Ask the Author: Martin Turner
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Martin Turner
"Writer's block" is one of those general terms like "depression" and "angst" that covers symptoms from a whole slew of causes.
So the first thing to do about writer's block is to ask: what actually is my block?
For some, it's the pressure of expectations. For others, it's having got into a situation where the plot can't work while staying true to the characters.
For others, it's simply losing confidence in what they're writing.
Back in the old days of the (much-lamented) Figment community, I worked with a number of young writers who were suffering from writer's block. Nine times out of ten, it was because the cool ending which they'd worked out before they started writing (and, in many cases, was the reason they started writing) turned out to be too obvious, nowhere near as cool as they expected, or just not enough to sustain their interest to finish.
I've been there myself.
In that situation, the best way forward—at least, the one that seemed to help the most people struggling—is to accept that the plot climax, solution to the mystery, resolution of loose-ends (etc) is not good enough, but to write it anyway as the 'decoy plot'.
A good decoy plot makes the difference between a mildly engaging adventure story and a taut thriller. When everything progresses as you expect it to, pushing the hero through greater and greater difficulties to a final climax, you get an adventure. Michael Strogoff by Jules Verne, or Greenmantle by John Buchan, are great examples.
But when the hero achieves the plot goal, and only then realises that he or she has been working for his or her enemies, or has played into a trap, or has been taken in as she or he was supposed to be, then you get a thriller. In fact, the more inevitable you made the build up to the original climax, the more shocking the reveal will be.
This is something you can only do once per novel. As Isaac Asimov pointed out in Second Foundation, the effect of successive shocks gets less, not more.
That still leaves you with the question of what an even bigger, more climactic climax is going to be. However, often going with 'the opposite' of what you started with is sufficient.
And even if it isn't, facing the decision to turn the original climax into the decoy climax is often enough to stir the creative juices to the point that you have a real humdinger.
So the first thing to do about writer's block is to ask: what actually is my block?
For some, it's the pressure of expectations. For others, it's having got into a situation where the plot can't work while staying true to the characters.
For others, it's simply losing confidence in what they're writing.
Back in the old days of the (much-lamented) Figment community, I worked with a number of young writers who were suffering from writer's block. Nine times out of ten, it was because the cool ending which they'd worked out before they started writing (and, in many cases, was the reason they started writing) turned out to be too obvious, nowhere near as cool as they expected, or just not enough to sustain their interest to finish.
I've been there myself.
In that situation, the best way forward—at least, the one that seemed to help the most people struggling—is to accept that the plot climax, solution to the mystery, resolution of loose-ends (etc) is not good enough, but to write it anyway as the 'decoy plot'.
A good decoy plot makes the difference between a mildly engaging adventure story and a taut thriller. When everything progresses as you expect it to, pushing the hero through greater and greater difficulties to a final climax, you get an adventure. Michael Strogoff by Jules Verne, or Greenmantle by John Buchan, are great examples.
But when the hero achieves the plot goal, and only then realises that he or she has been working for his or her enemies, or has played into a trap, or has been taken in as she or he was supposed to be, then you get a thriller. In fact, the more inevitable you made the build up to the original climax, the more shocking the reveal will be.
This is something you can only do once per novel. As Isaac Asimov pointed out in Second Foundation, the effect of successive shocks gets less, not more.
That still leaves you with the question of what an even bigger, more climactic climax is going to be. However, often going with 'the opposite' of what you started with is sufficient.
And even if it isn't, facing the decision to turn the original climax into the decoy climax is often enough to stir the creative juices to the point that you have a real humdinger.
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