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Such a Time As This: 5 Steps to Demolishing Writer’s Block.

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The greatest form of Writer’s Block is lack of time (it’s really lack of scheduling time, but for now, let’s just call it time).

Well, now you do!

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Break that Block!

I’m not suggesting you abuse your Work from Home status if you are working from home for your day job, but there’s commute time-savings that can now be devoted to writing that book you’ve been meaning to write.

I know, I know, the first week or two was all about binge watching TV, but that gets old fast. There’s only so much yardwork. Grab that laptop and get comfy. Here are a few tips for getting started.

  1. You don’t have to begin at the beginning. Eventually you’ll have to write that, but that scene that’s been clawing at your mind? Write that. If you’re afraid of writing a book, don’t, just write chapters. You can assemble them all later. That’s the Post-It Note method of writing. You write all the juicy stuff, then fill in what’s needed. (I’m going to plug Scrivener again, because it’s GREAT for this method).
  2. Get to know your character. If the character is single, how would they write his or her dating profile for an online link-up site? You don’t have to include that in the book, it may be something your character would never do… that’s OK because it’s just about getting to know how your characters thinks about themselves. Alternatively, you can create their LinkedIn profile or any other kind of profile the characters would write about themselves.
  3. Write Your Character’s Eulogy. It’s said that there are two ways people think about you, the expedient way for day to day interaction—which can be harsh, truthful, and oh-so-private—and their cleaned-up way. This is the kind of thing that would be shared as a Eulogy, which has its own kind of truth. In the first way, they look at the worst, in the second, the best. Your story will display the expedient way. This eulogy is the subtext of how one character views another. For example, I had a college friend who was selfish, deceitful, and opportunistic. He was also knowledgeable, talented, and fun to be around. We operated out of both, but the negative was close to mind for survival, yet the positive influenced everything we did.
  4. Write the Travel Article. Where do your characters live? What is the setting? How would each character write a travel article? Some would be disparaging, others lyrical, others selling the place. How characters think about their setting is important.
  5. Figure out your best entry point and exploit it. I love beginnings. That’s where I start. However, if I think in terms of Acts, a story has at least three beginnings, one for each act. When I get stuck, I can write the beginning of Act Two or Act Three. That would give me tentpoles from which to swing, so filling in the story is easy. My son likes to write action, those are his tentpoles. What are yours?

We may be staying home for a while. We can see that as a negative, or we can see it as a positive.

How do YOU get started?

Why SO Series?

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There’s no denying that book series make more money for an author. If someone reads one and like it, they may buy all of them. It also works the other way. W.E.B. Griffin was one of my dad’s favorite writers, but I knew if I started reading a series, I’d have to read them all and he wrote 160 books. When I retire. Really.

Still, I’m weird that way, so financially, writing series does make sense.

But I’m weird in another way. Once I’ve written a book about a set of characters, I’m done with them. It would be easy to turn Do Angels Still Fall into a series; and Me and the Maniac has several internal series with characters I really love… but I’m ready to move on to new characters. Yet I love series. Spencer for Hire, Jesse Stone, and as a kid, Homer Price, Encyclopedia Brown, and a dozen others.

I think it’s a special kind of writer who can write a series, and I don’t mean financially motivated. They are more interested in the story of their characters than just story. They ask, “What are they doing now?” They aren’t finished with their characters. They BEGIN with characters. I begin with a story idea. I like to think they are all in a shared universe, that Bungy may run into Hud, but their stories are separate.

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Series can be lucrative…

Neither approach is wrong. If you’re inclined to write a series, make sure:

  • The story is your character’s story; you’re not shoehorning your character into someone else’s story.
  • It isn’t just a retread of the last story. Same genre, yes, but not same storyline or story arc.
  • The role of your characters is either the same or logical. For example, if in one book Character A is the lead role, and in the next book, a side character is the lead role and A is a side character, you must ask why she lost the lead?
  • Your characters are interesting enough to carry a series.
  • Your characters can change, but not so much that there’s no new arc to explore.
  • Your motive isn’t purely financial. You really have to love your characters. I love my characters, but not in a way that I want to document their continuing lives (though one never knows the future).
  • You don’t fall into the same ending time after time. In a military lawyer series I read, three times in a row the author made the bad guy the lawyer’s new girlfriend.  Great books that let you down in the end….
  • Include humor. I could be wrong, but most series I read have a healthy dose of humor, even the serious ones.

My advice, write a series if you have to, if you’re compelled to. If you must know what your characters are doing now, maybe your readers do too.

Never write a series for the sake of writing a series. Good stuff never happens that way.

What are your thoughts on series? What do you see as the pros and cons?