Stuck On A Scene? Write Your Way Out!

Stuck? We’ve all been there.

The scene isn’t working and you know it. You are stuck on a scene and seeking a way out.

You may know what needs to occur (like I did this week) but hate the way you executed it. Or you may have no idea what it is wrong.

I took an entire scene out of my WIP which I am about to send off to my editor, and I have to wonder what he will think. It was a great scene and showed character development and relationship and all that, but it wasn’t necessary. If you had asked me anytime before this draft I would have said it was staying put. But nope, at least not until I hear back from my editor with his take on it.

You can always try throwing the scene out.

If that doesn’t work, because, well, you actually need certain thing to occur at that point, rewrite it.

It is that simple.

Just stop trying to fix it within what you have already written and write it from scratch.

That was how I approached it this week and I think it worked rather well. I had grown as a writer since I originally wrote that scene. My characters had grown and deepened and they deserved that depth in this moment.

So knowing the events that had just occurred and the ones that needed to occur I started that scene from scratch. No longer stuck I found a great new scene unfolding with all the elements I needed and the depth I desired.

How’s that for getting unstuck? Don’t give up just do what Alexander Hamilton did, and write your way out.

It worked for my dad too. He wrote his characters out of jams all the time! He wasn’t in a jam, however, just the character. Come to think of it…that is another way to look at it. Write your character out of the difficulty…Might be digressing, but there you are. It is late at night, I am in Colorado and it is time for me to sign off.

Until next time…

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