Good Grief Charlie Brown!

I need some advice.  After writing a few short stories about a year ago, I find myself with a problem.  I can't sit down and write anymore.  I have a plot, characters, enthusiasm; everything I need to write the story.  So why can't I just sit down and start?  I feel like Charlie Brown trying to get the attention of the Little Red Haired Girl.  I just can't get the attention of my story.  I sit at my desk, and it slides away from me.  Any suggestions?

Hi, Archie72!

It sounds like you have the tools you need, but you just need a way to get at the story.

Do you have the plot worked out? If you do, you might try something that has worked for me: Put a one-sentence description of the key scenes or conversations at the top of a page (you may find it easier to try handwriting this until you get going). You have a starting point.

Then start to write the scene or the conversation so you can get the action going. You don't have to start at the beginning of your story and you don't have to make yourself write all the way through the scene. Just get a couple of paragraphs down and move on to the next key scene on a new page. This way, you can start to form a skeleton of the story and can flesh things out from there. I've found it helps me quite a bit, no matter what kind of writing I'm doing.

Here's an article on our website that offers some great tips, too: "Break through writer's block" by Michael Banks.

I hope this helps!

Martha

Martha Lundin, editorial associate for The Writer

Hey Archie, another good thing to try is maybe just start typing.  Alot of times what I do when it feels as though the creativity has dried up is just start writing, this seems to get the flow a going. If I have a story but can't seem to get it out, thats what i'll do, just start writing, no matter how ridicules it seems.  Hope that helps!

Antonio

Antonio Davidson

Aw, Antonio!  I'm so disappointed to realize after 3 days of searching that this is the actual post. A short plea for help with writer's block! I kept returning to this thread expecting to find a short story about a Charlie Brown type character.  But all I got was a ROCK!  AAAAAAHHHHH!

if you still find yourself stuck, try thinking about how you might continue with Simon

from

JRfreewheeler@sbc

If I’m reading your post correctly you haven’t written in a year? If this is the case then you have a year’s worth of distractions to box-up and pack away.  

Perhaps you're focused on not being able to drop into your chair and zip off an easy 3000 words. Perhaps you have forgotten what your resources were when you wrote those stories a year ago.

Fertilize your talent by reading everything you can get your hands on and then use the old standby: What if? Try rereading what you have written putting yourself in that environment again. Also try brain doodling; just starting writing words on paper then expanding each word you have written with more imaginative thoughts.

You haven’t lost the ability to write no matter circumstance. You just need to sit-down and put words on paper even if it’s nothing more than writing  about not being able to write. My bottom line best advice is to just write. Anything. It will all come back when you are ready.

Two things come to mind:

1.) Try visualization.  Either close your eyes and meditate, mentally walking yourself through the story or physically walk through it, saying and doing what your characters would say and do.

2.) Get a tape recorder and talk out your story, then transcribe it or have someone else transcribe it later.

I'd be curious to know what does and does not work for you. 

Not writing for a whole year simply reinforced a bad habit.  Get out of that rut by sitting down and writing whatever comes to mind - good or bad.  When you weed out the bad, you then have the beginning of a good story.  Good luck.