Mar 23, 2022
One way to get over writer’s block is to outline! Part 1 of 3!
“Brigitte,” Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor, is available on ebook and audiobook. Follow the link to find them on Amazon:
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The following is an imperfect transcript of this episode. A complete transcript can be found on the show’s webpage.
[00:00:00] We've all been there before that moment where you're sitting in your dark room. And you have your outline ready. You have your character maps ready, and you have been plugging along your work in progress without any problems at all. And suddenly you get to a point in your manuscript where you simply cannot write more words, even though the story isn't finished. Today we are starting our three-part series on an in-depth look at writer's block. Today on Writing in the Tiny House.
[00:00:38] Hello. Hello. Hello and welcome to this week's episode of writing in the tiny house. I am your host Devin Davis, and I am the guy who lives in a tiny house in Northern Utah, who likes to talk about creative writing.
[00:01:15] And I've done an amount of creative writing in my day. I've also done a lot of other types of writing. Anyway. The whole point of this podcast is to give you the information and the tools and the motivation for you to get started on a short story and have it finished in three months, or to get started on a novel and have that finished in 18 months.
[00:01:38] And to give you the wisdom to adjust that timeline, if you need to. I mean, if we look at last fall, I finished the short story, Bridgette from beginning to end, including edits, including beta readers, including first, second drafts, all the things clear to the copy edits in eight weeks. And it's a good short story.
[00:02:02] It's still available on amazon.com if you want to check it out today and it's a process that can be done again. However, most writing projects take longer than that. But it's good to know that it can be done quickly if it needs to be. And it's good to know if you are not an experienced writer, it's okay to have an idea about how long things can take, if you develop more experience.
[00:02:26] So today we are starting a three part series on the dreaded writer's block. I have touched on writer's block a very little bit in previous episodes. And up until very recently, I had the false notion that in order to get over writer's block, you need to simply outline better. I have since come to develop a new attitude toward writer's block.
[00:02:55] I am a member in many different Facebook groups that are all dedicated toward creative writing, and writers block comes up a lot. And I pay attention to some of the things that people suggest and some of the things that people say they do in order to overcome writer's block. And that's why I'm going to be doing this three part series, just because writer's block is more than simply, you need to outline better.
[00:03:21] It can be various different things. So with this episode today, we are going to be talking about outlining. We're going to be talking about the sequence of events in your novel and some different things to look for and some different ways to approach that. Next week we are going to be looking at some of the bigger picture of your novel, specifically the character arcs.
[00:03:44] We have focused a lot this year on character arcs, which is super cool. Character arcs are awesome. And sometimes it can be the way that the characters in the story are developing that can lead you to be in kind of a tight spot where there's no wiggle room. And sometimes things need to be reworked. And some elements of the outline need to be changed in order to get yourself out of that bind.
[00:04:10] And then the third part of this series is going to be a look at your internal environment. How are you feeling? What are you thinking? What is going on in your personal life? Just because so much of that can lead to writer's block. So much of that can also get you out of writer's block. Right now I have been taking a bit of a hiatus from writing. I'm still doing the podcast just because I have a good routine going. I have a lot to say. The podcast brings me a lot of joy, but when it comes to creative writing, I have also been being a lot more social recently and I have been dating a little bit. And that takes up a lot of free time, especially when you live in the middle of nowhere in Northern Utah, it is hard to casually date.
[00:05:04] And so a lot of my free evenings are spent being social right now. And then on the weekends I have my kids. So that is my reasoning for my hiatus presently, but we'll pick up the writing again when it is time and I feel that things are going to be calming down pretty soon. I just kind of feel it, just one of those spiritual, energetic things, I guess.
[00:05:29] And I have a lot of works in progress anyway, and I don't feel that I need to abandon them, but we're going to revisit just some of those things in the third episode of this series. Let's delve into this thing. One of the most common reasons that writer's block comes up is simply because,
[00:05:52] like I said at the very beginning, simply because we have not outlined. We have drafted and we have developed all of these fun scenes and now we're in a spot where we kind of don't know how to proceed. We don't know the very next step. We might know the step after that. Or we still might know the ending of our story, but we have not tied together how to get from right here right now to maybe the end of the next scene.
[00:06:24] So one person suggested in this situation, you just power through and you write, and I feel that there is wisdom in that. The thing is with your work in progress, writer's block comes during the first draft. Or if you are doing some like super big revising where you are rewriting entire swaths of your work in progress, then it could come at that time too.
