Plot layers

First, I have to apologize for this being late. There was a huge thunderstorm Monday night that knocked out my power and internet, and while the power came back quickly, it screwed up my router, which meant lots of fiddling around, and I didn’t get everything put

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Query re getting stuck, part 1

Basically, I’m experiencing three different kinds of Stuck with the three main stories I’m working on.—E. Beck Summarizing the three types you described in last week’s comments: Stuck because you don’t want to work on this story right now. Stuck because there’s a major time jump/transition to

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Developing ideas

A couple of weeks back, Rachel asked this: I was wondering how you work with and extend story ideas without getting bored? Because I have a habit of writing or imagining “moments” that really interest me, certain people or situations that last a page or two, but

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Why Writers Get Stuck, Part 3

In the last two posts, I’ve talked about six of the reasons writers get stuck. These are the last couple I can currently think of: External factors. Sometimes, these are relatively minor things, like an addiction to a TV series or a deep desire to spend the

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Why Writers Get Stuck, Part 2

Last week, I talked about the three most common reasons for a writer getting stuck:  first, that it’s actually part of their normal process, second, the fear of some stretchy or tricky bit that comes next, and third, that they’ve actually made a mistake and their backbrain

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Why Writers Get Stuck, Part 1

First, thanks for all the well-wishes. I really appreciate them. I’m not quite back to full power just yet, but much better, hence this delayed but still present blog post. “Writer’s block” is a term that gets used for everything from the pathological inability to produce a

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