In this week’s episode, Crys and JP talk about the different roads they take when they hit a story wall.
Show Notes
How to Write Manga: Your Complete Guide to the Secrets of Japanese Comic Book Storytelling by RA Paterson
Story or Die by Lisa Cron
Transcript
Crys: Hello, friends and welcome to the Write Away Podcast. This is episode 57 and we are recording this on August 21st, 2021. I’m your host Crys Cain, along with my cohost…
JP: JP Rindfleisch.
Crys: Oh, JP! Two full weeks since I’ve seen you, yes? It’s been that long?
JP: It has. It’s been too long.
Crys: Even though, like we haven’t seen each other before two months ago. How’s things going? How’s writing life?
JP: It’s good. So I said that I was going to edit 10,000 words last week and I edited 9,000 words, which is really close. So I’m not going to kick myself over it because, hey, I got more editing done this week than I had in the previous weeks.
So this was enough fire for me to get moving. And it made me reconsider some of the time that I spend throughout the day and consider when I can fit writing in. So even though I didn’t hit that 10,000 goal, that was an arbitrary goal based off of like guessing, because I don’t track my stuff a lot.
And I think having that goal in my mind for what I want to do, I just need to move it down a notch. So I want to say for next week that I’m going to hit 9,000 and hopefully I will reach that or I will get over because I know that’s an achievable number now. So, yay!
Crys: I have a question coming from what you said, you said that’s made you reevaluate time in which you can fit writing in the day.
What do you mean by that? Just that you can get more time?
JP: Yeah. So I have my mornings pretty hard set, but the rest of the day I have various opportunities that I have to write. And having this goal for the week made me think, hey, I need to get this editing in, I have this “deadline” for this word count. And so whenever I had a couple of minutes, I was like, oh, can I take that time to do edits? Or can I take that time to do something else that’s topical in mind so that when I have that two-hour time block in the morning, I will have just the editing in the frame of mind.
I did notice for editing, I really need to be in a certain mindset. I can’t just edit a few sentences here and there. I need to commit a larger chunk of time, but I have a ton of other little projects that usually wiggle their way into that writing time in the morning. And I found other time that I can put that throughout the day or in the evening.
That’s working out and it’s not really impacting anything. So it’s been useful having a goal cause then I’ve been able to restructure and organize without just being complete chaos.
Crys: So how does that fit with your realization when you were on your work week and you’re like, oh, I can write mornings and evenings, but you realized that that didn’t give you any downtime.
How is that all meshing together with fitting in more writing, but still knowing you need downtime?
JP: That’s a great question. And that’s why I don’t know if this system is going to sustain because it may not. It’s sustaining for now. And for me, I understand that things change often and when I have the mind space to do this, then it’s great and perfect. But I also think having this one goal for the rest of the week makes the rest of it just opportunities that arise as opposed to having a giant list of things that I need to do and having it in mind that all of this must be done, because I think that some type of an expectation on myself that all of this has to get done.
And I tend to notice when I have one focal point and I have opportunities to complete little things over here and there, that is more useful for how I function. Because I like having one goal post in mind and then being like, hey, but if you have time to do the other things, that’s great. But don’t make them also goal posts because otherwise you’re going to have too many goals and you’re not gonna achieve any of them.
Crys: Yes. Excellent.
JP: Yeah. How has your week been? Where are you? What have you been up to?
Crys: I am in Moab, Utah. We hit up three national parks in three days. And that’s been a blast.
The last two, I have got to gush about them a little bit because they overwhelmed me so much. And I normally research everything that I’m doing, just so I’m not surprised and I know what I’m going into. Cause sometimes I handle surprises and unexpectedness really well, and sometimes I don’t.
So we hit the Great Sand Dunes three days ago. That was great. We got to slide down sand. Then two days ago, I really wanted to see cliff dwellings. I really wanted to see ancient American historical things as we traveled and the west is great for that. And the cliff dwellings were amazing. They were beautiful. The ones that you could get close to were closed currently, so there’s definitely a trip back in the future. But the thing that overwhelmed me about this one was the drive from the entrance of the park to the cliff dwellings.
