It happens to all of us. The story’s going along reasonably, adequately, but something just doesn’t seem right. It’s lifeless, sort of. Aimless. All the momentum is draining away. You consider your efforts so far… the story is following your plan, but fails to compel your interest. And if it isn’t working on you, who understand all and what’s to come, how do you think your reader will react?

But, you know, the written word or recitation isn’t the only way to tell a story. That’s just one modality, and other arts have other methods.

Think of the quiet background of a tone poem, and then… the glorious sun arising. No matter how lovely the pre-dawn, how restful you found it — the heart rises with the sun and the “story” surges forward, to triumph (or defeat, but in any case, to change).

Can you do that in your story, using the written word? Feel the rhythm, the change in the air, the silent explosion, the embodied emotion moving along? If you can do that, you can make your readers feel it, too, hear it in their bones as well as read it in your words.

Can you capture the arc of a gesture, the tilt of a head, the backward glance of the statue that invites examination? The flash of the light illuminating an object in the room? The unexpected sound that distracts intent? Can you help the reader feel struck by a certain perception of rightness, or malevolence, conveyed not by narration but by raw perception, by wordless apprehension, by a glimpse of movement around a corner, by a quiet sound? Think of vision or touch or noise, not words, and the words may come.

Think of these as exercises or remedies when things seem dull in your writing, despite your seemingly adequate narrative scaffolding. Don’t be afraid to think outside of your prepared box and let a different modal rightness guide you forward. Your insights come when they come, not necessarily where you plan them.

Have you ever had an unanticipated aperçu show you a way of moving forward, or out of a dead end into a better track? Happens to me all the time…