This is gospel! :bowdown:

American poet William Stafford offers this advice to poets suffering from writer's block:

"There is no such thing as writer's block for writers whose standards are low enough."

We all have different reasons for why the words refuse to come. What it all really comes down to is that, for the moment (day, week, month or, God forbid, year), we don't believe that anything we have to say is worthy of committing to the page. I think that what Mr. Stafford is saying is to "get over ourselves." Everything we write doesn't have to be a revelation to the nearsighted gods of literature. I am sure that even the greatest writers turn out sheer crap occasionally.

Whenever I feel the aforementioned block setting in I give myself a simple challenge: Write a single page of the most asinine, trite, worthless prose to ever mar the face of good fiction. So far, I have never been unsuccessful. The good news is that by the time I have finished disgracing the efforts of the creative writing department my block is usually gone.

Ah, then that must mean that everything I write is under a writer's block, because my "moniter" goes off constantly. Especially on stuff four or five chapters ago that I remember at the worst times.

Usually what I'll do, if it's the middle of a story, is leave the computer and go back to reading (which I always do before writing anyway). My least favorite block is figuring out how to start a story, I'm so caught up on making a good hook I can never think of one. If that's the case I flip my current novel back to the first page and see how the pros do it (this applies to the start of chapters as well)

I prefer not to go off on tangent stories, mostly due to simply lacking the time. If I'm writing then it means I have cleared most everything else off my schedule and gotten some good quality time. Besides, writing new characters is always a challenge, it takes me a few chapters to get inside anyone's head. Though it would certainly work for plenty of people, it's just not my thing; also because I get so in to my new idea I drop the other one

However, if there's one thing I can recommend to avoid writer's block is planning out the overall plot or goal of each scene. "What am I trying to do here? Is this a characterization based chapter or more of a suspense chapter (though it should be both ) Is it a slow chapter with lots of description or a fast one? Where do I need to end up in order for the next chapter to work?"

Though I know plenty of people would rather write more spontaneously, I'm too linear, to rigid for such creative flow. Of course, things happen in my chapters that I didn't plan, though for the most part they are minor. I only know of one or two instances where I changed things dramatically on the fly. Of course, I seem to be the opposite of the norm in most cases, so my advice is to try a little bit of everything and see what works best. Same thing with first or second person, writing a single character or a group, omniscient or limited; it's all personal style.

Thanks, especially to Treydog, very helpful stuff :goodjob:

Hey everyone, I often find myself plotting out a entire story, then the two sequels I would write after that, then afterwards I end up plotting a entire series of stories to follow the first three... but I experience the same prolblem for each and every one of these potential series that I wish to create.

I always find myself getting three chapters into the writing (its always three chapters, look at all the past stories I wrote as Mr.Boom/Blackhand4, and I swear you will see that around the third chapter I make a "will have it..." post but never get it)

I was wondering how you all keep motivated on the stories to actually write out all the plots you have planned? Advice would really be appreciated, as I have about twenty five stories begging to be spilled out of my brain already. They have been begging for two years now!

I'm not a good one to give advice, because I don't have the experience most of the writers on this forum have. But I can tell you what I did. I just wrote a rough outline of where I wanted the story to go - but I only use it as a gentle guideline. I know eventually those things on the outline will happen, but I have been letting them develop at their own speed, not pushing them to occur because that is what I have planned. My outline at the beginning had about twenty chapters and Maxical would be in prison. Well, she is not in prison yet, and the story is on chapter 61. I am not worried, because I know she will get there eventually, but just like in real life, things come up in her life that were not expected that take more chapters to cover than originally planned.

If I were you, I would set shorter term goals, ones you can achieve - instead of planning out the whole series. Say you set your goal for five chapters, because you know you can do three easily enough. Well before you reach that fifth chapter, set a new goal to reach ten chapters. That way your goals are more attainable, and you can learn to pace yourself to your own personal needs. The more goals you achieve, the easier it becomes.

Somewhere else, I mentioned that writing is an "organic" process- at least for me. By that, I mean pretty much what mALX1 says above. The story is a living thing, rather like a tree (or an amoeba), and tends to grow in unplanned ways.

As a writer, you have to be receptive to those apparent divergences. Having an overall plan in mind is important... but do not make it a Procrustean bed. I would venture to guess that all of the longest stories here have had moments where the author wrote something and thought- "I did not see that coming!" I know for certain that SubRosa, mALX1, and I have experienced that.

I think the idea of working on smaller pieces is excellent. Another thing you can do is change the location or even the point-of-view for several chapters. Give a different character a voice and a few moments in the spotlight. (Easy for me to say, when I use 1st person narrative).

But still- let's say your main character is an assassin. Tell part of the story from his/her POV, but then switch to the POV of the target. That gives you a lot more scope to explore character and language. And it can give the readers the vicarious (sp.) thrill of being frightened as they wait for the moment of truth.

Just some ideas...

For me, nothing is better than seeing my story grow by itself. I give it only minor guidance and then I step back and watch it literally explode with growth. It happened with the Oblivion fan fic I've been writing more than a year. It all began with the fighting in Arena. I wanted to practice writing techniques. But I could not stop the story from growing. Soon it went completely overboard, turning from a series of fights into a political thriller slash mystery. I knew what the whole story will be before I ended chapter one and now it looks like it will have eight chapters.

This is what I call organic writing. It's pure joy, at least for me. I think that when you have the right ingredients - meaning the plot, beliavable characters, a well developed world - the story will begin to develop on its own. Sometimes all those ingredients develop along with the story. If that is the case, a writer faces a lot of correcting his early text. That is a lot of work. A lot of work. All that matters now is if a writer is willing to go through with it.

One of my professors once said: "If you want to be good in something, it's never easy." All that remains is how far you willing to go with it.

Indeed, letting your story take you places is usually the way to get your best stuff. The creativity that comes with the writing flow far exceeds that in simple planning, and it is always far more natural. Especially when you get a feel for your character, get inside their head, it motivates character driven stories like nothing else.

One thing I would say for starting stories without finishing: I have several dozen idea pages in a folder on my desktop. At the time I made them they seemed like the greatest idea I ever had, but why have I only written about twenty of them? Because looking back they simply aren't as good as I first thought. Whenever you go to write a story, you need to ask yourself a few questions. The first one always needs to be, "Am I writing this for me, or to entertain others?" I know people always say that they write for themselves, but let's be honest, how many people keep writing here when their story gets zero replies? Two, three chapters if they're determined? People write to entertain, to test their skills, to see how they can improve; only the best writers will write a whole novel without showing anyone, because they want to get published. And even they are writing to sell, or to be able to say they are a published author.

It sound a little harsh, but honestly you should at least aspire to entertain. Lifting weights is fun, but most people don't lift weights just to lift weights, they do it to get stronger and do better. Only you can entertain people with these book-weights :-/

Alright, my own depressing opinions aside, the next questions one should ask are these: Is this an original idea? Is this a real plot, or just a series of coincidences? Are these characters round or flat? What's the theme (moral)? What would happen next? Is this a real conflict, or just a bunch of violence? Why is there conflict? What caused this to happen? Etc., etc., etc.

Hope that was just a little helpful, or inspires a helpful discussion :goodjob: Thanks!