Mud Mind? Here’s how to Move that Story Along.
You’re staring at the blank screen. You’ve got mud mind. Your brain is fried. Doctor, doctor, I’ve got writer’s block.
Stop. Giving it that name makes it worse. You’re just stuck.
Ten tips for jolting your creativity free:
1. Go for a walk. For me this one has been fail-safe. Discovered doing a four block trek around my home. Took nine minutes to walk from my writing cabin back to my writing cabin.
There’s a trick—ask yourself in one short, clear sentence what you want to know. This character who just walked out of the woods, what his name? Andy (your main character) is grumpy right now. How come? Okay, what does he want right now?
Once you have the question clear, set it aside and go for a short stroll. Watch the clouds, notice the trees leafing out, see if Jeff’s car has been in Judy’s driveway overnight. Do not think about your question or talk to anyone. When you get back, you’ll have an answer. It may not come until your bottom hits the chair, but it will.
2. Do something for half an hour that doesn’t involve words. Again, tell yourself what you want to know and then set it aside. Don’t think about it, and speak to no one. Now wash the dishes. Wash the car. Rake leaves. Knit. Sketch. Play a favorite piece on the piano. And let the idea sneak into your mind.
3. Go to your local park and watch kids play, or people do whatever they’re doing. Don’t search for answers. Just observe and enjoy. The trick is to let answers come.
4. Lie down and have a talk with your main character. Or sit down and have a cup of coffee with him. It need not be a purposeful talk, asking what you should do next. Just chat like friends. Pay as much attention to his body language as his words.
5. Have a talk with your inner critic. Yes, you do have one, installed by your mother, or father, or a teacher, or life. He sits at the back of your head and shakes his head in dismay at most of what you do. So don’t talk nicely to him. Give him a good cussing.
Tell him he can come around any other time, while you’re cooking, while you’re getting the kids off to school, whenever—but not while you’re writing. Then he has to go somewhere and take a nap, or you’ll kick his ass. When you’ve run him off, go back to work.
6. Write a poem for a few minutes. It activates the imagination in a different way.
7. Switch writing tools. Use a pen or pencil. You may feel different about the work, and you can always type it into your document later.
For times when you’re stuck deeper in your inner mud:
8. Make a formal request for the answer to pop up. Your band of principal characters is doing a hell of a hard trip to find something—what the devil is it? This is a major story point.
Lie down. Count your breaths to twenty and say on each exhalation, “More and more relaxed.” At twenty, ask yourself , “What ARE they hunting for?” Then go about the activities of daily life and give the question no thought. In a few days or a week, when the boys in the basement have done their job—TAH-DAH—the answer will pop into your mind.
9. Take a weekend off and go somewhere, anywhere, preferably with your partner or a close friend. Take a room at the beach. Visit a national park. My favorite by far was to go mountain climbing. And don’t think about your writing project.
10. If you can’t get started on a new story, get an anthology of short stories and read until you find one you love. Then start imitating it. Don’t follow its lines closely at all. Move the time forward a thousand years, or back a thousand years. Move the setting five or ten thousand miles. Change the characters from white to black, or red, or whatever. Reverse their genders.
Plagiarizing? Not at all. In fact, the transformation will amaze you. The story will metamorphose into an entirely different creature. Because you’re filtering it through your personality, your writer’s imagination, which is unlike anyone else’s in the world.
I did this to a story and it became a finalist for an award. Feeling queasy, I mailed both stories to my editor and asked whether what I’d done was cricket. He responded, “I find no similarity between the stories.”
And here’s a bonus tip: Be bold. Experiment and discover what helps you get unstuck.
—Win
About Meredith and Win Blevins
Hi Win,
Thanks for the great tips. You may remember my mom, Sylvia Cross, who worked at Nash Publishing. Unfortunately she is no longer with us, but my dad has been receiving your emails and forwarded some of them to me. I would like to subscribe to your future posts.
I recently self-published my first novel, SKYLAR ROBBINS: THE MYSTERY OF SHADOW HILLS, which is like a modern-day Nancy Drew meets Harry Potter, and is available on Amazon. Looking forward to reading your future posts about writing.
Fondly,
Carrie Cross
http://www.skylarrobbins.com/
Dear Carrie —
First of all, let me express my condolences about your mother. Sylvia was one of the truly wonderful humans — I appreciated her work so very much.
On to happier things… I love the title of your series, and the elevator pitch, “Nancy Drew meets Harry Potter.” I’ll have to get a few copies for the grandkids. (And then swipe them.)
If you want to subscribe, just go to the home page http://www.meredithandwinblevins.com. There’s a rectangle in the upper right with a subscription box. Just stick your e-mail address in there. We get out an e-letter every week, and try to post on FB 3 or 4 times a week. But, a guy’s got to have time to write, really write, too!
Thanks again for getting in touch, and please send your father my regards and wish him all the best. We’ll be thinking of him.
— Win
PS: Carrie, just ordered MYSTERY OF SHADOW HILLS for our granddaughter. Looks like a winner. Congrats!
M & W
Great ideas! I do several of them. Sometimes I actually ask my character what she would do. She often knows. Sometimes, when I’m stuck, it’s due to a technical issue. Maybe my scene doesn’t have enough conflict. Or maybe I have mistaken adversity for conflict–not the same animal. But stepping away and coming back always helps. If I’m stuck, getting away from writing for a while is always a great solvent.
Absolutely.
Once, when Win was having a very difficult time getting a character right, he decided to lie down on the bed and talk with her. She arrived, angry, big attitude. She said, “GET ME RIGHT.” That was it, but he had her.
Tell us what, in your writing world, is the difference between conflict and adversity. Interesting subject.
Thanks for joining us!
M & W
I guess the way I determine the difference between adversity and conflict is this:
Driving down the road and picking up a nail that causes a flat tire is adversity.
Being at logger horns with somebody is conflict.
The dictionary on my computer defines adversity as misfortune or difficulties.
Conflict on the other hand, is defined as a serious disagreement or argument, a prolonged struggle (as with armed forces) or an incompatibility between opinions. Lastly, conflict can be described as the psychological condition in which a person experiences a clash of opposing wishes or needs.
So, sometimes characters face adversity (picking up a nail and getting a flat tire while trying to nab the bad guy) which can add to the scene conflict of actually facing off with and nailing said bad guy.
Okay, so to some, this may seem like splitting hairs. But a real example would be Princess Buttercup and Westley facing the adversity of the quick sand in the Fire Swamp while the conflict with Prince Humperdinck rages on the fringes.
We’ve all heard, “conflict drives a story.” Nobody ever says, “adversity drives a story.” Sometimes getting away from the page for a bit can help bring the line between adversity and conflict into focus.
And sometimes, just sometimes, knowing the difference and tweaking a scene can make it more powerful and get you back in the swing of writing again–shattering the so-called “block.”
Terrific information, Jocelyn!
Great idea to toss some adversity into the conflict, see how the bomb is handled by the characters.
And, yes, when you get down to it, splitting hairs isn’t really splitting hairs. It’s learning your craft so your readers are amazed, insulted, ecstatic — the whole spectrum of emotions — around a conflict, particularly how they respond to adversity. A great thing to remember.
Thanks for being Jocelyn, ace reporter, teacher and writer.
M & W