For those who wanted, this is what I do when I get the writer’s block.



1. I take a break, obviously.

But it’s never longer than an hour or two. I sometimes watch a movie, read a book, go out and observe other people, or listen to music. I do everything that puts new ideas into my head.

Sometimes I recover and begin writing the same story, but when I don’t, I come back to that story later and start a new one. Easy as that.

I also don’t start writing from the beginning; I start the new story from the second chapter or just a scene that popped into my head. I have many of those written in my notebook. And I never use them, except when I need ideas again – so I read them to myself. It is better than to stop writing for a month.



2. Let’s say you can’t write another chapter. Well, then take a day off and reread your last chapter after a day/a few days. When you’re done, think about what should happen next, what you’d want to happen (like a real reader and not the author). If you can’t come up with anything, you either want to do this again after another two days, and if you can’t come up with another chapter after that, chances are that your story might be going nowhere and you need to rewrite the last chapter.

JUST A TIP) don’t publish your chapter as soon as you’re done writing. Leave it at least for a day and reread it again, you might find a lot of typos and sentences that don’t make sense and really shouldn’t be in the story.



3. If your writing seems boring and predictable, that might be because you already knew what you were writing and you’ve read it many times. Other people haven’t read it and might find the story fascinating and amazing.




4. If you’re wondering if you should publish another story, make sure you:

1) don’t have another story, or many stories, that you can’t finish.

2) have time for it.

3) know what you actually want to write.

 

These reasons usually just prolong your writer’s block.




4) I also like to talk to people who usually inspire me or my characters. Don’t be ashamed to write your thoughts down when you’re with other people.




5) Do writing exercises.

Try writing different scenes, even if they don’t have anything to do with your story. Write a scene where someone dies, cries, gets really mad, gets into a fight - anything that would get your thoughts going to a different direction.

You can come up with any kind of sentence and start from there. Here’s an example.

“I can’t do this.”

Simple, right?

Well…

“I can’t do this…” She said, pushing his hand away. “I don’t love you, {name}.”

And you already see where this is going, and you start writing. You can only overcome writer’s block by writing. Procrastinating and waiting to get inspired won’t help.


You can also write many scenes with one sentence. Let’s say…


“I can’t do this.” He sighed, staring at the shot of tequila in his hand.

“Come on!” {name} chuckled, “It’s your birthday!”


See, it can easily be changed into anything. And these examples, of course, were written without any actual thinking, so just imagine if you actually tried writing something with any sentence. It could actually turn out beautiful. And even if it doesn’t, it’s still better than not writing at all.



6) Read quotes.

Get a tumblr. Tumblr provides many quotes that help me personally come up with different ideas and scenes for my stories. BUT DON’T PUT THE EXACT QUOTE IN YOUR STORY. That’s plagiarism. Quotes are only there to help your imagination, not to build it.

JUST A TIP) If you don’t have or don’t want to have a tumblr, find another source where you could find quotes.

ANOTHER TIP) Instead of quotes, you could use pictures as well.


EXAMPLE)

“I don’t feel like loving anyone, they’ll never love me back the same way.”

— (via p-xxx-sy)    {This is the first quote I saw as I logged into tumblr. It's not mine.}


I can already imagine a boy or a girl being scared of love, a little cliché, but still a good start. You could write a scene out of this, right?

“Why are you scared of falling in love?”

And then your start writing. Don’t just focus on the character’s words. Describe how he feels, and not just with adjectives. Use actions.

She/He cringed at the memory.

Her/His hands started to tremble.

Her/His lips quivered.



How to use pictures for scenes? Well…



This is the first picture I saw as I logged into tumblr. Beautiful.

Now, what popped into your head as you saw this?

I saw this and thought “hangover”. You could easily write someone waking up in some kind of unknown place for them with a cactus in their arms after a night of drinking. Maybe instead of a cactus it could be a person or someone’s dog. Here. You have your main characters.





But anyway, these are just my personal favorite steps to overcoming writer’s block. If you need some first sentences for your writing exercises, here are some:


“Is he dead?”


“Why are you so scared of falling in love?”


Walking inside, I could already smell her orange flavored candles.


Is it normal to feel alone with other people in the room?


“Why did you kiss me last night?”


She looked so beautiful.







I hope that this helped! Link your friends to this post, maybe it could help them!