McAnally's (The Community Pub) > Author Craft
Block Breakers
Quantus:
--- Quote from: Captain Hammer on March 01, 2009, 09:37:32 PM ---Find something to write, even just a random character description - you never know, it might come in handy later on, and it'll get your brain working again.
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This one has been working for me a bit lately. Ive got a pretty robust world setting, but the writing itself is dragging on in the character and plot development side. So if I get too stuck, I make a character, as if I were using my own setting for a DnD game or some such. It gets me out of the box of my main plot, while simultaneously bringing me further in to the world itself, and the midset of the place. And its never a bad thing to have a stack of extras to pull from that have a little flesh on their bones, metaphorically speaking.
the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh:
--- Quote from: Quantus347 on March 02, 2009, 09:40:12 PM ---This one has been working for me a bit lately. Ive got a pretty robust world setting, but the writing itself is dragging on in the character and plot development side. So if I get too stuck, I make a character, as if I were using my own setting for a DnD game or some such. It gets me out of the box of my main plot, while simultaneously bringing me further in to the world itself, and the midset of the place. And its never a bad thing to have a stack of extras to pull from that have a little flesh on their bones, metaphorically speaking.
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The thing is, pretty much the first thing I do when I start seeing how a story is going to come together, for the main characters, is a casting call of the form "I need someone who will do X in siutation Y and A in situation B so my beginning and my ending work." I get the person who will actually do that, and the rest of the the character comes clear around that. I can't really dissociate character from plot that way, because a character who does the wrong thing is useless or actively harmful.
Quantus:
--- Quote from: neurovore on March 02, 2009, 10:04:54 PM ---The thing is, pretty much the first thing I do when I start seeing how a story is going to come together, for the main characters, is a casting call of the form "I need someone who will do X in siutation Y and A in situation B so my beginning and my ending work." I get the person who will actually do that, and the rest of the the character comes clear around that. I can't really dissociate character from plot that way, because a character who does the wrong thing is useless or actively harmful.
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Fair enough. For me its more of, when I come across a situation like that,,, I can then go back to the vault and see if Ive already gotten one that fits my purposes. If not, I can always make new ones, and the one Ive made to break the blocks sometimes go to waste completely, but in the mean time its a useful exercise.
LizW65:
Another thing (I don't know if I'd go so far as to call it a technique, but I've found it can work for me) is to just plow through the part that I'm stuck on in any way possible, regardless of quality. This usually results in run-on sentences of this type:
"And then I did X, Y, and Z, and this happened and that happened, and then the cops came and then we found Susan's head in the dryer..."
But after a couple pages of this drivel I find the words are flowing again.
Quantus:
--- Quote from: ballplayer72 on February 27, 2009, 08:50:08 PM ---Don't read this if you get offended easily ;)
(click to show/hide) Burning down a bowl is good to break up a block. Gets you into lala land thats for sure. Sex is good too.
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The problem with this that that often you are no longer in a position to actually record anything, which defeats most of the purpose.
--- Quote from: LizW65 on March 03, 2009, 07:42:08 PM ---Another thing (I don't know if I'd go so far as to call it a technique, but I've found it can work for me) is to just plow through the part that I'm stuck on in any way possible, regardless of quality. This usually results in run-on sentences of this type:
"And then I did X, Y, and Z, and this happened and that happened, and then the cops came and then we found Susan's head in the dryer..."
But after a couple pages of this drivel I find the words are flowing again.
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Agreed. It really comes down to finding any way to get from Page 1 to Page 2. anything beyong taht is editing. But as long as keys are being pressed, the words are flowing.
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