Writers in the Storm

by Diana Stout, MFA, PhD

The day started out like any other. I sat at the computer prepared to continue writing a first draft for a new book, but that day turned out to be unlike any other.

The Writer's Block Day of Infamy

That day, writer's block paralyzed me for 10 ½ straight hours, the screen blinking at me the entire time. Taunting me. But, I wasn't about to quit. I couldn't. I was on deadline.

Looking back...

Many times, writer’s block had ruled my life. In those times, I would file, organize, clean, or perform any of the usual writer's block avoidance activities. This time, however, I just sat there. Avoidance that day wasn't allowed.

Thus, my ability to stare turned into an art form.

Until that time, I never doubted the existence of writer's block. I had always called it by name. Notable authors wrote about it. Nearly every month, the two most popular writing magazines would feature an article about how to avoid writer's block. If these experts were writing about it, it had to exist, right?

By the end of that horrible day, I vowed writer's block would be gone, never to show its ugliness again.

Magical Moment?

The next day, I sat down facing that same blank page. Minutes later, I decided to skip over it. I'd write the next scene instead. And, I did. Quickly and easily.

By the end of the day, having written a healthy pile of pages, I knew something magical had just occurred. But what? I began questioning the existence of writer's block and started researching it.

The Origin of Writer's Block

After World War II, psychiatry became a popular and prestige topic. Edmund Bergler, a New York City Austrian psychiatrist, termed writer's block in 1947. Within the field of psychiatry, writer's block is tied to depression, anxiety, a sense of failure, pressure, a lack of inspiration, illness, and other common debilitating factors. Some theories that arose from the psychiatry field tied writer's block to perfectionism or the lack of ideas, even the loss of self-confidence. Sometimes alcohol was involved as a reason.

Also, procrastination became part of the discussion with added reasons for writer's block: finances and life-changing events, such as war, births, moving, deaths, weather-related disasters, divorce, marriage, and so forth.

Basically, writer's block and procrastination were deemed as either a physical or emotional issue.

Traits of Writer's Block

The more common excuses of writer's block that I hear writers using today are:

• I don't have enough time to write
• I don't have a good place where I can write: it's too [noisy, hot, cold, not comfortable, etc.]
• I'm not selling anything; I must not be a good writer
• I'm not writing as fast as [insert favorite author's name]
• I'm feeling [depressed, angry, stressed, sad, etc.]
• I don't know what to write about
• I'm distracted by [people walked by, social media notifications, smell of food, etc.]
• I'm not motivated

In the past, I've written in a closet, busy airports, bus terminals, restaurants, playgrounds, where temperatures were so cold, I was blowing on my fingers, or so hot, I put a cold washcloth on the back of my neck to cool off.

I've written piles of pages during all kinds of life-changing effects. Writing was a stress release, a pressure valve where I could let go of my feelings and thoughts. Sometimes, I was doing nothing more than journaling, performing a stream of consciousness writing with no idea of where I'd use the work.

So, if I'd been able to write during those life-changing events, what was the real reason for that 10.5-hour day of no writing?

That's the day, I realized that writer’s block is a myth. Writer's block is nothing more than being stuck.

The "Aha" Moment

Skipping where I had been stuck allowed me to continue writing with renewed passion and motivation for the project.

The real aha, eye-opening moment occurred when I got to the end of that first draft. That's when I knew exactly what the skipped scene needed.

That book taught me, too, that inspiration and motivation occur after I've started typing. The more I typed, the more passionate I became about the project.

Writer's Block No More: Moves You Can Make to Get Unstuck

Getting unstuck requires action. Let me repeat that.

Getting unstuck requires action!

Here are some suggestions:

• Skip where you're stuck; leave comments, thoughts, possible ideas. Then, move on. Don't come back to this empty space, this hole until you have finished the draft.
• Could it be that you don't know your characters well enough? Stop and ask them questions that reveal their true motives, hidden secrets, life-long desires, wounds, and flaws. Obtain deeper information. This action helps eliminate shallow characters, too.
• If you're a panster, stop and decide on an ending, which, like taking a vacation, will provide you with a destination, allowing you to write/move toward it. Sometimes knowing the ending and the main beats / bigger plot points (stops you want to make while on vacation) is all that's needed to get the story moving again.
• Not sure what to write? Start writing your thoughts about various topics and see which one generates more content and passion. Not only will you zero in on one topic eventually, but now you'll have the starts to several more topics for potential use later.