First of all, they’re like it’s 40 minutes to the nearest cliff dwelling. Oh wow. That’s really far. Also it’s along a mountain ridge and there’s a series of terrifying switchbacks back and forth. And sometimes just looking over the edge and there’s not a guard rail. So that was fun, and it definitely took me more than 40 minutes. It took us way more than 40 minutes cause we like stopped at every overlook because it was gorgeous. But that definitely was like physical stress, mental stress, driving out there. But it was beautiful. Lovely. Definitely need to go back.
Then yesterday was Arches National Park. Again, slightly terrifying drive, but not nearly as terrifying. And the scope of distance in these parks is wild to me as an eastern US person. And I keep thinking about it in terms of like my British friends and my Costa Rican friends and how in Costa Rica, you travel a long-time time for a little distance. Like everything just seems really far and it’s not.
But like the UK has a good road system. I think you can get everywhere in the country within a few hours. And just how much time we spend in these ginormous parks, and some of them swallow up US states and other countries.
But Arches was wild. There was a lot of rock formations and a lot more freedom to climb. We climbed up to what is called Delicate Arch. It says, you know, the trail is hard cause you’re hiking up rocks. Literally you’re hiking up a mountain. And then it’s fine, it’s dandy. It’s no super big deal. Except when you have a five-year-old danger child who just wants to throw himself off the edge of everything. And then we get to the literally climbing of a ginormous rock with a three to five foot ledge overlooking, I don’t know how tall of a fall, and I’ve got a danger child.
I also have my friend Priscilla whose body starts throwing her off balance the moment she is on heights. And she is clutching the wall and had to take her glasses off so she couldn’t see so that she didn’t know how far high up we were. And also she’s afraid of birds, and crows kept trying to get close to us. So that was fun.
So then she’s trying to get away from them, but like then she gets too close to the edge. It was wild. So fodder for some future scene at some point.
JP: Oh, that is madness. I love it though.
Crys: In the writing life, I actually ended up taking a full week off because these parks just overwhelmingly took up all my attention and time in the best of ways. And a friend asked, or said to me, like, you must be getting so inspired. And I know that they are a really visual writer, like if they need inspiration to get writing, and that’ll actually come into our talk today about story blocks, they look at beautiful things, they look at interesting things.
I am not that way. My brain is too full of absorption to be sparked, but it all gets tucked back in there. There were a few times where I was like, oh, that would be something interesting to throw into my fantasy. Particularly because the places that I’m visiting right now are more desert-like and it would be interesting to think about for the climax of the story. Because the main external conflict will be between a very violent rocky nation and the lush rainforesty tropical nation.
So I did manage to have a couple of story thoughts, but other than that, like today is my big work day. We are holed up at a hotel. Cause I was like, I need good internet and we realized as we drove through yesterday, Moab has great cell coverage. I was like, okay, it doesn’t matter necessarily that we stay somewhere that has good internet, but that we stay in Moab so that I know I can at least use my phone.
So we did get a hotel. The hotel has terrible internet, but it has a bathtub. So that made up for it. And so I’m in the van using my phone as a hotspot. And this morning for writing, I’m getting ready to publish or upload the pre-order the romance book that I’ve been wrestling with for three years.
And I still have to format that, upload it, and then we’ve got our mastermind today. Today is just my packed full day of online things.
JP: Awesome. Yeah. I’m just telling you, you need a blog. But if you don’t want to do that, you should journal.
Crys: I keep intending to do more TikToks. And I just haven’t. I did manage to put up a Facebook post for like friends and family, even though it’s public, anybody can see it, about Mesa Verde, which was the cliff dwellings. But yeah. Now that like a full week of not working has gone by, I’m like, okay, like I need to figure out a new system.
And I think what I’m going to do is I do have one scene, only one scene, written for the fantasy serial. And I think I’m going to transpose that into my notebook and just keep my notebook with me. Cause one of the things my kid has been having issues with is, he’s not used to having me around but not like with him.
And so picking up and opening my computer is so much more of a bigger signal that I’m not with him. And it’s also just a bigger mind switch for me. So I think I’m gonna try and start working in my notebook really heavily and do a lot of handwriting because I do want to start moving that story forward.
JP: Nice.
Crys: Well, we do have a comment from, was it from last week’s episode?
