I'm sure that all of you, at some point or another, have hit that wall. Your story spans out before you, rudely tempting you with its welcoming embrace, but something just isn't jibing, and the words just aren't flowing. Maybe you have a ritual, or some lucky rabbit's foot, that allows you to bypass that obstacle and continue your story.

I'm in a bit of an odd position. I know where my story is going. Hell, I even have all the scenes I need to write (for this chapter) firmly echoing through my skull. But every sentence I try to type just seems wrong. Out of place. The words are awkward, I can't properly set the scene, so the story is sitting there in the back of my brain, festering.

Normally, I'd just get so drunk that it jostled something loose, but that's how I've written most of my story, anyway. No matter how many cans of cheap beer I imbibe, the words refuse to service the image I have in my brain.

So, do you all have something you like to do when your inner muses take a Sabbatical? Do you just wait things out and hope that your brain might wrangle the words better in the near future? Do you rend your clothing and weep at your inability to craft a worthy tale, abandoning it in the process?

What do you do when you know your story intimately enough that writing it shouldn't be a problem, but, quite annoyingly, still is?

Riding my motorcycle helps clear my mind.

I dunno, but I listen to a shit load of music and roleplay with my friends. Maybe that could help?

PERSONALLY I just go to do another hobby for a little while before writing. Then again, I personally haven't updated any of my stories in over a month, so taht's not the way to go. Jokes aside though, I read on a page of collected tweets by one of the story writers for Pixar Studios that they deal with writer's blocks by writing down what won't happen next. Hope that helps you, guess it's worth a try.
EDIT: If you want me to I can give you the link to that page.

850999

I recall you posting on my writer's block blog and recommending rum.

I'm still rather firmly blocked on Coming Back, but that's not true for pretty much anything else I'm touching at the moment. Since the block I've written about 5.5k words of a different story. I'm just gonna let CB sit for a week or two and write other stuff. Hopefully when I get back to it, my brain will have subconsciously un-knotted whatever was bothering it with the chapter and it'll flow again.

What I did was to simply stop the current project for now and write something else. It doesn't have to be anything related to what I'm writing at the moment, just something different so I can return to the block with a different mindset (hopefully).

Can't think about writing? Don't think about writing.

Have you ever tried to think of the answer to a test question, so much so that it felt like your mind just crumbled and wouldn't let any information through at all? That's what is going on here, only instead of the facts already in your head getting smothered, it's the prose of the story itself.

Go work out, take a walk, listen to some music--just don't consciously think about writing long enough to clear your head of the whole thing.

Also, don't think that just because you can't write something now, you won't be able to write something ever. You will lose a lot of good ideas if you stick to the mentality of, "If I can't chunk out an entire novel in one sitting, the story itself is not worth writing."

Write another story that has nothing to do with the subject matter you're working on. While I was writing my novel, I had a year-and-a-half stretch that put me in a writer's block. So, I wrote a few stories that went nowhere, and then got back into fanfics after a nearly a decade of not doing so. The results of that are what I have here on FimFic and it was enough to break my dry spell; as a result, I finished my novel last week.

Not saying that it's a surefire method, but sometimes just going in a different direction is just enough.

I'm in the same boat, it sucks. Especially when my fans keep nagging me and I keep saying. I don't know when the next chapter will come out. I've been sitting on this story for like 6 months now :(.

850999 I've got a few strategies.

Strategy 1: Write what you're trying to write, in a crappy way. Deliberately if need be. Then, figure out what's wrong with it, and why the scene won't work that way. Then write another version that's less crappy, figure out what's wrong with that, and so on.

Strategy 2: Failing that, just put that part of the story down and write another part. Like, say, the beginning of next chapter instead of the one you're on. Come back to the first part later, once your ideas have had a chance to stew.

Strategy 3: Exercise is a wonderful way to focus the mind. I jog, for instance.

Unless there's some emotional or physical issues going on, it's your expectations betraying you. You say yourself, "every sentence I try to type just seems wrong." You've set the bar too high and placed the ideas on an unreachable pedestal. Lower your standards and keep going. Even if it's drivel, even if it doesn't feel right, you'll have words on paper. This is more than you had before, and you can fix everything in editing. Have faith in your ability to mold and shape the end result until it matches your vision, rather than getting it right on the first try.

