Post by ubiquitous on Sept 3, 2009 15:30:42 GMT 10
Breaking the Block
By Rosie
This issue's advice is... to start small. There's nothing more daunting than a fresh sheet of paper or an empty Word document, if you have nothing with which to fill it.
So, begin at the bottom, and think of building blocks. It always helps me to return to paper if I'm having trouble with ideas flowing, though not everybody works the same way. Try not to restrict yourself too much with word counts and plots to begin with (if it's terrible, nobody else ever has to know!).
If free-writing works for you, use a nano-style approach, writing for half-an-hour periods without going back to edit. If that isn't your cup of tea, try searching the internet for suitable prompts to use as inspiration (hopefully you need look no further than the Malorie's Peak section!). Drabbles and ficlets are excellent exercises to get yourself writing again - and you can even think of different ways to twist the prompt each time to suit your personal preferences. Prompts can provide a strong focus for your writing, which may help you break your writer's block!
From there, try to ensure you don't lose the momentum. Whilst drabbles are fun, the idea here is to let them lead into longer fics. If you're struggling for inspiration in this quarter, I find that discussion boards actually provide wonderful ideas for fics - like how Jonthair got his name, for example, or what the other characters' Ordeals were like.
If you're writing a multi-chapter fic, it's always important to be aware of where you want it to end up, otherwise you risk losing both your readers' and your own interest in it, and you'll be back to square one again.
Look forward to reading your work!
Maybe once we'd have seen it during Smackdown!