JP: It was from episode 54. It was How Does Community Make Me a Better Author episode? And it was by Janet. First of all, she wanted to thank us for providing transcripts of all the podcast episodes because she reads them and searches through information.
I think that is awesome. Cause I know Crys, you wanted to do that right from the get-go just to make it more accessible. But I think even in the aspect of just making it easier for someone to quick search for something is excellent. And I’m so glad you thought of it. Other than that, she also said that she tested out a number of writing communities over the years. And she’s now only in two.
She has a local group that does in-person experiences and she finds that important. And then she also has TASM for everything else. Whether it’s going into a virtual writing room, attending online conferences and town hall meetings, or consuming the content of the TASM website itself, she likes having a wider touch point for the community pieces that go outside of what she can do at her local writing group.
Crys: And for those who aren’t familiar, TASM is The Author Success Mastermind, which JP and I are also members of. I actually help facilitate it with J. Thorn. If you haven’t listened to our podcast, The Author Success Mastermind, you can find it on any of your podcast delivery options.
JP: Yeah!
Crys: Janet and I have had a lot of conversations in the past about community. It’s something that we both care super deeply about, the right communities, investing in your community, and letting your community invest in you. Which I think is honestly the hardest part for me. And I know that we’re not unique to that. And it’s really interesting to think about the intricacy of sub communities and people who are takers and people who are givers and learning as a facilitator, how to encourage moderate, direct, the communities in the way that the communities want to go.
JP: Mmhmm. Yeah. I am interested in having some type of a local group, but I think I’ve been spoiled really hard on TASM. So I have a level of expectation. I know how good a group is when it is structured and they have the same language.
So the best part about TASM is that it also is tied really close with Three Story Method because J. wrote that as well. And so it’s really easy to find people who use and share that same language when talking about story construction. I like the groups that hit those kinds of topics and we all know the language that we’re going to talk about. And there isn’t dichotomy of not understanding what someone’s getting at and more opinionated pieces. And I’m always concerned that’s going to be the next group I find just because I lucked out on TASM.
Crys: Well, the goal is to grow TASM to the point where we have people all over the world so we can have local TASM groups. Wouldn’t that be delightful?
JP: That’ll be the next thing. Let’s take over the world.
Crys: In the meanwhile, we are going to talk about how do you handle story blocks?
JP: Indeed.
Crys: So what do you mean by a story block, JP?
JP: This question/topic came up because it was a little bit twofold in the past two weeks. The first one was I have been hitting a little bit of a wall when it comes to the fantasy serial because I really want, and this is why we also had the conversation last week, is I really want some really nice pillars set up that are really solid about the foundation, about the world. Because that’s how I can solidify the place in mind. So I sometimes hit little story blocks because for me, I’m really high on input and ideation in Clifton strengths, which means that I have so many bazillion ideas just locked up in my brain with so many ideas of how they connect, but I know that those connections may not actually be valid. They may be like weaker connections. So I need to riff off of other people to garner that.
And then the other part was it was someone within the writing group, that I am aware of, was having issues with one of their books. And they were basically like, that’s it I’m done, I don’t want to write this anymore. I’m done with it completely. And I reached out to them and I’m like, no, because I don’t want to see you fail. And then I also think that basically, it was a call for ‘I need to talk this through’ is how I read it. And so I was like, let’s talk this through because in my mind, everything is figureoutable in one way or another.
So that’s what I mean by hitting a story wall, is both in terms of story and then that feeling of oh no, I’m stuck in a corner and I have to give up.
Crys: Let’s talk about the stuck in the corner, first of all. Because that is the more difficult one. But it honestly is in a lot of ways, simply mindset. And like you said, you have this belief that everything is figureoutable.
And I think that’s absolutely where you need to be if you don’t want to quit writing. You’re allowed to quit writing any point in time. You’re allowed to quit any story at any point in time. That’s all allowed. If you are a newer writer who has not finished a story, you need to finish a story.
You need to put your nose to the ground. Doesn’t matter how you feel about the story, you simply need to finish one. You can throw it in the trunk and never look at it again, but you need to show yourself that you can finish a story. Which then will allow you to not finish stories if they’re not serving you in the future.
