Start with the End in Mind
Writer’s block is a pain and it happens to most writers. One way to overcome it is to keep a vision of where your work is going.
The muse shows itself in different ways to different writers. For some, a piece of writing comes as a fully formed creation, but for most writers it comes as partial vision: a character, or a plot point, or a point to be made.
Sometimes the muse is elusive and only shows shadows of the finished piece and its up to the writer to fill in the vague or missing pieces. This is where a lot of writer’s block occurs. One solution to attacking this kind of writer’s block is to move away from the trees to see the forest as a whole- less bark, more landscape.
In many cases, a writer will need to provide the following four pieces for a publisher or an editor, so why not focus on these so they help you, the writer, as you write?
The four pieces are the Synopsis, the Description, the Outline and the Timeline (the Timeline is more for a fictional, biographical or historical piece).
The Four Pieces
Synopsis
A synopsis for this purpose is a one sentence (two at the most) overview of what the piece you are writing is about. Imagine running into a friend in an elevator and they ask what you are working on. You only have a few seconds to tell them, but you want it to be interesting and to pique their interest.
For your use, the synopsis should include the genre of your piece and who your audience is whether or not they are part of your final synopsis.
Description
So, you get to the lobby and your friend says, “tell me more”. The description is one paragraph for short pieces and up to three paragraphs (four at the most) for novels and full-length non-fiction books. You want to further interest your friend, but you don’t want to give it all away or overstay your welcome. They want to know what it’s about. They don’t want you to tell them the whole story.
If you’re not sure what a description looks like, go to Amazon. There is a description under to book pricing options.
If you plan to approach a publisher, or even if you want to self-publish, you will need the synopsis and description.
Outline
Whether fiction or non-fiction, short piece or long, it’s a good idea to have an outline, and the more complex the piece you are writing, the more necessary this is.
Timeline
Not every piece of writing needs a timeline, but if your final piece is not written in a direct chronological order, this will help you keep track of the order of things. You don’t want to have an effect before the cause of that effect, and I have seen this happen when dealing with multiple characters, locations or flashbacks. This will help make sure that characters and situations evolve for the reader as you meant them to, and not in a way that is confusing or absurd.
A straight chronological timeline is especially important for you to have and refer to if you are using flashbacks or multiple threads of storytelling, or if your non-fictional piece relies on when things happened.
You don’t have to write the final piece in chronological order, but you want to be sure that each event stays true to your timeline and it’s clear to the reader where they are in that timeline.
Helping Writer’s Block
The added advantage of having these pieces is to tease your muse when your writing slows down or stops (the dreaded writer’s block). Sometimes just reading them over before retiring can jumpstart the muse into picking up a thread or line of writing. Your brain likes completion and reminding it where you want to go sometimes spurs it into filling in the missing pieces.
Reading these four pieces may remind you of a subplot, theme, character or aside that you want to include, and you can take a break to write that smaller piece until the muse refires on the main. Writing that smaller section may actually weave itself back into the larger piece.
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