A New Way To Get Over Writers Block

Things you've all heard:


Stop being a perfectionist!

Just write garbage!

Just get the first draft done blah blah.


What I want to tell you is to stop writing the story you wanted to tell. Lock it safe away for 3 years from now when you can do it some god damned justice!

Stop to write the story you want to write, and write something you know you won't ever care that much about, but would still find interesting. Don't move from Project A to Project B if Project B is just second choice. No. Do your 8th choice first. Actively make a list and write what you don't want. It's the best way to practice because it forces you away from comfort and in a good way (to avoid perfectionism) away from attachment. After all, this is your first novel and will probably not get published, but by the time you've finished novel manuscript #8, you'll be on your A game. That's when you start THE Story.

You wanted to write that Space Marine dystopian epic? Too bad. Finish the Japanese Twin Brothers Fight Basic Antagonist Demon first.

With the latter story, you can just splice in a ton of junk and overt motifs. Why? Because you don't care.

Maybe the brothers have a childhood flashback to some type of red flowers. Maybe red symbolizes war with another tribe, or love for a woman. Maybe they're ying and yang. However, neither are implicitly evil. Maybe they have to fight together but through part of it fight themselves. . . See where I'm going? You just make random shit up because at the end of the day, it isn't necessary the story you wanted to tell, but the one you COULD tell.

When you're practiced, when you're published, when you know exactly how to sit down and MECHANICALLY pump out a legit story, that's when you can write the story you've always wanted.

Like film, you're never going to make it to theaters with your home movies.

In literature, you're never going to get good enough to wing-it just by winging it over and over and over.

Trust me. I spent years crashing and burning before I got it together and started pumping out stories, each increasingly closer to my ideal vision and with many fun and exciting steps along the way.

Don't be afraid to be cliche.

Don't be afraid to fail.

Look at VGHS on Youtube. It's some of the most cliche writing imaginable. People, even editors like me who understand both the story aspect, and the cinematography, love it. It's just well done. You can tell the same story a billion different ways and you should.

You're never going to tell the Biblical Epic without first telling about the Chicken Crossing the road. In your next story, the chicken will have a back story and a real mission. In your third, a proper antagonist. In your fourth (different stories--not drafts) the chicken will have a plot arc and be a beautiful war lord chicken at the end when he gets to the other side of that beautiful road.