The WIP was stuck, bogged down. I wasn’t even to the muddled middle, but it was stuck up to the running boards in … A lot of things, because this is also a middle book in a sequence leading up to a boss fight and the end of the series (probably). Toss in the end of season rush at Day Job, Advent, and everything else, and the story just spun, mud flying as the tale sank deeper and deeper into the mire. It was not going anywhere without getting pulled loose, or someone getting out, with a shovel, and digging the plot free.
NOTE: None of this applies if you realize that 1) you don’t have the skills yet to write what you started, or 2) you discover that the WIP is just not something your mind and heart can deal with at the moment. I had one of those, and it is shelved because my head and heart are still not ready for it. There’s nothing wrong with setting those sorts of things aside for later, and moving on.
I suspect most of us have had that problem, at least with stories, perhaps not with a motor vehicle. Something stops progress, sometimes within the plot as we discover that what we’d outlined or planned just would not work, or we admit that the Idiot Ball had best stay in the rack because our characters deserved better. Life drains creativity until the WIP becomes just one more thing demanding time and attention we don’t have just then.
So, since the Writers’Winch™ ( guaranteed to loosen stuck projects or your money back!) seems to be on back order, what can you do to loosen the story yourself? I rested, finished other projects, and added a scene I’d managed to write longhand while proctoring someone else’s test. That was enough to kick the story into gear. I’d already written what might be the climactic fight, so now I had a bit of a guide, and could start hanging scenes together and working toward a more complete story. The words were not quite yet flowing, but moving in the right direction.
Some people find changing the mechanics of writing helps. Type if you usually hand write, or the reverse. Go to a park and write, or at a coffee shop, or library, instead of at your usual desk. Walk and dictate, if you can manage it (not recommended in certain urban areas, or around strangers who might call the authorities about someone acting strange and arguing with invisible people.)
I’ve also just tossed scenes at the screen, using the current characters, but not worrying about where they fit or if it even makes sense in the WIP. I tend to do this in a new file. It is easy to cut and past things into the main work, IF they fit. Think of it as Rubber Ducky programming, but for writing prose. Working on the climax, or other scenes that come to mind, then going back to hang everything together is popular as well. Words are words, no matter if they are in perfect sequence or not. The idea is “I put words on the work,” not “I am 2K farther along on chapter five and can soon move to chapter six.”
This was a first for me, but I also wrote out a long scene from a completely unrelated work, by hand. The idea hit when I was doing research reading for Other Book, and a grabbed notepad, pen, and wristbrace. 1400 words later, I had a very useful chunk for the next book, and it felt as if pressure was off. Words on the “correct” story began to flow as well. So perhaps, sometimes, alternating projects helps me. Maybe?
Anything that works is a good tool for your toolbox. Here’s to unstuck projects and words in the New Year!
Mad Genius Club 
8 responses to “Writing in Mud Month: Or My Story is Stuck”
I have a stuck outline which was definitely the first two. Both beyond my current skills (so I need to write /something/ to get better), and not what I was emotionally up to once 2020 hit in force.
That you recognize that you need more skills and tools is a great sign. You might start with little scenes, vignettes, things that don’t have to fit anywhere and that put no pressure on you. And keep reading, because that will help you see what otehr authors do that works (and sometimes what to avoid, occasionally what to run screaming from).
I have a personal technical term for this situation that I call “The tepid swamp of niceness”, named for that sticky going nowhere nasty place one ends up when just coasting along dropping all the reins of tension that brought you to die without momentum in the most boring spot imaginable. It sullied my writing path partway through book 2 of my second 4 book series, until I beat it back with real story.
I wrote an article on the topic a few years ago… https://hollowlands.com/2015/12/lost-in-the-tepid-swamp-of-niceness/
Thank you! I thought I recalled that you had something about it on your blog, but I couldn’t think of how to look.
Generally I have the opposite problem, things are going along so well I don’t want to stop the story.
But then you end up with a door-stop where it’s really fun and everything, but not much happens.
At that point it is time for me to have the bad guy do something bad. Save all the kissy-face for the party at the end, after they fix that bad guy’s wagon with a few megatons per second.
Or some scary magic. I’ve been branching out lately. ~:D What does the sun goddess Álfröðull produce when she opens a big ol’ can of whup-ass?
On a related note, I’ve been hearing that many college age kids have never read an entire book. They have the attention span of a fly. This is a problem for me, as I like to -dig- into things and have inter-related scenes with many character viewpoints. If you can’t remember what happened in Chapter Three, then Chapter Five is going to be confusing.
Thus it has occurred to me that having complex setups, for example multiple viewpoints for the same event, might be something I can read easily but others would struggle with. Also I love me some big words, possibly sending college students screaming for the dictionary.
This is not to say that I am so amazing, because clearly not. However, it might be that I’m gooder at reeding than some.
I suppose this might be one reason they say brevity is the soul of wit. Except now the little darlings will have to go look up “brevity.”
Exhaustively working through the possible directions an upcoming subplot might take, on paper in a brainstorming format (not drafting, because that’s a waste of mental energy to me) has helped me get unstuck different times. For the space regency, I recently had to go back to the public domain source novel it’s inspired by, and realized that there were 2 possible interpretations of the male lead’s motives at a certain point, one where he just acts on impulse and another where he acts because he’s anxious about the heroine’s situation in a specific way. The second interpretation worked better for my guy, so that’s what I will probably be going with, although it means pushing a different plot point into the story earlier than planned.
Nothing wrong as long as it’s occasional. Once the half-finished stories start to pile up, and nothing gets done, it’s time to reconsider.
I love the Rubber Ducky idea. It forces you to verbalize your intentions. Good lord, that was in the days of fortran for me.