But everything is figureoutable. You just may not like where you end up with it, and that’s okay. That’s what editing is for. So sometimes it’s easier just to move on to a new story. So start with the mindset that everything is figureoutable.
And moving into more of the tactics, everything is figureoutable, but you may have set yourself up for answers that you don’t like. So I think this is one of the problems we run into. And this is more of a fiction than a non-fiction issue, but sometimes the way we’ve set up the story, our subconscious will tell us that it’s not going the way that we had planned, that it needs to go in a different direction. And our subconscious is generally correct because we have laid in “rules” for our story, for our characters. Like these are the way things are and the way things work. Sometimes they don’t go along with what we had planned, particularly for plotters.
And pantsers run into this all the time. Plotters have plans. Pantsers might have ideas. And both run into this. So the issue is when your subconscious of telling something is wrong and it’s not going the way you want, either you are like, oh, I have set up a different story than I thought I was telling, but it’s a good story so I’m going to continue on that way. Or you realize, oh, I have to backtrack because I set up a kind of story that I do not want to tell. Does that sound too vague or does that make sense to you, JP?
JP: It makes sense to me. So how I would approach something similar would be just constantly asking myself why until I get to the heart of what’s wrong with it. Because ultimately what happens is when you hit these walls, something is intrinsically wrong. Either with your viewpoint on the story or where you have reached a point in the story or in the construction of the story world. Something is wrong enough for you to be in this weird moment of pause.
Now, as I said before, and I’m going to reiterate, could be mindset, could be the story. This is where we need to figure out what it is. So I would constantly be annoying to myself and I would ask myself why. Because if I’m like, something’s wrong. And I say, why? And I’m like, I don’t know, something’s wrong. That’s not good enough. You do have to try really hard to figure out what is the problem with it. Because when you watch a movie, us as writers, we can’t just be like, “I didn’t like it.” We know, because we understand story, we can figure out why we didn’t like it. Because we can reflect on other movies or other books, if we want to go that route, in which it worked. And we can pick apart what didn’t work and what did work. And if we can do that with movies, and if we can do that with other books, we can do that with our own fiction. We just have to try.
Crys: Cue any of my rants about the Mandalorian.
JP: Right? So you were able to pick that apart because you knew something felt wrong when you were watching it, and then you were able to pick that apart. I think that’s the same concept that you can have with your own fiction. This may include needing a friend, but you just need to keep asking yourself why. What is wrong with it?
Well, something’s wrong with the story. Well, what’s wrong with the story? Well, you know, my characters are making this decision, but there’s no reason for them to be making this decision. They have no motivation towards this goal. Oh, motivation. I just said it.
Okay. Why is their motivation not reaching this goal? What’s the problem there? Well, I didn’t set up that they have this desire. Okay. You didn’t set up something. Okay. So let’s keep moving back. Let’s keep drilling down and figuring out what the problem was so that we can fix it if we’ve already written it or in our outline. So that’s how I’ve interpreted what you’ve been talking about and that’s how I would approach the situation. You just keep asking yourself why. And we understand story, we are writers. So we’re able to pick those pieces apart and we’re able to drill down to those pieces.
Crys: Yeah. I think that you’ve given a great example of my vagueness. And so the flip side of drilling back and fixing what happened in the past, because there’s lack of motivation or the character hasn’t consistently acted in the way that they need to to move to the next step that you want them to be in, whatever it happens to be.
The other side of that is you can say, oh, I’ve set up a different motivation. I set up a different expected emotional response. I’m going to follow the truth of what I’ve already written and tell the story that’s already happening. Versus go back and adjust to tell the story I wanted to tell.
Both are valid ways of doing things. And I think that pantsers tend to follow more of what the truth is of what they’ve written so far and see where it takes them. And plotters tend to go back and fix. That’s not a hard and fast rule, but that is a tendency.
JP: Yeah. I can see that. And that works too, because when you are pantsing, you may have something in mind and you reach a point and then you may have to verge and go a completely other direction. Because you’ve let your story, you’ve let your characters evolve in a way that wasn’t what they were from point A and now you need to let that story move in the direction it needs. Whereas plotters it’s the other way around. They’re like, well, we’re just going to fix it because we can and we’re going to do it this way.
