help! MAJOR WRITERS BLOCK?
ok so i have serious writer’s block right now but maybe you can help
ideas would be helpful…
ok i want to do a fantasy story but i want to put a twist in it: that the heroes think they’re good but really the “villain” is the good one and their really evil and they only find out at the end
and also i want to do it in a world i made up where people are each accompanied by a guardian angel (if the human dies the angel dies but if the angel dies the human doesn;t)
but i’m so stuck for plot ideas cuz i have major writers block…
i think i might also want to put a faerie in there too somewhere…
please help…also ideas on getting over this crazy block would help too.. thanks!
- lone wolf
Tags: Faerie, Fantasy Story, Guardian Angel, Heroes, Plot Ideas, Villain, Writer S Block, Writer's Block
December 7th, 2008 at 5:38 pm
rebel try using the force
December 8th, 2008 at 1:41 am
This is the method I teach to students
1) Put the book aside and read – at least two books – Classics. Preferably in your chosen genre.
2) Brainstorm on paper – anything no matter how silly it sounds. Fill a notebook with ideas if you want – just come up with lots.
3) Write the ideas on file cards one per card. Sit down at a table and start shuffling them around trying to create a story from them. Keep moving them – dont be afraid for it to sound silly.
4) Make an outline from those cards when you find something interesting.
5) Try to write a very very short story from that outline. Then write several more very very short stories from the cards. See which one lends itself to a longer work
6) Start doing character studies and analysis – back to the file cards. Write down anything you know about your characters – adjectives, habits, appearance, likes and dislikes, occupation, age, anything. Look in magazines and catalogs and cut out pics that resemble the character as you see them in your mind.
7) Back to the table. Start pushing the character cards around – see who rubs who and how — Who likes who? Who hates who? Main character to main character – then main character to secondary character – then secondary character to secondary character. This will help you come up with subplots
Back to your outline. Plug in the subplots.
9) Come up with a kick tail first sentece that will draw your readers into the story.
10) Start writing.
It works for my students. Just make sure you dont skip the two classics – that is the inspiration that unblocks and inspires you. If you are still blocked, move onto something else. I have about 4 books on disks – started but it just wasnt the right time to write them for me. One goes back to when my 20 yr old son was a baby. Maybe I will finish it one day, maybe not. So far the mood hasnt struck me. And it is a great idea – never been done. Im just not ready for it yet. No shame in leaving something aside.
—-
They’re, Their, There – Three Different Words.
Careful or you may wind up in my next novel.
Pax – C
December 9th, 2008 at 12:41 am
Stop writing and go out and have some fun.
In time ideas will start flooding back in and you will be able to finish the story.
December 11th, 2008 at 9:07 am
Tequila always help me get through the block!
December 11th, 2008 at 10:20 pm
I’m not sure if you’ve already thought of this, but for the “heroes” of your book to believe that they’re heroes instead of villains, wouldn’t they have to be strangers to the world they’re in? I mean, in our world, it’s pretty common knowledge since birth who our heroes and villains are (Hitler is almost always acknowledged as evil, for instance…).
The thought that occurred to me was that the main characters are somehow brought to this fantasy world and are told by their guardian angels that they were chosen to save it, but to do so they must help destroy some person. In the end, they find out that the “guardian angels” were actually sent by the real villain and that they just destroyed the only person preventing the fantasy world from being consumed by evil.
Of course, the main characters would have to possess some object or some quality that would make them desirable to the fantasy world’s real villain — in other words, there must be some reason that the real villain couldn’t just destroy the real hero himself, and the main characters have to possess some reason why they were able to destroy him or her instead.
That’s about all I have right now. I hope I helped, or at the very least, that I didn’t confuse you further. If you get stuck again, feel free to email me and we’ll see if I can’t help you knock down that block…
December 14th, 2008 at 4:50 am
I think Persiphone said it all…
December 15th, 2008 at 10:00 pm
For understanding more about creativity, “Creation: Artistic and Spiritual,” O. M. Aivanhov, “The Secret Power of Music,” David Tame, and “Talks with Great Composers,” Arthur Abell, M.D., are good, helpful, and clear.
A good idea: somewhat like the British soldiers (“lobsterbacks”) who thought they were doing good in Colonial America, and only decades after the Revolutionary War did they find they were “evil-doers.”
So the enlightenment of your doing-good heroes has to be a kind of second level awakening. I.e., there is a plot model for this in Mozart’s “The Magic Flute,” in which the Queen of the Night is seen as the good guy, and her husband the bad guy, but then he’s proven right.
In your story, the “Queen” herself would have to realize, by some plot development, that she was doing the wrong thing. So that might be where the plot thickens, where you have to decide what new information reverses the work-value of your heroes.
Shakespeare has many such plot twists; in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” a fairy (Puck) gives a love-potion to the Queen, which causes her to think she’s doing right, but when the antidote is given, then she realizes she’s been in error.
Perhaps a similar device in which the “Matrix” convinces the heroes to campaign for some cause? A similar dynamic occurs during the Crucifixion of Jesus: He is ridiculed, and it is said of him he can’t save himself (but he is doing the work on behalf of others, to show the Way). He is considered a villain by those people; when he resurrects, he is shown to be truly heroic.
Perhaps the guardian angels try to help the heroes but the heroes decide to invade Iraq, believing they’re going there to find wmd (or something similar in your world), and it is a brave, seemingly villainous whistle-blower in England who says there are no major wmd, just faulty intelligence. (Another real-life example of this is given in Peter Lance’s “Triple Cross” Peter Lance is a lawyer, a prize-winning journalist, and screenwriter.)
The anguish of the guardian angels as their humans go about like Keystone Kops is even contemporary in this world. Your story might have some satirical import. (“We had to destroy the village in order to save it” kind of heroic thinking; also known as “mission creep.”)
Good fortune with your writig project. An example of a great, natural narrative style: “West with the Night,” Beryl Markham.
December 16th, 2008 at 10:10 pm
I don’t know if this helps…but, I have always been amazed that there are ‘warrior’ angels in the Bible. Gabriel. Maybe your gardian angels can have evil ambitions…they steer your ‘heroes’ to do the gardian’s bidding.
As far as reading classics…how about Revelations of the Bible…that is scary stuff.
December 18th, 2008 at 1:47 pm
On XYZ planet, hunting zyx’s is a popular sport, in spite of how cute, smart, and friendly they are. Many hunters tell tall tales of zyx’s that are very aggressive, killing and eating both humans and their own species, with such tales being the justification for the hunt. A growing number of people who call themselves bca’s (the heroes that are really villains) want to put a stop to the cruelty. At first, they ask the hunters to quit. Many do. For the ones that don’t quit, they start stealing their weapons. For the ones who keep getting new weapons, they start killing them. As the number of hunters are reduced, more zyx’s are allowed to reach adulthood, the age when they become aggressive. The adult zyx’s aren’t happy with grazing and eating the food the humans gave them. They start snatching human babies and children. Eventually, humans on both sides are living in fear of having the zyx’s taking their children for food. I’m not sure how to fit faeries and guardian angels into that though.
December 21st, 2008 at 12:48 pm
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