swirling up out of a jumble of every sight, sound, taste, smell and thought I’ve ever had, from every image I’ve seen, every conversation I’ve overheard, every book I’ve read, every movie I’ve watched.  Somehow, out of all of this confusion of experiences, comes an idea.  Perhaps a single image or character, sometimes a place or time that begs me to explore.  And gradually, as that idea lingers in my mind, it somehow weaves itself into a story, with other characters, a landscape, a mythology, a purpose.  And that’s the magic of being a writer, isn’t it?  Taking that single image or idea and turning it into something that’s beautiful or horrifying or wonderful, or maybe all three at once.

 But what do you do when the muse refuses to talk?  When you sit down at the computer, put your fingers to the keyboard, and the words won’t come?  Some writers use a variety of exercises to get the creativity flowing: free writing, character backgrounds, writing a scene using nothing but dialogue.  Some leave that project to work on another for a time, maybe a short story.  Others subscribe to the good old theory of BICHOK: Butt In Chair, Hands On Keyboard.

I waiver between trying hard to adhere to the butt in chair philosophy and merely waiting: waiting for inspiration to return.  The latter is never efficient and rarely effective, yet we writers are somehow able to justify to ourselves time spent doing absolutely nothing while waiting for the muse to return.  What other profession could do this?

 So how do you intend to cope when the muse next abandons you?  Make a plan and you’re that much closer to surviving the absence of the fickle force we call creativity.  What will it be: butt in chair, creativity exercises, reading quotes of inspiration?  Share your plan and perhaps you’ll spread a little inspiration amongst us all.

Contested

Dylan Blacquiere The Writing Life Writing Tools 5 Comments

There comes a time, when the inspiration runs dry and nothing seems to be happening to get the words out on the page, when you realize that only a drastic measure will get things moving and keep you on the path of writing. Some people take the nuclear option and get rid of everything they’ve been writing, others shove it in a drawer for a while and move on to something else, hoping that inspiration will come back later and they’ll be able to start again with fresh eyes. I’ve found a new strategy that seems to be doing the trick; do something drastic. Like, say, write a whole novel in three days.

Not to shill for any one particular challenge, but the Three-Day Novel contest is a particularly fine example of the literary marathons that have been proliferating in the past several years. Most people are familiar with National Novel Writing Month, running since 1999 and in which participants commit to writing a novel of at least fifty-thousand words through the month of November. This contest is much less well known, but has actually been going on longer; it began in 1977 with a handful of people, and has now expanded to accept hundreds of entries a year. I did it before, two years ago; I produced a Very Literary Work that didn’t make the shortlist and in retrospect probably had very little to distinguish it from what I’m sure were a hundred other Very Literary Works, all earnestness and messages. This year, in a bit of a writing rut, I am trying again, and trying to write something truer to my voice, along my fantasy roots. We’ll see if it works. I will be holed up for the Labour Day weekend writing, and perhaps the next time I post I will have some update on how it went.

The reason I bring this up is that it seems like a perfect idea to strike a spark in the act of writing, some big ridiculous gesture that will have at its end a product that I hope will win the contest and be published. But in the end, such writing contests are about more than that. They are a way to impose a deadline , a defined end by which the act of writing has to be completed. I am the sort of person who has difficulty without a limit, as the lack of a certain amount of anxiety seems to keep me from doing what it is I set out to do. Many others will say the same, that the limit of as writing contest can be just what’s needed to kick-start a frustrating stall in the writing process.

I’d be interested to hear what others think about the use of writing contests as a way to get things moving. Is it a technique you’ve used in the past? Has it worked? In the meantime, I will post an update once the Labour Day Weekend has passed to let people know how it’s gone.

‘Tis But A Scratch!

Jason Michelsen The Writing Life Writing Tools 1 Comment
Cartoon Credit: Joe Sutliff, after Monty Python and the Holy Grail

As speculative fiction writers, we often find ourselves doing a lot of research. Much of that research goes into worldbuilding, pulling from this or that culture, borrowing this or that religious ritual. Every nation in my own world has roots in more than one ancient culture from our past, just enough familiarity to give the reader a solid frame of reference. And while everyone pretty much knows where to go to do that particular kind of research, I’ve come across a couple books recently that have helped me tremendously with the authenticity of other areas of my writing.

I write Epic/Heroic Fantasy of an adult nature.  It’s violent.  It’s bloody.  People get hurt, injured, maimed, disfigured, etc. Unfortunately – or fortunately, depending on how you look at it – I don’t get to observe people who have been injured on a daily basis. Aside from TV and pictures, I’ve only seen one dead body outside of a funeral home in my entire life, but I want my books to feel real. I want the injuries that occur to feel real, the consequences to feel real.

Recently, a friend of mine gave me a copy of Body Trauma: A Writer’s Guide to Wounds and Injuries by David W. Page, M.D. While the book does spend a good amount of time dealing with injuries caused by modern weapons, much of the information can be applied to ancient warfare. The chapter on abdominal trauma alone is worth the price of the book. I mean seriously, how many people will I run through with swords in my writing career? Probably one or two. There’s a chapter dealing with injuries to just about every body part with special chapters dealing with impalement, amputation, bug bites, frostbite and much much more. It’s a must have for any writer planning on hurting one of his characters.

Another book I’ve turned to on a number of occasions is Greek Fire, Poison Arrows, and Scorpion Bombs: Biological and Chemical Warfare in the Ancient World by Adrienne Mayor. I originally bought it as a research book for a huge siege set piece I have planned for a future book, but I’ve used it two other times to come up with devious methods of attack. It has information on everything from ancient flamethrowers to poison gases to incendiary bombs. Nothing pleasant, but all pleasantly helpful to anyone writing violent fiction.

And on a less “violent” note, I thought I’d bring up a book that some might never think to read if they’re interested in writing speculative fiction.  Robert McKee is a name widely known in Hollywood, but maybe not so much in the SFF community. He’s a screenwriter of some renown, and his book Story is one that anyone interested in telling stories should read. While it claims to be a book on screenwriting – and was indeed the required text for one of my classes in film school – it is so much more. McKee breaks storytelling down into the most basic elements, providing examples and showing how and why some elements work and others do not. I try to read Story at least once every 2-3 years. Not only is it educational, it is inspirational.

I hope these book recommendations prove helpful to someone out there. If anyone has any other books of this nature that they use regularly, feel free to post them in the comments section. I for one am always looking to expand my research library.