Crys: Now, one of the tools that’s great for either plotters or pantsers, when you hit a story wall and you’re trying to figure out what is it that is keeping me from going forward, what is the thing my subconscious tells me isn’t quite right, is a reverse outline. And that’s where you go through your book, and you can do this on a chapter level, you can do this on a scene level, whatever level of depth makes sense for you. And just write a sentence, a couple of sentences for each chapter, each scene, whatever it is, and give yourself a very short document so that you can review your entire story versus having to read your entire story multiple times to figure out where your pain points are.
JP: Yeah, I actually do this when editing Abe and my co-written pieces because I know where the outline is leading to and I know that overall it works. But I mean, there are sometimes I read scenes and they don’t work. And so I look at them and I pick them apart, and I use conflict, choice, consequences, cause that stuff comes really easy to me now. And I don’t even do complete sentences. I just do like two or three words, depending on where the conflict is, where the choice is, and where the consequence is. And I really consider what in this scene is not working, is it the choice? Because 90% of the time it’s the choice.
And then I say, what can I do to punch that up? Because in the overall outline, I know that the scene will work. So I know that it doesn’t need to get kicked out. Sometimes it does. Sometimes I do kick it out. Or sometimes I cut it in half and I squeeze it to get the tension a little bit heavier. But regardless, that’s why I liked using Scrivener for this current work that I’m doing, because of that note section, because then I can just see the notes right next to it. I don’t have to keep rereading the whole scene. I have the notes next to me. I know what I need to punch up and I’m good to go.
Crys: Now sometimes the story block is, not quite mindset, but more on the mindset side. And it’s not actually the story itself, but with your energy as a writer. I had mentioned earlier, like we have a friend who is extremely visually oriented and inspired. And so for them to have the energy to write, they need to look at interesting things. They need to read interesting books. They need to input a lot so that they have fuel to have excitement for writing. And knowing what your fuel is is super important to knowing that you are giving yourself what you need to get to the writing and have a fruitful writing session.
JP: Yeah, definitely. I think when it comes to hitting a story wall because of the potential for mindset, I approach that a little bit more cautiously and a little bit more carefully because we can also be touching on the edge of mental illness.
Procrastination. If you’re procrastinating, stop procrastinating. But if in terms of mental illness, you should probably talk to someone, something along those lines. And I just like noting that because I’m not talking about that. That is something that is very different, very serious, but this is more in the mindset of you know your tools to get you going and you’re just not doing them. And it’s not correlated to mental illness.
Crys: Yeah. And though it is hard for some folks who have mental illness to know when it is them or the story. And that’s where bringing a friend in to help you be a second brain can be really good as far as like figuring out, is this actually a story block where something’s wrong or is this me just being negative about everything that I create? Which is the state that I’ve been in at times.
The other thing I want to point out that is more on the mental side is sometimes the story you’re telling is just one that you are no longer interested in. And that’s one of those times where you are completely allowed to say, nope, not going to finish the story and walk away. Unless you have a deadline like I did.
That’s something I run into with the romance all the time now. I have a dark embittered soul about romance currently. That’s what happens after a breakup. And so writing romance, truthfully, and when I say truthfully, I mean with full belief in the story and the truth of the characters and whatnot, and the joy of the fantasy of it is difficult because I sit there going like, nah, this is all fake. This isn’t real. Love isn’t real. Blah.
That isn’t the best when you’re writing romance. I thankfully, because I’m writing with a co-writer who is wonderful at romance, she manages a lot of that weight of the story. And then I manage a lot of the action or familial or goofiness. Although we’re both pretty goofy and that’s one of the things our readers really love.
And if I didn’t have deadlines, those books would not get written. I would say, nope, you know what, this isn’t the point in my life to be telling these kinds of stories and so I am done. And that would be completely allowed.
JP: Yeah, I think we both picked up pretty hard on the, You Need a Bigger Story piece where it’s like your soap box. Your call to action, whatever it is that you want to say with all of your stories. And of course this isn’t gonna work with all your stories. And of course, that core idea may change as you grow older. But I think that there is some validity in having your own “mission statement” or what you want to tell as an overall author.
