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Brainstorming

Ok, so one of the best tools in your back pocket to fight writers block (or as @starting-today-you-are-a-writer more accurately calls it, story block) is the power of BRAINSTORMING. That’s right, when you beg your brain for ideas and all it does is play the same three lines from whatever song you briefly heard in a store two weeks ago, there is a way to get through it. 

Mind mapping: Grab a paper and a pen and one (1) idea. Put it in the middle. It can be a character, a theme, the tone, conflict, or your trouble spot. Putting “Break out of Jail????” in the center is 100% valid. Now, around it, draw a line and write any words or phrases that pop into your head when you look at your center word. And if you get ideas from that word, draw lines away from that, and so on and so forth, until you may get something like this: 

You don’t have to use all of it, or even most of it. Usually, I end up connecting with one little corner and going from there, but it’s a great way to let your mind move fast over lots of ideas without judgement or our own thoughts getting in the way. 

Automatic/Free writing: This was a concept I learned about in art history, but when i went to research automatic writing, apparently it’s more connected with magic/witchy/psychic people now. My advice is not to ask help from ghosts (unless that works for you), but to let your own subconscious take over. Automatic writing is just writing whatever words come into your head in the order they come in, without letting yourself stop. That could be NONSENSE but it’s also very freeing. More helpful? Keep yourself a topic. So maybe you want to try to write your problem scene without stopping, or writing about your problem scene without stopping. It forces your brain to come up with all sorts of things because you have to be writing something the whole time. Will all those things be useful? No, but I’ve learned a lot about my characters, themes, and overarching plot from exercises like this. 

Others:

Taking a long shower

Taking a walk

Talking over your problem with someone willing to listen

Reading

Art/Dance/Craft/some other creative outlet separate from writing

Making and listening to a playlist for how you want your scene to feel

Watching writertube videos that talk about tropes and subplots to give yourself insperation. 

I’m sure there are a ton more, but these are all my favorites. Remember, writers block, or story block, is temporary and beatable. It all boils down to thoughts we have about our writing, not some magical force that crashes against us whenever our life gets too easy. Gather tools for when it hits, and you’ll always be able to find your footing again.