Stuck? Road Blocks on the Story Roads

“You’re not stuck, you just forgot you can change your mind” ― J.R. Rim

A few posts ago, I invited readers to ask me a question that they might have asked if they could have been at my book event and taking part in my Q & A time. I love the Q & A time of any talk. People can ask some great questions to get me thinking. And Janet, who answered my call for questions here on my blog, One Writer’s Journal, came up with a good one.

“What keeps you going when you feel stuck or frustrated about the direction of the story?”

Stuck. Frustrated. I’m sure most every writer has had that feeling sometime in writing a story. At least some time. I have read about song writers who are suddenly inspired and write the words to a song in a flash of inspiration. Poets surely do the same at times. The words come in a rush and feel like a gift raining down around them.

Perhaps some novelists have had the same experience. Certainly that can be true with a great idea for a story and for the beginning and perhaps for the end glittering there in the future. But you have to come up with a lot of words between that inspired beginning and the satisfying end.

For me, and I have a feeling the same is true for other writers too, somewhere along the way, the story rush can slow to a crawl. I begin to think I might have taken a wrong side road or hit a road block or maybe stepped completely off the story cliff.

The top picture is of me in a quandary, or at least pretending to be for the purpose of the picture. But I am often perplexed about what happens next. That usually happens somewhere in the middle of my stories. The one I remember best right now was while I was writing The River to Redemption.

I loved writing that story. They were great characters. The story had some strong faith threads. It was inspired by an actual historical time and event. But at one point it seemed to be lagging. Something needed to happen. But what? I felt as flummoxed as Waylen looks here once when I was keeping him for my son while they were on a trip and all he wanted was to go home.

All I wanted was the next scene in my story.

I felt stuck and unsure of what could happen next to keep the story moving. To wake it up. It needed to be something that would get a reader to keep turning pages. I wondered if I had strayed off my story path. That can definitely be frustrating.

What to do? What to do? How to move on with my story idea? Am I stuck? Am I sinking in muddy thinking?

When that happens, I naturally try to think of something. But when I’m stuck, it is easy to start thinking about anything but the story. Such as figuring out what to  cook for dinner or how the floor needs sweeping or… Well, you get the idea.

But here’s where it’s great to have a dog. I can always give my keyboard and my brain a rest to take Frankie for a walk. I invite my characters along, and sometimes, not every time, but sometimes I see what’s next. That happened with The River to Redemption. Someone I hadn’t expected knocked on Adria’s kitchen door. She was faced with the challenge of taking action on some of her beliefs in that story.

Other times, when it seems the story has stalled, I just keep typing words and some of them turn out to be the right words to get me moving up the story trail again.

And when you find yourself lost in the darkness and despair, remember it’s only in the black of night you see the stars.
— Coach Whitey Durham, One Tree Hill

I suppose I look for those story stars and hope whenever I’m stalled or stuck that my subconscious has been seeing stars in the idea sky.

And then there is that never fail thing to help the story continuing to spill out of my head onto the story screen. That’s prayer. Mine and my wonderful reading friends who send up prayers for me. As with most things, prayer should be the first step to get unstuck, but sometimes we try everything else first. I’m sure you’ve heard people say that there was nothing left to do but pray when actually praying should be the first thing. I try to remember that when I’m hitting roadblocks on my story road.

Do you have a question about my writing that you would like to ask?

Thanks, Janet, for your question. It made me think.