I do my best to prevent it -- work on other stories so my brain doesn't get bored with the current one, make sure I don't devote an entire day to writing no matter how good an idea it sounds like, put music or television shows on in the background to keep a steady stream of words flowing around me, etc.

But when it does hit, I usually give myself a full day of not writing. None allowed. Not even staring at the page.

Sometimes it's taken more than a few days for my inner wanna-write-it to break down and give me words again -- once it took a couple years -- but usually it helps me get back into things.

I write through it. Even if it's not as good as I want it to be, I write anyway. Just the act of writing itself usually gets my brain to a place where I can start producing at a level I'm happy with

850999
I know exactly how that feels. Trying to force yourself to write it isn't going to help. You should probably try to focus on writing something else. Give your mind something else to work on until you find that spark to help you write the first one.

Trust me on this. I've tried forcing myself to write things I've outline to the bone and all it leads to me resenting the story. Then I eventually delete it out of annoyance. But three little one-shots later, I've regretted what I've done because now I know how to end that scene and more on.

I'm having the same problem actually. All my latest chapters aren't getting the same effect out of my readers, and I'm not feeling that each sentence I write is... correct, per say.
I've tried everything from writing pages of ideas for everything out, doing creative things to get my mind going, leaving it for months on end and coming back to it, writing it on paper rather than typing it...
Long story short, one of my stories I cancelled because it simply just died after chapter 2 and my brain wouldn't form anything new and worth reading for the longest time.

Now I find that getting into the mood is what I always need. Getting into a mood where you feel like you could just do jumping-jacks to the moon. I listen to some music that is catchy enough for me to start moving to it while listening. While I'm moving, I start pulling out all the ideas for what I'm about to write. I forget the next chapter, the chapter before. I focus on the one on hoof and start pouring my creativity into it and give it a stir. I type it all all without giving it much of a thought, just letting all the ideas flow. Being drunk or on a sugar rush does help because it just adds to that 'spaced-out' mood of just writing whatever.

When I've finished writing I go back over and edit it not too strongly, just to touch up what makes no sense and suchie such.

Hope this can help you.

EDIT:
Also, I listen to music that relates to the story I'm working on. My story Lullaby for a Princess was going really slow and I felt myself getting into that corner that I would be unable to back out of. I opened a new chapter and turned on a fan-made song, Discord by Eurobeat Brony the Tombstone Remix, and it just breathed the personality of Discord in the story, that I was able to write again.

851012 I can't write without the comforting din of some background music, anyway. Honestly, 90% of my waking hours have me listening to some sort of music. It's just a part of my life at this point. As for role-playing, it and I are not good bed-fellows.

851014 Heh, at the time I was having a bit of trouble with a certain chapter. Sailor Jerry came to the rescue and I hacked out 10k some-odd words in a day. This time, I've taken a lethal dose of the stuff and my latest chapter still sits at 2k words, taunting me.

At this point, I'm half-tempted to just hack out the rest of the chapter, no matter how awkward it feels to me, just so I can have it done. (My story is awful, anyway, so–fingers crossed–people might not even notice!)

851019 Would you write something completely beyond your comfort zone if you knew it would help you in the long run, even if the story itself was awful?

I've got no shortage of bad story ideas in my brain, I just don't really see how putting pen to paper might solve my current predicament.

Play some vidya, especially newer stuff. When it has a tired, cliched plot twist or general bad dialogue, think of how you'd improve it. File that scene away for later on in your own work for inspiration.

Never have writers block again.

851075

Yes. During a previous dry spell I once wrote erotica just as an exercise - and I hate doing so. It showed me two things: I can't write pr0n to save my life, and that pretty much ended my dry spell.

But in all truth, yes. At least give it a shot. Sometimes it opens the floodgates, sometimes you find a new way of doing things and can come up with something different. My novel came about while I was writing a parody of the genre the novel is set in; after a while, I realized that parody didn't work and I went at it seriously.

I have a few things I try. First of all, I try to just write through it. See if it's truly a writer's block and not just difficulty getting started. That's a problem for me, getting started. Like rolling a boulder down a hill, once it goes it keeps on going, but it takes a lot of pushing to start it.

If that doesn't work, sometimes letting the story sit for a little while you do something else is a good idea, though you always want to come back before too much time passes. If too much time passes, the starting momentum becomes just that much more difficult.

Another thing, is that I often have a secondary, lighter, story that I work on at the same time as my "main" story. Partly because I have so many ideas at once. Sometimes these other ideas get in the way, so I just write them down and get it out of the way, so I can continue on.

