Ways to un-stick a stuck story

firemoon42:

  • Do an
    outline,
    whatever way works best.
    Get yourself out of the word soup and know where the story is headed.
  • Conflicts
    and obstacles.
    Hurt the protagonist, put things in their way, this keeps
    the story interesting. An easy journey makes the story boring and boring is
    hard to write.
  • Change
    the POV.
    Sometimes all it takes to untangle a knotted story is to look at
    it through different eyes, be it through the sidekick, the antagonist, a minor
    character, whatever.
  • Know the
    characters.
    You can’t write a story if the characters are strangers to you.
    Know their likes, dislikes, fears, and most importantly, their motivation. This makes the path clearer.
  • Fill in
    holes.
    Writing doesn’t have to be linear; you can always go back and fill in plotholes,
    and add content and context.
  • Have
    flashbacks,
    hallucinations, dream sequences or foreshadowing events. These
    stir the story up, deviations from the expected course add a feeling of urgency
    and uncertainty to the narrative.
  • Introduce
    a new mystery.
    If there’s something that just doesn’t add up, a big question mark, the story becomes more
    compelling. Beware: this can also cause you to sink further into the mire.
  • Take
    something from your protagonist.
    A weapon, asset, ally or loved one. Force
    him to operate without it, it can reinvigorate a stale story.
  • Twists
    and betrayal.
    Maybe someone isn’t who they say they are or the protagonist
    is betrayed by someone he thought he could trust. This can shake the story up
    and get it rolling again.
  • Secrets. If
    someone has a deep, dark secret that they’re forced to lie about, it’s a good
    way to stir up some fresh conflict. New lies to cover up the old ones, the
    secret being revealed, and all the resulting chaos.
  • Kill
    someone.
    Make a character death that is productive to the plot, but not “just because”. If done well, it affects
    all the characters, stirs up the story and gets it moving.
  • Ill-advised
    character actions.
    Tension is created when a character we love does
    something we hate. Identify the thing the readers don’t want to happen, then
    engineer it so it happens worse than they imagined.
  • Create cliff-hangers.
    Keep the readers’ attention by putting the characters into new problems and
    make them wait for you to write your way out of it. This challenge can really
    bring out your creativity.
  • Raise the
    stakes.
    Make the consequences of failure worse, make the journey harder.
    Suddenly the protagonist’s goal is more than he expected, or he has to make an
    important choice.
  • Make the
    hero active.
    You can’t always wait for external influences on the
    characters, sometimes you have to make the hero take actions himself. Not
    necessarily to be successful, but active
    and complicit in the narrative.
  • Different
    threat levels.
    Make the conflicts on a physical level (“I’m about to be
    killed by a demon”)
    , an emotional level (“But that demon was my true love”) and
    a philosophical level (“If I’m forced to kill my true love before they kill me,
    how can love ever succeed in the face of evil?”)
    .
  • Figure
    out an ending.
    If you know where the story is going to end, it helps get
    the ball rolling towards that end, even if it’s not the same ending that you
    actually end up writing.
  • What if?
    What if the hero kills the antagonist now, gets captured, or goes insane? When
    you write down different questions like these, the answer to how to continue the
    story will present itself.
  • Start
    fresh or skip ahead.
    Delete the last five thousand words and try again. It’s
    terrifying at first, but frees you up for a fresh start to find a proper path. Or
    you can skip the part that’s putting you on edge – forget about that fidgety
    crap, you can do it later – and write the next scene. Whatever was in-between
    will come with time.

friendly-neighborhood-patriarch:

atepa09:

facts-trump-feelings:

udunie:

seizethe-memes-ofproduction:

anachronic-cobra:

Alien: You’re telling me that in times of great distress humans have been known to suddenly gain the strength necessary to lift objects more than a dozen times their own weight?!

Human: Yeah, it’s called “hysterical strength” and it usually happens in life-or-death situations, like when someone gets stuck under a car or something and someone lifts the car to get them out. We can’t really test it though, ‘cause it only happens spontaneously.

Alien: Humans have the ability to tap into untold strength and power and you don’t even know how you do it?

Human: Pretty much, yeah. We think it has something to do with temporary analgesia, so we just don’t feel the pain we should when we pick up a 3000-pound car.

Alien: YOUR PAIN RESPONSE JUST SHUTS OFF?

Human: Yeah, it’s like an adrenaline thing? Do you not have that?

Alien: Fuck you and your entire species of tiny juggernauts.

Did this post just use a dialogue format to trick me into learning science

Had to check this out on wikipedia at least and boy was that a ride

SCIENCE!

Were puny and weak compared to most large mammals but we got several huge advantages not even counting our brains. 1) endurance. 2) incredible healing factor. 3) Hysterical Strength.

awhiffofcavendish:

saltrat88:

mikestillneedsadrink:

saltrat88:

tilthat:

TIL that door knobs made out of brass automatically disinfect themselves in about 8 hours through the oligodynamic effect

via reddit.com

Fascinating. Good post.

Silver does this also, which was probably handy for silverware before antibacterial dish soap was invented.

That’s mentioned in the article as well. They also stated that a copper or silver container can disinfect a pot of water in a few hours. im gonna add a copper vessel to my emergency provisions now. @yourunclejingo you may find this stuff interesting too.

Its almost like our ancestors did shit that made sense even if they didn’t always fully understand why.

taghashromer:

ordinaryredtail:

kittymaverick:

Can someone please tell me this was a pair that was trying to do the death spiral that mating birds of prey do, and somehow in the process they ended up stuck on a road sign.

Because if it is, this is definitely one of the funniest “Okay, maybe we WERE a little bit over our head when we started this…” moments.

I doubt it. One of these birds is a juvenile (the top) while the other is an adult (bottom). The juvenile would have no interest in mating.

Honestly when I see hawks doing stupid stuff 9/10 times its a harris hawk—this seriously just looks like one of those stupid hawks time. They are one of the only social raptors, so this leads to some funny things, like

Stacking

The harris hawk argument for stacking is “your back is less Pokey than a cactus so imma use it”

Not even falconers are safe…

They even hold hands

Please, what are you doing harris hawks, learn how to hawk