Tuesday Tip: Work on Another Part of Your Story
Writing tips is a new category of posts here at Writerly Life that will be appearing every Tuesday. It’s a series of concrete tips for improving or kickstarting your writing. The tips that fall into this category are the sorts that you can do today or even right now, and they’re chosen to immediately re-vitalize your writing in some small (but meaningful!) way.
This week’s tip is:
Work on another part.
Sometimes we can feel that we’re stalled in a story or novel. We still like the idea, and there’s still good stuff to write, but the chapter we’re in right now, or even the scene, is proving grueling. Maybe something has happened in your life that has made that scene feel too close to home; maybe you’ve moved away from the setting that you’re still trying to capture; maybe you’re just not sure yet how that scene should play out. Whatever the problem is, sometimes it’s a great idea to work on something else.
Try putting that problem chapter aside. I’m relying on what I call the crossword principle; whenever you’re stuck on a clue in a crossword puzzle, the thing to do is move on without delay. The answer will come to you precisely when you’re not thinking about it. In the same way, your mind will unconsciously work on that problem chapter even while you’re getting stuff done elsewhere, and when you return, you’ll find yourself refreshed and ready to write that part. And in the meantime, you’ll have kept your writing muscles sharp and gotten some other writing work done.
So rather than gritting your teeth and trying to force these things, try going with the flow. Follow your interest in a story and move on to a different piece. Consider David Foster Wallace’s final, posthumous work The Pale King, nominated for the Pulitzer Prize; it was found in a complete jumble of pieces that were later assembled, showing that the best writers use this hodge-podge method of writing in pieces.
I think you could go ahead & stop using the ‘Intro’ to “Tuesday Tips.” It is now a well-established feature on this blog. I realize it handily absorbs some space & allows you to write a shorter post, but you could simply write a shorter piece anytime you like!
We, your loyal followers, will NOT mind! As for the disloyal followers out there, they won’t really notice, will they? “I guess this was a short piece today,” they’ll say & move on in their callous way. Hurray. Mel Torme.
How does anyone know–for certain–that ‘Pale King’ was not assembled in precisely the way David Foster Wallace intended, & in the order he may have actually written it, chronologically speaking? Sure, passages were found in the middle of grocery lists & doodle pages—but we just don’t know.
I tend to keep slogging right through the ‘hard parts’ when I write. I figure it won’t get easier later, though I always keep a notebook of ‘added portions’ that I incorporate into the body of the work. These are the inspirations that occur when I’m not thinking about the story. Usually, they resolve loose ends or add a twist that I want to pick up later.
Overall, though, I finally noticed that when I read through my work at a later date, I never could distinguish between the sections that flowed easily & those that were a bear at the time I wrote them.
Of course, I may simply be shallow & easily satisfied with the so-so quality of my writing. Everyone does it differently.
To me, art, be it writing or painting, is a constant set of problems to be solved as the process moves along.
L&K, MaryB
Glad to know I’m not the only one who moves on to another part when they’re stuck!
I tend to write in a patchwork-quilt sort of way anyway, so it doesn’t fuss me to bounce around; I might consecutively write the first handful of chapters, and then write others as ideas occur to me. Sometimes what I write when I move ahead gives me the solution to the earlier scene.
Before I started using Scrivener, I used to put in a bracketed “placeholder” in my Word doc that had a short description of what I wanted in that scene/chapter. Now I make a new folder or text document, label it and move on!
I don’t do well moving to another part of a novel when I’m stuck. Apparently, I am a very linear writer. I’m also not a detailed plotter. Sure, I know the high points, but not the details. In terms of planning, I can do three or four or five scenes ahead, but that’s about it.
What I can – and do – do is to write scenes that won’t appear in the novel: alternate points of view, things that occurred before the action started, or whatever. This works really well for me in terms of getting me unstuck.
I think sometimes when you move on to another part, your brain tends to keep working on the previous part when you’re not looking.