850999
Listen to oldies song, preferably the ones in Fallout game series. Or watch porn

What about masturbation?

851110 Funnily enough, my "process" is to get a 500-1k words onto paper, then let it stew for a day or two before I hack out the rest of it all in a big rush.

I might follow the rest of your, and Shinzakura's, advice if this chapter is still bothering me a day or two from now. The result will be really, really bad, but at least it might be fun.

851120 Obviously, that was the first outlet I explored to fix my problems.

Perhaps it bears more "exploration"...

Usually when this happens to me, I take the most obvious approach: just take a day or two to stop writing, review what I have, and try and see what the best next step should be. Since I do most of my story planning at work, I'll mull a few ideas over in my head and jot down the one that feels the best. If it's a short bout of writer's block (like if I know exactly how I want the next few paragraphs to go), then I'll take baby steps, usually in the form of writing and rewriting the first sentence. Once I have a first sentence that pushes the story in the right direction (and it doesn't even have to be the sentence I use once I'm finished) the rest of the story usually works itself out.

Well, I've been told my mind is a sort of think-tank for story ideas, a breeding ground if you will, but what I normally do is actually just totally change gears. I'll space down a couple lines and just start writing, Random characters, random events, just about anything I can think of. Just sort of clear out the mental buffer, you know?

850999

To solve my writer's block, I write about someone else having writer's block. Namely, Spike. Turned it into quite a nice comedy, actually.

Work on something else until an idea to get around it comes to mind

851180

CANNOT UPVOTE THIS ENOUGH.

You win at writer's block. Forever.

Usually, I like to find whatever inspires me to have the same feeling I want the reader to feel.
Examples:
Listen to cupcakes when I want to write a horror scene.
Watch MLP:FiM when I'm having trouble assessing characterization
Watch movies- anything from Toy Story for loss and redemption to Boondock Saints for badassedry
Look up great poetry/latin sayings/quotes- a great proportion of my fic's emotions come from the works/quotes of Robert Frost, Benjamin Franklin, Mel Brooks, Virgil, Shakespeare, etc.

Basically, just go to those things that inspire you on a deep level when you contemplate them- be that Picasso, Da Vinci, Bill Cosby, Captain Morgan, or Ron Jeremy.

I don't judge... Good luck to you sir!

Listen and/or read other fic for ideas maybe even reference them.

Look up Metropolis Pt 2: Scenes from a Memory. The whole album is like, one song and my bro, who also writes here but he's more into it than me, listens to it all. It's a whole big story and I'm about to look up the synopsis of the album story.

I will usually have more than one project going at once and if I do hit a wall i take a break. i'll put on some music and play videogames. the writing elements within games are rather inspiring and it helps to read or see other writing related things and how those work.

I'll either rewrite things, brainstorm, or go through and search for plot-holes and such, improve the quality of what I've got.

Or a combination of the above.

850999

Punching babies, mostly.

In reality? Well, you're about to laugh when I say this.

I write cheap smut. Not bad smut, if I say so myself, but I'm not charging a fee to take a gander at what I produce on the forums and venues in which I show it. Not here, of course. I'm not much in to clopping (writing it myself, though tastefully written by others is fine by me), with most of my ideas for full pony characters involving a fade to black, but some day in the future that may change if fans demand it (note to self, acquire fans). Some of the stuff I write is posted to a website in which I visit for that express purpose, other pieces are given to a friend of mine to look over, but no matter what -- I don't give a damn about editing or comfort zones. I take requests, even. Watersports? I'll never RP that shit, but -- I guess. Futa? Knew a she-male in Oklahoma (not like that, minds out of the gutter folks). I literally just write cheap smut. It's sort of like a story I read (title escapes me, of Rainbow Dash reaching 30 y/o; a damn fine read) where Rarity explains how making suits helped her make dresses.

Is it what I have planned for my stories here? Heavens no (spoiler alert: an Applejack/HiE romance won't even end with a kiss, or even an "I luv' you!"). Is it what I normally spend my time \writing? Jesus and Peter, no! But does it help? Why, it helped me re-imagine a story of mine that was originally a humanized "Princess Celestia x OC" in to a humanized "Princess Nottelling* x OC". OC didn't change really, but the aforementioned royalty and general plot did.

