A Walk Round The (Writer’s) Block

If you’re a writer, at some time you’ve been stuck (if not, I’m green with envy).  Flat as a pancake, stuck in the mud, brain so mushy that if you dyed it green and stuck it in a tin, it would pass for peas. Caught up in cliches. You get the idea.

We all know – don’t we? – that WB isn’t a strange incurable disease. You’re just stuck; feeling unusually uninspired.  Short of new ideas, unsure how to start or end – or wondering where to go next. How does Matilda Mudbottom get to America? What clue leads Patrick Pritstick to the old vault under the church? Perhaps your plot’s got more holes than a teenage boy’s socks. The internet’s full of ideas to help, but not all ideas work for everyone, all the time. So the more the merrier, I say – here’s mine. Which, like all good ideas, engenders lots of others.

You take the opening line of one novel and the last line of another. Then ask yourself – how could I get from here to there?
Of course, there’s lots of variations. You could:

  • use the idea above – but use lines from the same book
  • if the first try doesn’t work, swap the books round and use the first line from your ‘last line’ book, etc.
  • use a last line as your first line – or vice versa
  • try the same idea with chapter beginnings and ends
  • look at chapter titles and imagine what chapter you would write for that title – or make it the title of your short story or novel instead
  • or if you’re a non-fiction writer (or writing hussy like me, who writes both!) you could challenge yourself to write an article from a chapter title.

And of course once you get going, you can change those lines and titles as much as you want.

Just in case you are suffering from the dreaded WB right now, here’s your starter for ten. I have beside me Sebastian Faulks Human Traces  and Kate Mosse Crucifix Lane…

Faulks starter (shortened!): An evening mist, salted by the western sea, was gathering on the low hills.

Mist, eh? Will someone get lost in it? Is it normal mist or a supernatural phenomenon? Who could be out on those hills? Or in the sea?

Mosse finisher:  Annie took it. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I’ve come home.’

What did she take? Who is she talking to? Where’s home? Perhaps she was lost out on those hills, in the mist devised by Mr.Faulks…and just for variety, we’ll try it the other way round.

Mosse starter: Five o’clock. A wet and grey London morning.

Somebody’s up early…

Faulks finisher: …the last vestiges of her presence were washed away, the earth closing over as though no one had passed by.

Who is she? Vestiges – footprints or something else? Are we on a beach or in a flood…

Go on then – off you go and WRITE. 🙂

Old MacDonald Day

On Friday there was a meeting – not of minds, but of both my jobs. We took our preschoolers for a session at ‘big school’, where I also work. It was Old MacDonald Day so everyone dutifully dressed in jeans, boots and checked shirts!

Even though it’s only a few  minutes walk from one to the other, we were drowned by the time we got there. Of all the days for the heavens to decide to open with a whoosh! But the children had a lovely time – they made animal masks, went on a farm animal treasure hunt in the hall, dressed up as animals, made funky horse masks, coloured in farm pictures, and of course they played with the toy farm as well. Oh, and sang Old MacDonald whilst learning the Makaton symbols for the animals. Lots of enthusiasm!

In a rare moment of relaxation (although it kind of crossed over to writing work as well) I finished the Writer’s Tale 2: The Final Chapter by Russell T Davis and Benjamin Cook. Great entertainment, lots of laughs, a behind the scenes look at Dr.Who and an insight into Russell’s writing – who could ask for more?

Personally I think he served an OBE just for the book, never mind ‘services to drama’! Reading it was like sitting ion the midst of a cosy chat – it’s all emails, save for the ocassional text message, so it really feels like you’ve just pulled up a chair…
The downside is, I had that really bereft feeling you get when you come out of a ‘book world’ you’ve been so comfy in.

Never mind. Thanks to my lovely husband, supplier of all things Christmas-booky, I have already betrayed the memory of Russell and Benjamin, and floated into Mr.Fry’s Chronicles. Armchair, anyone?

I have a horribly busy week ahead, and the playscript is still not finished. But I’ve made progress today, and the back is feeling a bit better. So there’s hope for me yet!

Steve is back!

If you were mourning Steve, fear not. He has returned!

Having listened to Jane Rogers talking about film adaption – and thinking back to the minimal dialogue approach discussed by Mark Ravenhill – I completely redrafted the beginning of my play, getting rid of a whole clunky bundle of exposition by dramatising a small scene in the main character’s past. It really helps with the set-up and feels far better.

I must be turning into Russell T Davies, because until I was fairly happy with the start, I couldn’t concentrate on  the rest.

Hopefully now I can get on and write the Steve scene – his dialogue can now be succint and important. Although I should warn you, I may go back to calling him Pete, as he was in the original story!

I’m part way through Linda Seger’s excellent Making A Good Script  Great, and just got her The Art of Adaptation: Turning Fact and Fiction into Film. Which means I have no excuse to turn in a bad assignment. Oh no!