5 Reasons You’re Experiencing Writer’s Block

1. You’ve Lost Your Way

All writers reach a point when they lose their way, their work veering off into unforeseen directions or experiencing a surprise (like when a character you didn’t anticipate shows up). Rather than permitting this to sabotage your momentum, take a day or two to rethink your story (or project). Identify the holdup, and loosely dance around it a few days. If it’s a character issue, go to the library, pull some of your favorite books off the shelves, and see how writers you admire dealt with similar problems. If it’s a setting issue, visit the place in question, or a similar site, and spend some time absorbing elements that you can weave into the story.

If you’re stalled because you lost your way, try the opposite of what you usually do—if you’re a plotter, give your imagination free rein for a day; if you’re a freewriter or a pantser, spend a day creating a list of the next ten scenes that need to happen. This gives your brain a challenge, and for this reason you can take heart, because your billions of neurons love a challenge and are in search of synapses they can form. You can practically feel the dendrites fluttering their spiny little arms.

If you’re having trouble identifying the problem, your perspective may be too constricted. Try pulling back. Think about how the story is working on a larger scale, give yourself credit for getting this far, and then hone in on what you think may be the hitch. Maybe you think your character has turned into a caricature or the plotline is too weak. If that’s the case, look through the previous fifty pages for ways you can tweak it to achieve what you want. Often the brilliance is right there, just waiting for you to claim it.