It wasn't so much inspired by what I had written as far as content (the Princess in question doesn't strike me as too much of a fan of some of the things featured in my most recent smutty smuttiness.) but it did inspire me because it gave me a sort of -- break, if you will. I was able to sit back, breath easy, and I came back looking at everything in a new light/from a new angle.

* = You just got punk'd!

. . . anybody else remember that excuse for occupied air time?

And that was another wall of text from your favorite neighborhood YST.

Listen to music, play games, role play, or walk around a lot.

I like walking. Walking with my legs.

Hi there! I just joined this site about just a week ago because I had to write something for Pwaamlpfim. I thought I could do it, and that writing stories is not such a big deal, but it is. I seem to have a hard time thinking of vocabulary, and I don't want to stand on a baby's level. Usually when I do have the inspiration to write some more before utterly giving up, and I have a positive mind. I laugh, and smile. I once read that "You shouldn't do something because you have to, you should do something because you love to." It might be a little hard at first, but passion can change that. ^_^x
Try encouraging yourself, instead of drinking. Look at your weak points, and make them stronger. Mistakes, after all, are here to teach us something imperative in life. Look at the bright side of things. Are you bad at ideas? Do something creative, and fun! Don't really know how to start? Read other people's. Take inspiration from individual authors. Don't really think you can do it? Because if you believe so, you won't be able to make your journey. Try saying to yourself that you're not a has been, you're a will be! Oh, and, the journey to success starts with the first step of the five thousand steps. Have a clear mind about it, and what you want to do. Most of us have been there, and that's just a choice of moving forward.. Hope I helped. Take care, have a nice day. Ciao! ^_^x

There are many possible approaches to this particular problem. One, which I am currently using, is telling someone else how to get around writer's block.
I think the best solution when it is the type where nothing looks good enough, is to not delete anything you write. Just keep writing the scene regardless of how bad it seems to you, and then when it's done you can let it sit for a while before you go back and edit it. Even if you have to change the entire scene at that point, that's fine. At least you wrote it, and that's the most important thing. Drinking makes it easier to do this, because it lowers your inhibitions and you're less likely to think that a sentence or paragraph is absolutely terrible.
Also, I never have only one story I'm working on at a time, so if I get stuck on one, I go work on a different one. Or read something, possibly related to what I'm writing, possibly not.
There's also games, movies, porn, whatever it takes to get your mind off of it for a while so you can get back to it with a fresh perspective. Playing something that's not too mentally intensive like Minecraft can be especially helpful, because while you're digitally performing menial labor, you're thinking about your story and what you want to write next.

I believe that the mind needs a rest every now and then. Simply take yourself away from the project. Perhaps go for a walk, a ride; whatever takes your fancy. And once you are fresh and clear of mind you shall have more ideas you never even knew you had. For whilst you're out on this walk some nice ideas shall explode, emerge and arise in the space behind you eyes,

Well this is my suggestion and I hope it finds you well.

Well... I usually play the video game I'm doing a crossover with, or watch some MLP episodes. That can spin the cogs for me.

One that hasn't been suggested yet--kill them. Write an alternate chapter where your characters die horribly.

Failing that, I find that writing anything, even if it is crap, helps. Always easier to fix in post.

Well, I'd say the only thing you can do now is sacrifice 300 goats to the glory of the underlords, but then the nice men in the white coats will start giving me those funny-tasting pills again.

851698 Wait, don't drink? Are you...are you mad?!

And encouraging myself might make me start to think my story isn't the vilely viscous vomitorium of bloated language, fluff, and Mary Sue-ness that I'm inflicting upon this world as an act of pure malevolence–that just wouldn't do for anyone, I'm afraid.

I did, however, fix the issue, so I'll offer my own input to anyone suffering the same trouble. Writing another story entirely seemed a bit too drastic; made me feel like I might lose the tenuous thread of the one I'm writing now. Instead I tried something a bit milder. Instead of writing out the section in question like I had painstakingly (read: barely) planned out, I switched channels and wrote it from another character's (or rather characters') perspective. I invoked...the CMC. (May God have mercy on my soul.) So, if you're having trouble, try thinking about the way other characters in your tale might view a particular situation. If worse comes to worst, Cutie Mark Crusader Alien Hunters is up for fair use.

Thanks again for all the suggestions, everyone. Hopefully we all got something from this thread.

852689

I won't get my innocence back, you monster!

Skateboard, then hit up the Nightmare Fuel page on TV Tropes.