I think having that hashed out, having that written down, is going to keep you motivated to keep telling the stories you want to tell. And it will help you prevent running into this issue more often than not. Because if you are consistent about, for me it’s, I really want to tell weird queer stories with those queer characters in the forefront.
Now that’s my own fiction for what I am writing for my own personal stuff. With writing with others, I understand that we need to figure out a core mission statement that will work for both of us. But regardless, I like the weird, I like queer in terms of both LGBT people and just the oddity of it. And so I like to bring that feature into all of my writing, regardless of if it’s an LGBTQ character and in the forefront or not.
So that’s my drive. That’s what I love to do. That keeps me going on different stories. And I think if I didn’t have that, and I didn’t know what I wanted to write, and I just focused on each little story that I wrote as its own separate piece without having that statement, I may be in the middle of that and be like this isn’t what I want to tell.
And I may drop it by the wayside, if that makes sense.
Crys: Another way of looking at that is Brian McDonald’s armature. So like whether it’s mission statement, or it’s story armature. And some people, thinking of our friend Lon, like having these big ideas or working towards these big ideas or themes or whatever you want to call them, that just destroys the fun for them.
But for those of us who it’s helpful for, having that as your gauge, whether you’re a pantser or a plotter, and be like this is the emotions/belief that I am trying to follow in telling this story. That makes it a lot easier for us to tell, am I headed in the right direction? Is there something that I kind of screwed up a little bit in the background that I need to fix before I can move forward?
Some authors can be like, oh, I know that I fixed something wrong. Going back, I’m going to mentally just say, you know what, I’ve already fixed that and write the story from this point as if everything I wrote previously was just perfect the way I wanted to, to get me back on track. And then I will fix the before part in my editing stage. So you don’t have to go back and fix the story block if that isn’t necessary for your process.
JP: I definitely think there’s a strength in armature that I never learned about when it was focused on theme. Because for me, for nerdy science JP, armature is your hypothesis. It’s the statement you make. So trying to think of one off the top of my head and it’s not working, but let’s say your grief is no stronger than those around you. And that once you realize that you can all heal, let’s say that’s the statement. So it’s saying that basically it’s a statement about selfishness.
It’s a statement saying that we understand that you’re grieving, but others are grieving as well. And once you realize that everyone’s grief is at an equal level, then you can all work together to heal. That’s your statement. Now you can focus on your scenes. You can focus on your overall story. And consistently trying to prove that statement.
What does that statement look like when someone is selfish? Well, no one heals. What does it look like when everyone is working together? Well, then we start to heal. And you can look at how your scenes are being constructed. And if that’s the statement that you want to make throughout the whole story, then you have a guide post. You have something that your scenes can point towards. And that should be able to help you out of certain ruts.
Crys: Yeah, that is your main story thrust. Your side characters thrust. Your side plot thrust. I like it.
JP: I think last thing I want to say, and this reiterates with episode 54, community. Community helps you.
Collaboration helps you. It doesn’t mean that you have to coauthor. It doesn’t mean that you have to collaborate with an author to write your story. But what it does mean is that if you have a community, you can reach out to other authors, other people who know story structure, and you can be like, Hey, I’m stuck! Want to help me? And then they can reach out to you because they know that you reached out to them. They can reach out to you and everyone works better that way. I just, I want to keep reiterating that because I think that authors sometimes think that they need to do this alone and you don’t.
That’s just not how things work. You don’t have to. You can reach out to other people and talk through what is getting you stuck.
Crys: Agreed. Well, what is our question for our listeners this week?
JP: I want to know what methods they use when they hit a story wall. How do they get themselves out?
Crys: Excellent. By the time you have finished listening to this, we will have just wrapped up the recording on our next book club, which is How to Write Manga by RA Paterson. But if you’d like to join us for the next one, which is Story or Die by Lisa Cron, and I don’t know if we’re going to keep our normal in two weeks date, which we generally record on the second Wednesday of every month. This month, because the craziness of summer, got delayed a little bit. JP and I have not discussed whether we’re going to adjust the next recording, but you still have time to join us regardless of whether we do or not. And if you’d like to join us for the book club of Story or Die by Lisa Cron, you can find us at Patreon. The link will be in the show notes. And thank you so much for listening.
We’ll see you next week.
JP: See you later.
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