7 Things to Do When You’re STUCK

She's hollering: "Stuck, Mom! Stuck!"

If it’s crossing your mind that I’m writing this post because I’m stuck … then, you’re right. Or at least, it feels like I’m stuck because the answers aren’t coming to me as fast as I’d like.

And yes, that IS my daughter in the picture (about 15 years ago). And yes, I did extricate her --AFTER I ran inside, grabbed the camera, and snapped this picture. (It was before cell phone cameras.)

When you are stuck – on a first draft, during revisions, or even in the planning stages – here are 7 things you can do that have helped me get unstuck:

1. Open up Twitter and/or Facebook and stare at the feed. Refresh lots of times. This is not procrastination. It’s surfing for ideas. Sometimes the most random comments, links, or videos suggest something to you.

2. Write a long email to one of your critique partners explaining the dilemma – what you need to do but can’t do and why you can’t do it this way and why it won’t work that way. Then delete the email when your lengthy explanation of the problem produces its own answer. Be sure and send thanks to your CP, because without him/her, you wouldn’t have written the email.

3. Draw a flow chart of possibilities. If you take the story in THIS direction, what will be the consequences? The positive benefits to plot development? The roadblocks to making it all work out? Now try a different direction? What will be the consequences, benefits, and roadblocks to doing it this other way? Which path serves your story?

4. Lie on a pool float staring at the sky and let the randomness of your journey around the pool jar ideas loose from your mind. A hammock or a swing also might work, although it’s not quite as random a movement and doesn’t have the same effect (for me).

5. Ask a CP who’s read your manuscript to write questions for the character most responsible for your state of stuck-ness. Answer the questions from that character’s POV and find out what’s going on in his head. Yes, you could write the questions yourself, but you’re stuck, so how will that help? The point is to get an outside person’s perspective on your plot, your character, and your problem.

6. Seriously consider that you’ve made a mistake – not at this point in the manuscript, but earlier. Back up to the last point where you were really sure about the plot and look at where you went from there. Did you take the wrong path? Present things in the wrong order? Have your character behave in a way that doesn’t make sense? Your DELETE key may be your solution.

7. Go read a book in a different genre and audience from the one you’re writing. If you’re struggling with a MG contemporary fantasy, go read about an adult book about an assassin in a steam-powered society on an alien world – or zombies on the Titanic. If the book holds your attention (in spite of your preoccupation with your own stuck-ness), figure out WHY, then figure out how you can do something similar in your own genre and for your audience.

And please don’t judge me for taking that picture. It was the third or fourth time she’d inserted her head through those bars. Really, was she expecting a different outcome this time?

The Fun of World-Building

I'm just starting out on a new writing project and remembering how delightful it is to dream up an otherworld.  Fantasy authors get the added fun of making everything up.  Food?  Animals?  Setting?  Economy?  All of it must be created and pieced together in a somewhat logical puzzle.  This is tricky, because there's always so much more than will ever make it to the book.  I've spent many writing hours on badly done sketches and maps that will never see the light of day, but I don't think of any of them as wasted.  As any book-loving author knows, the deepest way to enter a story is to write one.

I've been living, writing, and revising in the Land of Story for the past five years, and I love that world, I really do.  But this new world?  Can I just tell you how much I love it, too?  I'm at the stage now where there are an overload of ideas, and I'm struggling with how to sort everything into some semblance of order.  For now, this is my process:

Stage 1: I start with the scribbled spiral notebook pages that testify I grew up in the '80s when even if you had a PC you didn't use it except for your computer "homework".  (Yes, indeed, that was my one and only venture into programming).

Stage 2: These notes translate to scattered post-its categorized by "Plot", "Setting", and "Character".  Mostly, these are vague ideas: dormitories are in a tree, or something like that.

Stage 3: The final stage takes a better shape, where things are color-coded (hooray for an excuse to linger in the office-supply aisles!), each character has specific goals, plot points are solidified, and setting is developed.  This is the closest I ever get to an outline, and typically all these pieces make it into the story, even if they're rearranged quite a bit by the end.

Right now, I'm at Stage 2, where things are taking shape but still are a bit of a mess.  The nice thing is, that this hangs on my bedroom wall, so in those groggy waking-up moments when inspiration hits, I can dash out a sticky note before it's too late.

What about you?  How do you organize your world-building?  Do you have any tips on capturing inspiration?  Or possibly you have a fabulous office supply you just can't live without?  Do share!