Getting stuck isn't about where you're writing, what tools you're using, or if your writing style is as a panster or plotter.

Getting stuck is always about character or plot.

You're stuck because you need to learn more, to dig down deep on either or both. Do that and you'll be on the writing road again, happily pounding the keys.

Have you ever experienced writer's block? What did you do to overcome it?

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About Diana

Dr. Diana Stout is an award-winning writer in multiple genres, a screenwriter, author, blogger, and writing coach who travels with a crowd: characters who each want their voice and folks giving voice from the other side.

Stuck for a few years on her novella series after publishing the first one, Shattered Dreams, last year three were published, one so far this year, with the last two soon to come.

So, she won't get stuck later, she's plotting out a historical Gothic romance due later this summer, and completing a writer's resource book so many have been asking for. Fortunately, since she's taught the subject in the past, there's no getting stuck on that project. You can learn more about Dr. Stout at her website, Sharpened Pencils Productions.

Do you struggle with procrastination? Check out her June 5-16, 2023 Master Class: Using (& Avoiding) Procrastination, limited to 25 people. Procrastinate on signing up and you could lose out!

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

by Ellen Buikema

Foreshadowing is a literary device used to hint at plot developments that don't happen until later in the story, and can be achieved directly by making clear statements, or indirectly using subtle clues.

• Foreshadowing can be so subtle that it goes unnoticed.
• Often foreshadowing can increase the sense of mystery by suggesting that some event might occur but not how.
• Foreshadowing helps prepare readers for later scenes, builds a sense of suspense, and can help tie up loose ends.

Why Use Foreshadowing?

Writers use foreshadowing to prepare their readers to understand the plot as it develops. But it may also:

• Encourage readers to focus on certain details.
• Create a sense of tension.
• Give scenes a special significance.
• Create thematic connection between various scenes.
• Connect a work's beginning and end.
• Emphasize a character’s struggle against fate.

Consider the movie Die Hard.

John McClane moves toward to the Nakatomi Plaza to meet his wife for a Christmas party via a relatively calm plane ride. The writers wove the plane ride with cuts of a truck driving through LA traffic using a menacing music bed. This foreshadows the crossing of the paths, the meeting of John and the criminals at Nakatomi Plaza.

John McClane is barefoot, increasing the complications and risks. It was foreshadowed from the very first scene of the movie, learning about making fists with your toes, so that his bare feet seem like a logical occurrence.

5 Tips for Using Foreshadowing in Your Writing

Foreshadowing can be a tricky.

Here are some tips for achieving a fine balance of foreshadowing.

1. Plan your story. You need to know where your story is headed before you can decide what to foreshadow, and how that will happen. It can help to wait until a later draft to include foreshadowing. Plan, revise, and plan more.
2. Drop those breadcrumbs as early as possible. Foreshadowing right before an event can act as a “spoiler.” Give readers space. Make sure foreshadowing takes place long enough before the event so it’s not fresh information.
3. Scatter those crumbs. When deciding where and when to foreshadow, be crafty. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Instead, distribute your foreshadowing throughout the story.
4. Foreshadow in moderation. Don’t wear your readers out. Craft the right balance. This will encourage readers to look back through your story to find the clues you left.
5. Enlist feedback. As the writer, you are closest to the story, you may think that the foreshadowing is perfectly clear—but another set of eyes can really help! Find a willing victim, I mean friends, fellow writers, and hand them your manuscript. Ask them if the clues were too many, too few, too obvious, or just right.

Literary Devices Similar to Foreshadowing

There are several literary techniques that overlap with foreshadowing.

 “If a gun is hanging on the wall in the first act, it must fire in the last.” —Anton Chekhov

• Chekhov’s gun: is a writing tool often confused with foreshadowing. According to Chekhov, every element in a story should contribute to the whole, and each detail that “sets up” an outcome should “pay off” in some way. Eldred Bird wrote more on this topic.
• Red herring: Unlike foreshadowing, which hints at something that will happen in the story, a red herring is designed to mislead and distract the reader. Red herrings are often used in mystery novels, with characters suspected of a crime turning out innocent.
• Flashforward: A flashforward gives readers a glimpse at the future. This is different from foreshadowing, as you’re showing your readers what’s coming. Stories that use flashforwards develop suspense not from what will happen, but rather how it will happen.

