I started playing around with a new novel idea lately. It’s very exciting – a new project is always exciting – and I’ve been having great fun playing around and planning. One of the great things about creating my own workbooks and writing planners is that I get to use all of them as much as I want (and of course if you buy them you can use them as many times as you want as well!).
But then I decided I was going to start writing the actual novel. I was ready for chapter one! Opened a new Word document…
Crickets.
All of my passion and excitement withered away. It was like a brick wall had descended between me and my muse. A moat, too. Maybe even a portcullis.
Ngl, I was mad about it. What the heck had happened? I still loved my idea and I wanted to get to know the characters, explore the world. Yet not a single word was forthcoming.
Do you ever get like this? It’s not just new stories. Just as often, it happens when you get to a tricky part of the story you’re working on, or where you don’t know the way ahead. You can try helicoptering (‘travelling’ to write a different part of the story instead) or journalling about writing to see if you can tease out the problem.
What I did this time was more fun: I wrote fanfic of my own story.
I took my favourite character and put him in therapy. Literally! I wrote a scene in a therapist’s office where he had to talk about the situation he was in (and he’s not a fan of talking about feelings or situations or, y’know, in general). It was so helpful to get to know him better – his motivations, the way he speaks; how much he hides, how much he is willing to open up when pressed.
Because this was a new character it was an especially useful exercise, but it can be helpful for any character that you’re having trouble writing. If they don’t seem to want to do a certain thing that the plot requires them to do, try writing a scene where they talk to someone about it and maybe they’ll tell them (and therefore you) what the problem is.
There are tons of other ways you can play with this idea. One of my main goals – for you and for me – is making writing fun, and writing fanfic of your story is just that. If you’re feeling frustrated with your novel or struggling with writer’s block, working on something completely inconsequential can help get past that. You’re never going to post this anywhere, you can delete it if you want to. There’s no stress and no expectations. Don’t worry about the quality of the writing, and there’s no need to come up with a plot since this is a writing exercise. It’s 100% just for fun – with a side benefit of getting to know your characters or your world better.
You can even bring another fandom into the mix. Write your characters into the Star Trek universe – or conversely, put Jean-Luc Picard in your world. Make your main character besties with Sabrina the Teenage Witch. Give magic powers to your noir detective and drop them into Middle Earth. Have your Regency heroine go on a date with Jack Reacher. Explore how they would respond to these unusual situations, how they would react with the other characters around them, what they would do in a completely different environment. It’s almost like stress-testing them.
Play with writing. Have fun, take the pressure off, and you just might find your muse.