"I'm stuck," you say, leaning back in your chair. Maybe you fold your arms across your chest or chew on your thumbnail as you stare at the page in front of you that isn't quite blank but isn't close to finished, either.
You're trapped in that "messy middle." You've introduced your characters and set up your story problem. All of that initial "fun stuff" has been covered, you're 75 pages in, and your ship has stalled.
The most obvious solution, of course, is to power through. (I have an entire course devoted to unpacking writer's block and how to overcome it. Powering through is key.) Just get the words on the page. They can always be fixed later.
Another option?
Think.
Why are you stuck? What happened?
Because when the words aren't flowing, it's because something is wrong.
If you think about writing as a journey down the river, it's easy to imagine a blockage at the head that might keep the water from flowing, or some barrier at the end that's causing the water to back up, impeding progress.
Either way, something needs to be fixed: a character isn't who he needs to be; a backstory isn't serving the story's purpose; the plot isn't moving in the most satisfying direction.
At the onset of a block, it would help to do some reassessing, because if you can pinpoint the problem early on, you can save yourself a lot of cutting and editing later.
So yes: power through, but not until critically thinking about whether or not you're motoring down the right road.
Be Brilliant!
~Katie~
