Before I started writing seriously, I had a clear image in my mind of what writer’s block was. It’s when you don’t have any ideas to write about, right? Well, that wouldn’t be a problem for me! I had all these cool things I wanted to get to, ideas and characters that had been swirling around in my mind for years. Writer’s block? What writer’s block!

So then why was I still staring at the start of an empty page, an hour after getting my coffee, putting on my headphones, and sitting down to get some serious writing done?

That was when I learned the truth about writer’s block. It can take many forms, and the particular form that afflicted me wasn’t having trouble coming up with ideas of what to write. Instead, my problem was how to get to those ideas. You can’t just start a book with your strongest chapter, and you can’t start every chapter with that really cool moment you’ve been thinking about ever since you knew the chapter was going to exist.

I had the big moments figured out. It was the little stuff in between – and specifically at the start – that was the stomping ground of my personal writer’s block.

Writer’s block isn’t something you ever really get past. To a certain extent, my problem with starting chapters (or resuming them partway through) is still with me to this day, almost seven years later. But what you can do is learn the nature of the beast and how to tame it. That’s what I’ve (mostly) done, and what I hope my experience might help someone else do.

The first steps

When tackling any sort of problem, the first step is always to properly identify the problem. In my case, the problem was that I was taking far too long to get into the rhythm of writing a chapter. Once I got writing, I could proceed at a decent speed. Not good, but okay. But it took me so long to get started, I often didn’t get anything done at all, even if I had several hours to work with. It really was that bad.

The next step, after identifying the problem, is to identify the problem behind the problem. The root. The cause. Knowing your problem is good, but knowing why you have your problem is what’s needed to tackle it.

In my case, the problem was twofold. I’m a perfectionist (aren’t we all?), and I’m a very momentum-based writer. Once I get into my groove and find my rhythm, I can write for hours. I reach a state where I’m not thinking about what I’m writing anymore. I’m feeling it, channeling it from whatever part of my subconscious my creativity lives in. My conscious self may be an okay writer, but my subconscious is much better.

But actually reaching that groove, letting go of the conscious element of agonizing over what to write? That was the problem. Every sentence I typed to open a chapter would just sit there on the paper, staring back at me. Imperfect. I would delete it, and write another, trying a different tack. That wasn’t right, either. It felt trite, or perhaps it was too similar to how I started the last chapter (that’s something that used to really bother me!). I wasn’t feeling where the text would go from there, and so I deleted it all again.

Back to staring at an empty page.

Finding a solution

Once I had identified the root of the problem – my need to make a ‘perfect’ start to the chapter so I could build momentum and stop thinking about it – I was able to move on to finding a solution that works for me to (mostly) avoid the clutches of writer’s block.

I tried a few of the helpful tricks that you often see recommended on the topic. I tried just writing some filler that I knew I’d go back over and rewrite later, just something to get me moving on through the chapter. Didn’t work. I tried not actually starting at the beginning, or even filling the page with something unrelated to trick my subconscious into thinking it wasn’t empty, and thus a less daunting prospect.

Unfortunately, my subconscious was too canny for that trick. It knew I hadn’t made a real beginning to the chapter, and it didn’t have anything to draw momentum from. I just ended up stalling wherever I encountered the actual start to the prose. That key moment – the first real words put to the page – remained the stumbling block.

Planning around the problem

In the end, the solution I discovered for myself was to break the process down into more stages, leaving less pressure for me to open the creative floodgate when I sit down to start the ‘real’ writing. With more groundwork done ahead of time, there’s no empty page to stare at, no time spent trying to figure out how to get cool moment A to flow into cool moment B.

I’ve always needed to write a script for my chapters ahead of time, but what I discovered while exploring my writer’s block was that I wasn’t writing the script in the correct way to work for my particular needs. The script told me where to go and what to write, but crucially, it wasn’t giving me what I needed at that most important moment of all. The first sentence.

I’ll give an example, focusing on a completely hypothetical scene involving a completely hypothetical character. We’ll call her Heather, because I like the name.

Example Script 1) – Heather wakes up to find skeletal jackal-men invading the camp, and scrambles to arm herself before it’s too late. She fights them, but it’s a losing battle. She is saved by a crystal dragon who lands…

This style of script contains all the information needed to drive the plot of the chapter, but nothing else. I would probably sit at the computer, staring at the page and trying to figure out exactly how to make Heather wake up. Should she be having a dream, and a sound penetrates it? Is that too cliche? Should she already be awake for some other reason, and happens to see a horrid skeletal silhouette cross in front of the moon?

That script contains the raw information, but no emotional cues. It doesn’t give me anything to feel when I start writing. Here’s another example, showcasing the much more detailed style of scripting I developed to help give myself the boost I needed at the start of a writing session.

Example Script 2)

• A hideous otherworldly cry cuts the night air; Heather jolts awake from a dreamless sleep, every fiber of her being suddenly alert.
• Trying to steady her beating heart, she waits – not daring to breath – for another sound. Just when she starts to relax, thinking it was only a part of her dream…
• The sound comes again, and there is no mistaking it this time. Skeletal jackal-men, and close by. Heather kicks off her thin blanket, scrambling for her sword.

You can see that the second script is almost like prose itself. Rather than just saying what happens, it crystallizes my concept of exactly what happens, preserving it on the page so that I can tap right into that when I start to actually write the chapter.

Now, when I sit down and start writing about Heather and the skeletal jackal-men, I know that she’s awakened by a terrifying sound. At first, she thinks it might have been just a dream. She hopes it was just a dream.

Reading that teaser in the script, that strong emotional call to what the character is feeling and how the action will start, puts me immediately into the mind of my character.

And that, combined with the knowledge of where the story is supposed to go and how, is ultimately what I need to (mostly) overcome my writer’s block and get down to the serious business of writing about how our brave heroine escapes skeletal jackal-men in the desert.