Robert Ellis: WRITER'S BLOCK

This is a response to a question from

Goodreads ...

Every writer, no matter how well organized he or she might be, experiences writer’s block at one time or another. I think it’s safe to say that the experience is painful for all of us. Sometimes it can be so difficult to deal with that a writer loses confidence and becomes overwhelmed with self-doubt.

For me there are two very distinct forms of writer’s block.

The first is the most common. A writer becomes stuck because he or she has lost their way in a chapter or scene and have no idea what comes next. If there’s one thing I’m certain of, one thing that all good writers share, it’s that they never start writing the first page of a story until they know exactly how that story is going to end. This seems to be true for people who write in all forms: novels, screenplays, or theatrical plays. To take it a step further, I don’t know any really good writers who don’t do the same thing when beginning a chapter or scene. If a writer doesn’t begin working on a chapter with an end in mind, then what’s the point of that chapter? Let’s face it, there’s no such thing as “filler” in writing fiction. So is that chapter really necessary or not? Is it moving the story forward? Tell me how!

By way of example, I believe this premise is true regardless of the task. Can you imagine constructing a building without a set of plans? What about a musician composing a longer work? Or an attorney presenting a case to a jury? Or even better, a sculptor? Can you imagine any of these people “going with the flow” or “feeling their way through it?” Eventually, if the sculptor doesn’t have anything in mind when he or she gets started, they’re probably going to run out of stone!

One of the best examples of avoiding writer’s block by knowing where you’re going is a film, one of the best romantic comedies ever made, Sleepless in Seattle. It makes no difference whether this genre interests you or not, just as it makes no difference if your only focus is in writing novels. We’re talking about the process of story now. The screenplay Sleepless in Seattle was written by Jeff Arch, Nora Ephron, and David S. Ward. If you watch the film, and you’ll need to watch it twice to see my point, you’ll realize that the end of the story was crystal clear in all three writers’ minds before they ever wrote the first word. Now watch Hitchcock’s Rear Window twice. What you’ll see and learn will blow your mind!

Rear Window

The advantage of knowing where you’re going in a story, beyond the avoidance of writer’s block, is that it gives the writer the ability to “seed” the story’s climax all the way through the work. What we’re talking about is knowing where you’re headed and setting up that ending from page one. If the writer did it well, the story is really going to pop, and will be so much tighter, so much more powerful than it would have been otherwise.

Sorry for the length of this post, but I would love to talk about that second form of writer’s block because this is the one I experience more often, and in the end, in a strange way, almost seems magical.

"I don't have writer's block!"

With this second form of writer’s block, I as the writer, know exactly where the story is going. I’ve worked out an outline and chapter list that I’m really jazzed about. Those first hundred pages are tough, but they’re always tough for everybody. So I’m past all that and feeling pretty good about things until one dark day the light goes off and everything shuts down! I’m lost. I’m filled with doubt. I’m working on a chapter, but can’t seem to get it right, and hour after hour I’m rewriting the same page! I check my notes, and everything about the way forward seems good. Still, it feels like I’m stuck in the mud. What gives?

This is where the magic comes in. And I’m not sure if this happens to other writers, but I’m working on my ninth novel and it’s happened to me every time.

I’m stuck, not because of the way forward. Instead, I’m circling the drain because of something I overlooked that’s behind me! The problem isn’t in the chapter I’m trying to write. It’s in the chapter I finished two days ago! There’s a problem with it! And even though I didn’t see it, somehow I could sense it, feel it. Somehow I KNEW!

I go back and reread the last few chapters. After thinking it over, I make the fix, and move on. The writer’s block has come and gone!

For a while anyway!

Cheers to all! Hope you love the new book!

Robert Ellis

https://www.robertellis.net