Writer's block

Like dyslexia, this is something of a modern myth; the idea that one moment you're sitting there merrily thumping your keyboard or happily scribbling away on a sheet of paper, and then—KAPOW!—some mystical force explodes in the middle of your head and all that wonderful prose grinds to a halt right in the middle of a sentence.

I've heard people describe it that way. It's as if they were cruising down the fast lane of the literary highway, minding their own business, and unexpectedly ran smack into a fifty thousand word pile up.

Honestly, Officer, there was nowhere to swerve. It all just ... just ... just happened around me ...

But usually, this fabled writers block creeps up more stealthily over a period of weeks or months. The first you know of it is when you're X thousand words into that great British/American/Russian novel, chain smoking and knocking back the bourbon/vodka and vaguely contemplating suicide or something, and then you notice from the corner of your mind that the world has slowed down. No, it's worse than that. It's barely moving out there.

You check your watch to make sure and notice that over the past two hours and twenty minutes you've written—what?—six and a half words.

Remember to get milk, coffee and biscu-

Sheez.

Your usual output is at least 250 words per day which, okay, is just half of what you were managing last week, which (come to think of it) is about half of what you were averaging the week before. But there's no mistake about today's numbers.

Six and a half words.

It's depressing and frustrating. You're busting with ideas and great lines, but nothing's coming out of the fingertips.

So you struggle on for a few more days hoping that it's nothing but a glitch in the program, and then you're not even looking at your watch anymore. You're staring at a piece of paper that's been yellowing and curling in the typewriter, or turning glassy eyed at an onscreen video game that you were hardly aware you were playing.

That's when you tell yourself that you're blocked. Officially blocked, that is. However, you feel a gush of relief at this point because you've at least found the cause of that puzzling cloud of misery that's been hovering overhead of late. You can now intellectualise the symptom, and now you've got a name to go with it.

Blocked.

That's exactly what you're going to tell your friends down at your local reading group when they ask where your manuscript's at this week and how come you haven't been reading any of it lately. You can tell them that you're blocked. It's official. You've sent out for the literary plumber to come and do some urgent unblocking, only he's busy and will be around when he gets around.

Everyone nods. Been there, done it. Etc. So you might as well get on and do something else for bit while you're waiting. Only you can't do something else because, blocked or not, you're fixated on finishing the book.

There's a lot riding on it, after all. Money perhaps. Or ego. Or a combination of both. Only, I'm not convinced that there really is such a thing as writer's block; certainly not in the way that writers like to think of it.

The myth of writer's block

Writer's block isn't a disease. It's not a condition. It's not some weird phenomenon that happens upon you. Writer's block is simply what you're faced with when you have nothing to say—just as dyslexia is, in the main, just an excuse for illiteracy.

Some people simply can't read, and will probably never learn to read—at least, at least not unless they're at the point of a shotgun. We've got it into our heads that everyone ought to be able to read; as if reading is a fundamental element of life like fire and earth and rain. But you might as well claim that playing the violin is a fundamental element and invent a condition to explain why most of the population can't get to grips with that.

Some people simply have an underdeveloped reading gene. They're not stupid. They're not incapable. They're just different. Illiterate, if you like. But here in the West being illiterate is a stigma, so we invent mechanisms to de-stigmatise ourselves.

I'm not illiterate, I'm diswotsit.

Writers block is another such mechanism designed to de-stigmatise ourselves of the inability to write. We describe ourselves as writers and demand of ourselves that we can do it whenever we choose. For ordinary, run-of-the-mill writing (receipts, poison pen letters, news stories) most of us can pretty much knuckle down and spew forth pages of words.

Writing a novel

But writing a novel is different. It requires that you actually have a story to tell; a story that comes not from the world at large, but from the world within. And creating that world, let alone holding it together, is tremendously hard. But it's a whole lot harder when the plot and devices and characters within that world are unformed, or badly formed.

That's when you get "blocked"; when you haven't really got a story. I've been there many times, struggling for months with characters and ideas that just won't pour. My hero does this. My hero does that. My hero has on numerous occasions stopped in the middle of the page and thrown his hands up in despair  asking; So which way do you want to go now?

Answer; Straight in the bin.

And I've started again. And again. And again until the "block" was so big that there was no way around it. Writers talk a lot about ploys to get around this blockness. Some of them actually work too, up to a point. You've written your hero into a corner, seemingly with no escape, and then you invent an overhead window that he climbs through onto the next page. And if you're a gifted, shrewd and resourceful writer, you can go on for many more chapters giving your characters an easy way out.