Examples of Titles with Foreshadowing

The title of a story can be used to foreshadow plot events. Here are examples of titles that include foreshadowing:

• Murder on the Orient Express
• The Story of an Hour
• As I Lay Dying
• The Fall of the House of Usher
• Love in the Time of Cholera
• The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

Foreshadowing Examples

Some common elements used in foreshadowing can be found here. 

The following are examples of foreshadowing from well-known stories:

• In The Fault in Our Stars, John Green tells readers what is going to happen to Gus: “Osteosarcoma sometimes takes a limb to check you out. Then, if it likes you, it takes the rest.” Much later, readers learn what that means.
• Readers learn about life on a spaceship, The Australia, in Way Down Dark by James P. Smythe. The name of the ship foreshadows the twist of the novel.
• Jane Fitch’s White Oleander, has Astrid describe her mother as beautiful, but every description has an element of danger. Her mother’s beauty is like ‘the edge of a very sharp knife’ and ‘her blonde hair, like a white flame.’  She refers to the Oleanders with their ‘dagger green leaves’ and ‘delicate poisonous blooms.’ By combining the beauty with danger as a metaphor for her mother, she foreshadows her mother’s actions. Every part of the oleander is poisonous.

• Agatha Christie populates the train with people all connected to the victim, foreshadowing the revelation that the murder was a group effort in Murder on the Orient Express.
• In J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, Harry’s discovery of the Mirror of Erised foreshadows his discovery of the Sorcerer’s Stone and the identity of the story’s villain.
• In Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, repeated references to books being banned and burned foreshadowed the destruction of books and knowledge.

Foreshadowing is an effective device for nearly any type of literary work and most forms of storytelling media. This includes poetry, novels, TV, and the movies. Here are some examples of foreshadowing from these forms of art.

Poetry

• The bleak, late night setting in Poe’s The Raven.
• In Amy Lowell’s poem, A Fairy Tale, the unbidden guest foreshadows the presence of an evil figure.

Novels

• "It’s when you know you’re licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what." —Atticus. In To Kill a Mockingbird Atticus explains courage to his children while foreshadowing the outcome of his legal case.
• The symbolic and real pain of Harry’s scar in the Harry Potter series.

Television and Movies

• Stanley Kubrick used recurring images of blood pouring from elevators, foreshadowing the future violence in Stephen King’s The Shining.
• At the beginning of the last episode of the Breaking Bad series, Walter White looks through the glove compartment of the car he stole to go back to New Mexico. A cassette tape, El Paso by Marty Robbins, falls out.

The lyrics foreshadow the final outcome for Walter.

“I saddled up and away I did go, riding alone in the dark. Maybe tomorrow, a bullet may find me. Tonight, nothing’s worse than this pain in my heart”.

Walter’s death is foreshadowed as he begins the drive, riding alone, to rescue Jesse Pinkman.

Do you use foreshadowing in your writing? What is your favorite tale that uses foreshadowing?

* * * * * *

About Ellen

Author, speaker, and former teacher, Ellen L. Buikema has written non-fiction for parents, and The Adventures of Charlie Chameleon chapter book series with stories encouraging the development of empathy—sprinkling humor wherever possible. Her Works In Progress are The Hobo Code, YA historical fiction and Crystal Memories, MG Magical Realism/ Sci-Fi.

Find her at https://ellenbuikema.com or on Amazon.

Image by Joe from Pixabay

by Laurie Schnebly Campbell

Some books open with a tornado roaring through town and leaving the protagonist without any house, transportation, light, or even food.

Others open with the protagonist discovering their soon-to-be spouse is already married with six kids at home.

Some open with a protagonist getting a phone call: “To get your twin back alive, bring three billion dollars to the Marrakesh airport Tuesday at noon.”

Any of those incidents COULD be where the trouble starts.

But not every reader -- or writer, for that matter -- wants this kind of external drama on page 1.

Some prefer seeing the tension build more gradually.

Some enjoy the kind of suspense that leaves ‘em afraid to turn out the lights.

Some want a conflict where the protagonist’s biggest challenge is more internal than external.

Some readers like ALL those possibilities, both the externally dramatic and the internally dramatic, along with thousands of others. (Those are the ones we want to be writing for!)

