Writing Advice: Writing Through (or Around) Sticky Situations

When writing, I feel like the first three-quarters of my job is just setting up a situation to be as sticky as possible. The last quarter is getting the situation unstuck in a satisfying way.

While working my most recent project, I hit a spot in the story where I got stuck. Stopped in my tracks, nowhere to turn, back against the wall, stuck. And I stayed stuck for literally years. I loved my story, I knew my characters were where they needed to be, but I had no idea how they were going to get out of their sticky situation.

Finally, out of pure frustration, I started writing around my problem. I had my characters go do other, unrelated things. I let them talk about the problem with each other. I let them get as frustrated as I was.

I knew that the majority these scenes wouldn't make it into the final cut (though a few snippets sneaked their way in). I was clearly wasting time and clearly ignoring the looming plot problem, but it felt good to be writing and it felt good to give my characters room to roam. Then, one day, BAM. Of course. Problem solved.

I knew who was going to live and die, I knew how, and I knew what had to happen to get out of the sticky situation. Writing that last bit came very easily after that.

So, that is one bit of writerly advice for getting unstuck and (perhaps) beating writer's block (which, by the way, are two different things). It worked for me, so maybe it will work for you!

What do you do when you get stuck or have a seemingly unsolvable problem in your writing?