[00:06:48] But to simply have the creative process stop, and then you're left a bit dumb founded is what happens during the first draft. And my friends, I am here to tell you that the magic of writing comes after the first draft. I mean, there there's magic to be experienced in the first draft too. Don't get me wrong.
[00:07:08] But as far as coaxing out the beauty and the imagery and the poetry of your writing, that is kind of not what the first draft is for. That's what the revisions are. That's what the revisions help you do is to get to the, the golden nuggets in your story, and to bring them out and to refine things and to bring shine and glitter to your writing, where it may not exist in the first draft, because in the first draft, you are simply getting it done.
[00:07:41] You're getting it out of your brain and into your computer or down onto paper, whatever your processes. So. There is wisdom in simply powering through and writing something that sucks so that you can get to the rest of the story where it all makes sense again. And then you can get back into the flow of writing.
[00:08:04] Another thing can be. if you are drafting a fantasy novel, or very often a scifi novel. These books tend to have a lot of plot. They tend to be very plot heavy and they tend to have a lot of subplots too. And so that means that sometimes the way that the plot and the subplots and all of those different parts weave together can get confusing and they can trip you up.
[00:08:36] And so sometimes. It is valuable to step back and to review what you have already written and where you need to go if you are writing a very plot, heavy book, it can be very hard to pants that book. It can be very hard to simply draft by the seat of your pants a lot of people call that discovery writing.
[00:09:00] I attend a lot of people tend to do a blend of both discovery writing and outlining. I think it's impossible to simply only do one and not the other, especially if you're writing a plot heavy book, a plot driven book, but it can be really valuable to simply step back. I mean, Especially when we're in drafting mode, we set aside time every day and we have like a word count and we have these goals that we want to achieve.
[00:09:28] Sometimes it is absolutely worth the hour or two to give yourself permission, to figure out your outline again, instead of achieving a word count, sometimes you need to simply step back and see what you've done and where you need to go. Especially, if you have a lot of plots that you need to weave together, it is important to have a board of some form or whatever system you choose to do.
[00:09:57] You can do something like melanoma. You can do a cork board on your wall, whatever, but with the subplots and with the plots, you have the big events and where they need to fall. And it's important to organize them in the way that they will. Be presented in your story, be presented in your text, just because it's important to write things in the order that they're going to be read.
[00:10:21] Sometimes if that's not possible, then you kind of gotta do what you got to do, but it's important to know that like if this big event happens here with this plot, Then this other big event in subplot B or whatever, can't happen on the very next page, that would be too much, or it needs to come sooner just to pick up the pace and give us something exciting to read or whatever it's important to feel out and orchestrate those big events and those things.
[00:10:52] So that first of all, it is easier to write and then it will be easier to revise and easier to read. So having an outline, if you are doing a plot, heavy book is super important. And if you are choosing instead to do the discovery approach with a plot heavy book, I mean, best of luck to you, but. Don't be afraid to, you know, jot down notes, especially if all of your subplots and stuff are becoming confusing.
[00:11:21] So Sometimes we get writer's block because it is unclear to us what happens next, or it is unclear to us how things need to happen next. And so one approach is to simply power through so that you can get to an area in the novel that is more clear to you right now. Another option is to skip and then write.
[00:11:44] The next part of the book that is clear to you now, but I don't recommend doing that. I like to write things in order. And the third thing is to give yourself permission to step back and to reorganize your outline. I have found that with my outlines, my outlines tend to be pretty spot. And the more that I write, the more I can fill in with my outline, just because things become better.
[00:12:07] I understand my characters more. I understand the plot more than I did before I started. And so now there is more, there's more to flesh out. There's more to develop. And so it's okay to have your outline be somewhat dynamic. And if you need to revisit that and revise and tweak and rearrange. That can be an excellent way to combat writer's block.
[00:12:35] And so thank you for joining me on this week's episode of writing and the tiny house. Next week, we will go on to part two of this series with writer's block. So please join me next week. We'll see you then.
[00:12:49]
[00:12:49] And that is it for today. Just a reminder that "Brigitte,"Installment One of Tales from Vlaydor is available on Amazon as an ebook and on Audible and Apple Books as an audio book. And I provide advanced reader copies of these short stories as I release them to my patrons. So become a patron today by visiting patreon.com/writinginthetinyhouse to support both my writing and this podcast. And lastly, be sure to follow me on social media. My Instagram is @authordevindavis and my Twitter handle is@authordevind. Thank you so much for spending some time with me today and have fun writing. We will see you next time.