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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/49096
License name: CC BY-SA 4.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/49096
License name: CC BY-SA 4.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

I think Writer's Block occurs differently for different writers. For myself, the main cause of Writer's Block is in what I've already written; somehow it prevents me from writing the next scene, without being boring or repetitive. If I don't think it's interesting, no chance at all a reader will think its interesting!

Most of the time, the way to solve writer's block is not writing anything new, but un-writing something old. So the way I solve this is by reading what I wrote, usually the previous chapter, or two, but as much as it takes, until I figure out why I got stuck where I did. Sometimes I edit as I go, improving the lines, or realizing I said something dumb, or realizing I was long-winded and there is a better way to say something.

Editing is fine, because in fact the point is to eventually change something significant. To reverse an easy decision, to take some information I gave the hero away from the hero (never give it to her, thus causing a hardship), to make something difficult that I inadvertently made too easy. To inject some bad luck or misfortune where she'd had normal luck.

Hero's and other characters need interesting things to do, and the most interesting things to do are them solving problems. My writer's block comes from writing myself into a corner.

When I don't know what to write next, and everything I think of seems lame or unimportant, I see two paths. Write about the lame and unimportant crap with the hope that getting it out of the way leads eventually to a good idea, and can be deleted or summarized. Or, go back and understand where you wrote yourself into a corner, how you got to a position where all your characters are "cycling", just living their lives and never breaking out of the repetitive weekly cycle.

But for me, Writer's Block is pretty much due to a lack of creativity and imagination **_that already happened,_** it is something I need to correct earlier in the story. I wrote an obvious next step and should not have. I let a problem get resolved without another problem to take its place. I made something too easy for the hero, or too hard for the villain.

And the way out has been, consistently, reading what I wrote and thinking about it until I figure how to change it, and unblock the path forward, I have to realize what it would take to make the hero step forward.

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