Pat Dobie Getting Unstuck: Strategies for Writing Fiction

Pat Dobie Getting Unstuck: Three Strategies for Writing Fiction

If you’ve ever been stuck on a story or a novel, or don’t even know where to start, here are three strategies that will help move your fiction from your imagination to the page.

Start with Character. Plot might seem to be the most important thing in a story, but consider this: what if the protagonist is only four years old? Now even a very simple plot is interesting, because the four-year-old has built-in vulnerabilities. Suddenly you have a story that is already halfway to the page. The core of every compelling tale comes from its characters’ strengths, weaknesses, and goals.

From Character, Create Plot. Plot is how the story is told: what scenes, in what order, from whose point of view. Develop your plot by making the protagonist try to get what they want or prevent what they fear, encountering obstacles and conflict that, in the end, force them to transform.

Take index cards or open a document and write a sentence for each scene you already know must be written. Sort them into the story’s beginning, middle, and end. If you have only one scene in mind, then use your characters’ goals and obstacles to brainstorm additional events. What is the worst thing that could happen to your protagonist? Make them fight to solve their problems. Conflict and tension, whether internal or external, force readers to turn the page.

Build a Scaffolding. Give the story an arbitrary scaffolding ,such as a certain number of scenes or chapters. For short stories, contest guidelines can be a good starting point—use submission deadlines and word limits to get yourself rolling. For novels, keep in mind that a reasonable goal for a first novel, depending on genre, is around 75,000 words in (say) thirty chapters. The scaffolding will change as your novel develops, but that’s fine. The point is to have a shape in mind so you can find a place to start.

These three strategies have consistently helped me go from a story’s first glimmer to a completed draft. Try them and see what happens!

Pat Dobie is a writer and professional editor who works with writers from all over the world. She’s the author of Fiction Editing: A Writer’s Roadmap and the novella Pawn to Queen, and her recent fiction has been shortlisted by the Historical Novel Society and the International 3-Day Novel contest. She teaches writing, coaches serious writers one-on-one, and blogs at awritersroadmap.com