But that doesn't alter the fact that the story is sometimes just plain wrong. It might be the plot. It might be the dialogue. It might be the characters. Or the theme. Or anything. But my guess is that it's more fundamental than that. My guess is that "blockness" comes primarily from trying to force yourself into a genre or style that just isn't you.

You want to be a thriller writer because you're a big Lee Child fan. Or you want to be a crime writer because you've just read a Ruth Rendell novel. Or Dick Francis. Or Dan Brown. Or Martina Cole. But the books you like to read aren't necessarily the books you can write. Often, the books you can write, the books you ought to be writing, are something very different.

The problem arises largely because we try to categorise everything in terms of genre. These days, in the commercial world you have to fit an established genre. You have to be a fantasy writer, or a mystery writer, or romance writer. And these genres have very real and often very subtle and constrictive demands.

Creative writing straightjackets

Heroes have to be strong, but fallible. Super sleuths have to have a sidekick who's a bit of a buffoon (great word that). FBI agents hunting serial killers have to have other agendas or some personal issue or demon to wrestle with. If you try and write the novel that you (deep down) want to write, you'll often come up again a brick wall of rejection that tries to force you back onto the tracks of convention.

Make your hero more vulnerable.

Finish your novel with a great denouement.

Make the novel bigger.

Start with a bang.

Do this.

Do that.

Go there.

Sit down.

Shut up.

Be published.

I've had these kind of comments come back time and time again, usually from agents who want to herd you into the same corral with all the other struggling literary cattle.

It's no wonder that so many writers are "blocked". It more a case of being tied in a straightjacket and told to scratch your nether end—and only a few hardened literary escapologists are going to manage that trick.

Which isn't to say that there really aren't moments when your creativity silts up, just as there probably really are some people who are word-blind and therefore genuinely dyslexic. In creative writing, there are always periods when things slow down or stop. But that's not the same as being "blocked"; not in the way some writers mean it; writers who all but carry around a certificate of "blockedness" almost as if it was something to be proud of.

Hey, what's new man?

I'm blocked.

Really? Cool.

The point of all this? That's simple. Sometimes you just have nothing to say, so stop trying to say it. Just back off and build a boat or something. Take off your writer's hat. Do something new. Something different. Something challenging.

Then, when the moment is right (or is that write?), create a new character, go back to the keyboard and mine a new seam of fiction.

Here are a few practical tips on staying creative

1. Read books by your favourite author. It doesn't matter if you've already read these books, read them again. And study them. Find great passages and keep them uppermost.

2. Tidy your work area. Better still, tidy the house and/or garage. These mental ploys are a great way of refreshing your mind and outlook. When you're at a creative low ebb, you need to re-fire your motor.

3. Remind yourself of your goals. If you want to make some money, or simply see your name in print, remind yourself that that's where you're aiming. It's easy to lose track of the fact that you're not simply churning out words for no reason. Remind yourself that you're going somewhere and that your creativity is the ticket.

4. Try writing in a new location. Take your laptop, or just a notebook, and find a spot that inspires you. It doesn't matter if it's in the city or the country, or inside a church or a factory. See my Inspire me! page for more on this.

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Creative writing

● Writing tips

● Plotting a novel

● Finding a literary agent

● Choosing a literary agent

● Agent query letters

● Inspiration for writers

● Rejection letters

● Manuscript critique

● 5 minute fiction fix

● Proof reading

● Writer's block

● Creative writing school

● How to get published

● Active & passive voice

Sample writing

Like to read a few examples of my style of writing? Check out the links below. If you like what you read, and have a manuscript of your own that needs a little help, email me. I'll do what I can.

Sample 1

Dirty Business

Murder and mayhem following an industrial pollution cover-up.

Sample 2

Cruising

A light hearted tale about a holiday venture, with a difference.

Sample 3

Exit Point

An aviator becomes embroiled in a terrorist murder plot.

Sample 4

The Grace of God

A tale of blackmail following a hit-and-run incident.

Sample 5

Exclusion Zone

A middle-aged man takes a couple of suitcase bombs onto a London underground train.

Special features

Darley Anderson, top UK literary agent, on books,
publishing and success

Zoë Sharp, creator of the action-packed Charlie Fox series of books

Jeff Kleinman, New York literary agent, talks shop

Crème de la Crime:

An interview with

Lynne Patrick,

publisher and managing editor of a smaller—but

essential—British

publishing house.

Click the image above

to see more excerpts from
my novels. All feedback,  whether good, bad or indifferent, is welcomed and appreciated.

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