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| Robert Ellis |
Okay, so in Part 1 we
spoke about the main reason for writer’s block, and the fact that the
experience means different things as a writer moves from the beginning, middle,
and end of a story. We also underlined a simple fact that if a writer is
experiencing a stop in the second half of their story, they’re in a jam that
will require going back to the beginning. Most likely, the problem is
structural and horrific.
It should also be
noted that if you don’t have an outline, recovery is probably a very real
longshot. Without an outline, a writer has nothing tangible to work with. No
real way of seeing what they’ve done.
I’ll never forget
participating on a panel discussion at Bouchercon some years back. One of my
fellow panelists claimed that she had written 290 pages in her new book and
still had no idea who the killer was! I’m going to guess that if the writer
doesn’t know “whodunit” by the 290th page, not many readers hung in
there to find out for themselves! The truth is, she should have known before she
wrote the first word on the first page!
Your outline is your
life preserver. Some authors like to perpetuate the myth that writing a novel
is magic. Nothing could be more delusional! I’ve asked every bestselling author
I’ve ever met. Every story that they admitted they outlined, turned out to be
their best story. In some cases, it was there only good story.
With all that said,
I’d like to talk about another reason writers might hit the wall. This is the
one I personally experience most often. It has less to do with the story or my
characters, and more to do with my execution of the creative process. Every
once in a while, and only in the first half of the story, things will grind to
a halt, and I’ll be at my wit’s end trying to figure out what happened. I check
my outline, and everything’s cool. I
know where the chapter begins, where it ends, how it ends, and why it ends. I
review my characters. I know what they want and how they plan to get it. Again,
everything’s cool. So, what happened? |
| Director John Ford |
What happened has
something to do with instinct. What happened is that I blew something in the
last chapter that had to be fixed before I could move on. For me, that usually
means I added too much information, or tried to underline a story detail too
quickly. I forgot the basic premise that a chapter only has one reason, one purpose,
for being. The great film director, John Ford, said exactly the same thing when
asked about writing a screenplay. One scene, one story detail, and if you must,
maybe, just maybe, a small bit of color! But don’t push it!
It should be said that
fixing a chapter is usually a painful process. Even sad. For me, more often
than not, it means cutting some of my best dialogue, and deleting whole chunks
of story that a day ago I thought were pretty great.
But, with luck,
reality shines through. What was great yesterday, ain’t so great today! And
somewhere in the back of my mind, I knew it all along, and that’s why I hit the
wall. I got in the way of my characters and the story they were trying to tell.
I jumped the gun and forgot what is most important, most sacred -- layering
information, setting everything up for all those revelations I’m hoping will
pop through the end. I forgot that I’m a writer, a storyteller, and not a
magician who can just pull things out of his or her hat – even though I’d love
to (OMG) when I hit page 290!
ROBERT ELLIS WRITERS BLOG
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