Confession: so I have at least five novels where I wrote over 100 pages, and then I just . . . stopped. I am afraid I'm too much of a linear perfectionist! If I can't get my chapter outline ordered just right, all too often writer's block slams me and I just give up after awhile and trash my story.
However, after reading an article about legendary filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki and his creation method for his animated movies, I decided to try something new in my own writing. Miyazaki doesn't begin with a perfectly written script. Instead, the genesis of his story begins with "visual storyboards," and then he builds the rest of the story around these powerful core images.
I was stuck on a chapter of my own WIP Agent Regalia that was very important and introduced a lot of key players in the story. But the more I sat in front of my computer and stared at the mocking blink of the cursor on an empty white screen, the more daunted I felt and the less I knew what I wanted to say. So, I thought about a future scene in the story that I could really visualize and filled me with excitement, and I wrote that instead. I skipped the line! I ended up writing a whole other chapter that actually helped me understand what I wanted to distill in the previous chapter. And now I feel a bit more confident about stepping back into the linear track and tackling the hard part . . .
I guess what this experience has reminded me is that there is no one right way to write. And that one writing method may help sometimes, and other times, perhaps a different ink hack will do the trick. Good luck with all your creative endeavors!
