All writers get stuck. Some of us manage to work through it; others stop writing altogether. I find going to another writing project often helps, particularly if it’s a different form of writing, such as flash fiction or writing a blog. But sometimes the words don’t come, and staring at a blank page loses its appeal pretty quickly.
That’s why Pilar Alessandra’s session ‘Brainstorming through the Block’ was so useful. Here she dived into what might stop us in the first place, and gave us tools to get the pen flowing across the page again.
I write screenplays and novels, and what I love about the LSF is how everything is so transferable. There are aspects of this session I will use across all my writing.
Here are my three key takeaways:
Structure
While I understand structure and have a love/hate relationship with it, I’ve never heard it explained in such a succinct manner. Pilar broke down the three-act structure into simple terms: Trauma (Act I), Training (Act II), Trials (Act II), and Triumph (Act III).
Trauma is where the protagonist’s world has been shaken in some way, launching them into a new experience. Training covers how they learn about their new situation, gather resources and try to survive, while Trials tests this new-found knowledge. To conclude, Triumph allows the protagonist to solve the problem using the lessons learned on the way.
I’m in the middle of the LSF challenge to write a feel-good movie in 30 days and have found that using Pilar’s approach to structure, alongside Pat’s method, has helped me develop my story.
One-dimensional characters
Making characters as human as possible is crucial for stories to appeal to an audience. Sometimes my characters develop with ease. I can see what they’re wearing and how they behave in different situations. Other times it’s not so clear.
Pilar listed the three character rules to help overcome this – Public, Personal and Private. What does your character do in the outside world; how do they interact at work or in a public place? Moving to more personal settings, how do they behave in one-to-one moments? And what do they do in private when they think no one else is watching?
These rules can be used for comedic effect or create greater drama. Often the rules can create further problems, depending on how they behave in the settings they’ve been put into.
As I’m editing my novel, I’m beefing up my weak characters, changing their behaviour according to where they are. Hopefully, this will make them come across as more human, and appeal to my readers.
More action
If you think your scenes need more action, Pilar suggests looking at your protagonist’s flaws. How could they impact on what is happening in the scene? A character’s traits will determine how they behave and how they interact with others within the scene. It may mean changing the way they usually approach a problem, which could result in further conflict if it’s an unexpected move to the other characters. Or perhaps there are more aspects of the protagonist’s inner emotions that could be explored further.
The question of writers’ block has been mentioned numerous times over the first week of the festival. Many suggest that to avoid it, it’s good to have plenty of writing projects on the go. When you get stuck start working on something else. Above all, you continue writing and write your way out of the block. While I concur with this view, Pilar’s session gave me a number of tools to keep writing too. No more writers’ block for me.
Jane Rayner is a historical fiction writer of screenplays and novels set in the 1920s. She has worked as a journalist, editor and copywriter in the sustainability sector and can be found at about.me/janerayner and onTwitter @JaneLRayner
