30 Ways to Beat Writer’s Block, Part Three
By the East Sierra Branch, CWC
Members of the East Sierra Branch of the California Writers Club based in Ridgecrest, CA, colloquially known as Ridge Writers, pooled together 30 tips, tricks, prompts, inspirations, and more to help battle against the dreaded Writer’s Block. Conquer the blank white page today and start your adventure in writing. So far we offered 25. The remaining five ideas follow…
26) Oftentimes, when a student learns to write, all of the practice sentences start with the word “the.” As we get older and develop as writers, we learn that “the” isn’t always the best way to begin a sentence. Here’s a simple exercise: Write down a bunch of exciting action verbs i.e., “thundering,” “galloping,” “screeching,” “exploding,” etc. Have a friend write five basic sentences starting with “the,” such as “The cat jumped over the fence.” Now draw the verbs randomly out of a hat and rewrite these sentences starting with your action verb as part of a dependent clause.
27) Why not try doodling? Sometimes, shifting your creative energies to a different medium will reinvigorate you. If you’re feeling writers block, doing a little drawing engages a different side of your brain and takes pressure off needing to write. It doesn’t have to be high art; Just something fun that relaxes you and hits the reset switch of your creative brain. Stuck on a story? Why not go take some pictures with friends? Have them be silly or act out ideas. Then write about the memory.
28) Writers have often joked about the famous cliché for an opening line: “It was a dark and stormy night.” But what if you had to end a story with that famous sentence? Some writers like to work backwards– plotting the ending of the story first and working back from that to find the best way to reach that conclusion. How would you craft a story that ends with “It was a dark and stormy night?” How would you ensure that line has impact? See how the story grows!
29) Sometimes, trying to dredge up an idea for a story can be like sifting through the unorganized junk drawer of all the muses and memories you’ve collected in your life. So why not write a story about a junk drawer? Here’s what I mean: Go to your house’s catchall space—a closet, a drawer, a cupboard, a shed—and look inside. Play a game of I Spy. Pick a color and find three things in your catchall in that color. What are they? What memories do they bring up? How do they connect to each other? Write a flash fiction story (up to 500 words) including all three of those objects in some way.
30) One of the trickiest things in fiction writing is inventing characters from scratch. The human mind tends to not be able to create faces from nothing. We tend to describe faces we have seen before. And sometimes, the hardest characters to invent are the tertiary side characters who interact with the main cast but don’t have their own story. Like a witness at a crime scene or a shopkeeper that gives directions to the hero. How do we make them stand out without pulling focus from the main cast? Really, all you need is a quirk to make them special. Start by describing someone you know. Change their hair and eyes and one facial feature (thinner lips, rounder eyes, fuller cheeks, etc.). Now think of a quirk in speech, personality, or actions. Something quick and an easy read. Maybe they’re a chronic gum chewer. How would that affect their speech? Maybe they have sibilant S’s or have a word they cling to when they are nervous such as “like” or “actually.” Maybe they chew on the ends of their hair. Think of quirks you know and experiment.