Have you tried brainstorming about your main character? This is an exercise I teach in writing workshops and it seems to help get writers out of a rut. Basically, write down your main character\u2019s first name and last name on a piece of paper. Do the same with a secondary character (could be someone they\u2019re in conflict with). Then consider the following:<\/p>\n
nickname? if yes, why? if not, why not?
\nwhat does this person love?
\nwhat do they want?
\nwhat bad habit do they have?
\nwhat do they eat for breakfast?
\nwhat kind of underwear to they wear?
\nwhere do they sleep?
\nwhat\u2019s their job?
\nis there something everyone around knows them for?<\/p>\n
etc etc<\/p>\n
Another idea is to get a job application form and try and fill it out for your characters. What all this does is expand your thoughts about your characters and think about them in a different way. Midway through the brainstorming your mind will explode with revelations. When that happens, think about how these two character confront each other, and then write that scene.<\/p>\n
Remember that you don\u2019t have to write your book in a linear way. You can start any place. Do this scene, and then write what comes before and comes after and eventually you\u2019ll catch up to what you\u2019ve already got.<\/p>\n
I like to take my characters through a typical 24 hour day. Much of that ends in the trash heap, but again, doing this gives you revelations.<\/p>\n
Also, think about your setting in a minute way. What the floor looks like. Are there bugs? What are the smells, touches.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Have you tried brainstorming about your main character? This is an exercise I teach in writing workshops and it seems to help get writers out of a rut. Basically, write down your main character\u2019s first name and last name on a piece of paper. Do the same with a secondary character (could be someone they\u2019re … Continue reading “Are You in a Writing Rut?”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":20,"menu_order":14,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-3009","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calla.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3009","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calla.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calla.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calla.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calla.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3009"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.calla.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3009\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3010,"href":"https:\/\/www.calla.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3009\/revisions\/3010"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.calla.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/20"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.calla.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}