But either way, we want our characters challenged.

When you look at the trouble in your book, where does it come from?

Ideally some of it is external, because characters who decide to take any specific action are just more interesting.

And some of it is internal, because knowing this person more deeply increases how much we care about their outcome.

Pretty much all of us, whether we’re reading OR writing, want a book’s characters to be interesting...and we want them to make us care.

One very effective way of accomplishing both those goals is to -- oh, right -- get ‘em in trouble.

“The flood waters are rising and I can’t find Jacob!”

“Until that summer, I always thought I’d see my mother again.”

“No matter what, I cannot lose this job.”

“Brad and Gina are BOTH coming, and I just know Roxy’s gonna be there.”

“How could a simple mosquito bite have gotten this bad, this fast?”

Seeing people in trouble makes us curious.

We want to know more. What’s going on?

How did this come about?

Why were they caught by surprise?

Who’s on their side?

What are they gonna do?

What if that doesn’t work?

If we like what we see of these people, it makes us want to know a LOT more. Not just about the situation they’re in, but also how this particular person is going to handle it.

Anybody, for example, could get a simple mosquito bite that turns into a festering lesion five hours later. But their response to this situation will be tremendously different, depending on the kind of person they are.

Someone who’s a perfectionist will have a different reaction than someone who’s an adventurer. Neither of ‘em is likely to have an easy time dealing with this suddenly dangerous wound, unless they happen to be a doctor specializing in weird diseases, but the WAY they deal with it is gonna create different types of conflict for each of them.

It goes beyond the conflict caused by just the situation.

We can bet that perfectionist P.J. will immediately start seeking out expert advice, following the instructions on WebMD right down to the millimeter length of the cotton swab, and looking for the doctor’s phone number to display prominently on the refrigerator door in case paramedics have to come rushing in. “Hmm, is that red-letter printing big enough? Is it TOO big?” And so on.

On the other hand, adventurous Ali will be posting photos of the growing wound, debating with the pizza delivery guy whether this is worse than the time Marty got bit by a snake, and wondering whether it’s faster to skateboard or hitchhike to the ER. “Whatever happened to that skateboard, anyway? How come nobody stops when you wear a windmill beanie?” And so on.

Same challenge. Completely different story.

So you can see how the trouble starts long before the mosquito ever bit Ali or P.J. The trouble begins with the kind of person they are.

Conflict Starts in the Head

That’s why it makes sense to look at each character’s type or subtype or archetype, and how ANY conflict in their life will be influenced by what makes ‘em unique.

If we've got ten people on a leaking boat, for instance, all ten will have a different struggle ahead of them. Stay afloat, sure, but that doesn't stay intriguing for long. Who's gonna blame the captain? Who's gonna watch for sharks? Who's gonna write texts to their loved ones? Who's gonna inflate life rafts? Who's gonna jump first? Who's gonna panic? Who's gonna pray? Who's gonna tell jokes?

Knowing the answers to such questions makes it far easier to create characters who’ll naturally encounter their own conflict, no matter what challenge they face. Because it’s already built into the kind of person they are.

And that’s what makes conflict “from the head down” so important!

Prize Drawing Question

Speaking of conflict, how would the protagonist of whatever book you’re currently writing or reading react to a mosquito bite that seemed ordinary a few hours ago but now seems to be turning dangerously strange?

Would they panic? Would they do research? Would they call a friend? Would they laugh it off? Would they -- well, you get the idea.

You might know this person so well it’s like answering how YOU would react. You might still be just getting to know them. Either way, I’d love to hear what comes to mind…as soon as I close the blinds to avert any potentially fatal mosquitoes!

By the way, somebody who comments on that question will win free registration for “Building Conflict from the Head Down,” a May 8-19 email class on creating characters who’ll automatically run into trouble not only with each other and with various situations...but also with themselves. On Friday evening I’ll have random dot org draw a name and post it waaaaay down at the end.

About Laurie:

After winning Romantic Times’ “Best Special Edition of the Year” over Nora Roberts, Laurie Schnebly Campbell discovered she loved teaching every bit as much as writing...if not more. Since then she’s taught online and live workshops including the one at groups.io/g/ConflictHD, and keeps a special section of her bookshelves for people who’ve developed that particular novel in her classes. With 50+ titles there so far, she’s always hoping for more.

Top image by Deleyna via Canva