I feel the ice is slowly melting

This morning I had a bit of writer’s block.  Over the weekend, I was working on a key scene, and I was just red hot– writing as fast as I could.  But once the scene was finished, I cooled down until my pace became almost glacial.

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So I did a couple of things.  First, I went back to my world book and worked on fleshing out a couple of important characters, a brother and sister.   This didn’t produce new pages for the novel, but it did warm up my brain again.
This afternoon, as I listened to a podcast on plot and character, I realized why.  The authors on the podcast talked about whether their own work was plot-driven or character-driven.  All of them agreed that both were important, and that they wanted their works to have exciting plots AND characters.  But they started in different places.
I think every author starts with one of the basic building blocks of a story– plot, character, setting, and maybe conflict– and lets their work grow from there.  Some people love to world-build; I would call that a fascination with setting.  Some people see cool action sequences in their head; that sounds like they’re starting with plot.
Me, I start with characters.  I think about who they are, where they came from, and where they want to go. That helps me build my setting and my plot.   So when I don’t know what else to do, I try to flesh out my characters.  As I do, inspiration will strike and scenes will start to pop into my head.  When it’s working well, I hear dialogue in my mind and just have to write it down.
This is why I’m often stuck when I finish a scene.  I don’t have a storyline all set in my head.  But that’s okay.  I don’t have to sit and outline plot– that’s boring to me.  That’s going to make my brain freeze.  Instead, I can use my characters to help me discover what happens next.
As authors, we need to figure out what fuels our creative fire, so we know what to do when it burns out.

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