Writer’s Block
9. You came up with this incredibly marvelous story in your head, and now you're weaving it into words on a screen and it's moronic all of a sudden.
Is this your inner critic bouncing back? Are you certain? Really? Alright then. It's possible you're actually facing an authentic dilemma with your thoughts, and with the accomplishment. And, you know, there's nothing incorrect with discarding a novel and starting once more. Often these obsolete half-ended novels act as a unique fertilizer for that awesome novel you're going to end up writing.
But don't walk out too fast. It's possible that part of your idea is retrievable, or that the idea is genuinely marvelous and you've gotten yourself fastened into a fragile implementation of it. Sometimes it is useful to take a step back and write an outline of the matter you've written before, so you can see how it adapts together and whether there are some concealed sections that should be critical points in the story. Sometimes it's useful to try writing pieces of your story from a distinct character's opinion, to see how they appear from another frame of reference. Maybe your expectations are sky high.
An error many new writers make is setting their perceptions quite high, and expecting idealism when they have yet to write an entire screenplay or novel. The best suggestion anyone can provide beginners in writing is to write a first draft as soon as possible, as good documents are not written, but reworked again and again. Once you are ready with the first version, you have a dependable foundation on which to set up, and all the “complications” you anticipated will work themselves out as you manipulate and prepare your raw material.
What pulls back many writers halfway is tackling to make the first draft the best they can express. Some think it's the way real writers express, which is universally not accurate; and some believe that polishing each chapter will soothe them of the need to rewrite, which is also not accurate. Imposing this illogical requirement for perfection is bound to cause uneasiness - and a great transaction of frustration.
10. You're proof reading your work, and you can't figure out your way past all those sections of text you already wrote.
Revising is an ordeal - and if you've clung to the "write a first version quickly and then mend while rephrasing" food for thought, you've agreed to a bargain. There's no way to make this methodology go easier or more smoothly, most of the times. Sometimes it takes a while of looking at your text from different views to compute where the problems lie, and sometimes you need more retaliation from people to make out where the original structural weaknesses are.
Although one way that works when you get stuck with re-editing is just to rewrite wide versions from scratch, without looking back at your initial draft. Same story, fresh words. Sometimes, it's a lot faster than trying to argue with words you have already put down.
Never miss a story from us, get weekly updates in your inbox.