Writer’s Block. Even the mere mention of it is enough to send shivers down the most experienced playwright’s spine. It sneaks up on you – halfway through a scene and then BAM, you’re as lost as a tourist airdropped in the middle of the Australian outback with no compass and half a bottle of water. But writer’s block doesn’t have to be a death sentence – look at it as an opportunity to come at your play from a new angle. Here are some tips you might find help you figure out how to get back on track!
- Go for a walk. Staring at a computer screen or a blank page can be super-daunting. If you zone out while typing, it’s really tempting to go on the internet in search of inspiration, but sometimes all that happens if you do that is three hours later you realize you haven’t written anything. If you’re the kind of person who likes to compose your plays in your head before you put pen to paper, getting up and walking around can give you a much-needed break to put two and two together and get the creative juices flowing again.
- Explain your play to someone. Sometimes when you’re alone inside your head, it’s easy to lose track of the bigger picture you’re trying to paint. If you’re having trouble figuring out how to get from point A to point B, or even what point B is, talking through the plot of your play with a friend can be helpful to hammer out details. This can also give you an opportunity to really think about why your characters act the way they act – having to explain their motivations to someone who doesn’t know them as well as you do is a great way to discover where you haven’t been clear enough or may have overlooked something important.
- Give your characters space to talk. Sometimes throwing your characters right into the action without thinking about their relationships with each other or their personalities can make them clam up. For example, if you have trouble immediately writing two classmates in a burning building, it may be helpful to warm up by writing about how they interact in detention, or during PE. How do your characters interact with each other when you give them the chance to talk about anything they want? Exploring how your characters respond to a variety of situations might give you ideas about how you want them to interact in the action of your play, or might even inspire you to take your play in another direction!
- Jump to another scene. There’s no rule that says plays have to be written in chronological order. If you’re having trouble with one scene in particular but have a clear idea of what you want to do in a later scene, skip ahead to the parts of your play that you feel inspired to work on. The scene you left behind will wait for you to come back to it. You might even make a discovery by jumping ahead that clears up your writer’s block!
- Attend your characters’ ten year reunion. If you’re having trouble figuring out where or how your play ends, imagine you are at your characters’ ten year reunion. Not necessarily a high school reunion, just a reunion. What are their lives like ten years after the events of your play? What are their jobs? Who’s gotten married? Who’s died? How do they feel about the things that happened to them ten years ago? Sometimes looking back on events from a point in the future can help you get a clearer idea of what you want those events to be and what kind of emotional place you want your characters to end the play at.
- Don’t force it. If you’re working on a scene and start to get the sense that you are pushing against what your characters want to do in the name of sticking to a rigid plot – stop. Trust your instincts and let the story of your play reveal itself to you. If you are trying to make a character exit a scene you think has gone on too long and can’t make it sound right, let the character stay and talk – they might see their way out on their own in another two pages. This also works in the other direction – if you are trying to drag a scene out longer but all your characters want to do is leave, then let them leave. Let the play grow organically instead of trying to prune it into a bonsai tree. It will be as long or as short as it is meant to be.
Any time you find yourself repeatedly hitting the wall in your writing, take it not as a sign to give up but as a sign to look for another way into the play. Writer’s Block is best defeated with a little bit of creative thinking – you can outsmart it. So, next time you catch yourself falling into a rut, try one of the above tips! They might just help you get past the trouble spot and back on track.
