“What’s this here?” my husband asks. He’s been editing one of my upcoming stories for me.
“What’s what where?”
“This asterisk next to a misspelling of ‘guard.’”
“Oh, that. That’s a placeholder.”
“A…placeholder?”
“Yeah for a character that didn’t have a name yet. Of course, Find/Replace doesn’t work if you misspell shit.” I sigh.
Guard/Guardian. One of those words I mistype like, half the time.
But my use of placeholders is the much bigger story here (not my chronic misspelling of words. Can’t really help that one). And part of something you hear about all the time, Reader.
About people spending a whole writing session staring at a blank screen because they can’t think of what to write.
Or getting stalled partway through because the perfect word just isn’t coming to them.
They spend hour upon hour searching desperately for that one perfect word… (Their OTW)
When instead they could have created hundreds upon hundreds of new words.
And formed new worlds out of nothing.
Magicked new people out of thin air who never existed before that moment. People that now have wants and desires and tragic heart-wrenching backstories.
It’s something I learned to do while writing my first novel Daemons in the Mist in the winter of 2010/11. And I’m going to share these time-saving story-writing secrets with you.
SO HERE ARE MY 3 TIME-SAVING STORY-WRITING SECRETS TO PULL YOU FREE FROM THE SWAMP OF SORROWS AND HELP YOU CONQUER THAT BLANK PAGE SYNDROME:
1) WRITE IT NOW. EDIT IT BETTER.
It is far better to get your ideas down when you’ve got that spark of creativity burning brightly in your mind than to aim for perfection on the first go.
Just as no one paints a masterpiece in a single brush stroke, you shouldn’t demand perfection from yourself with every word you put on the page. Just get your ideas down then edit them into something better.
Write messy first drafts. Do whatever it takes to get the ideas out of your head so you can move forward.
👉 Because you can’t do anything with a blank page but put something on it.
2) TOWNSPERSON B
My best advice for coming up with names for “scenery characters” in my stories is that I don’t. At least not in the first draft. I call it my Raw Draft for a reason.
I’ve found that you can lose steam quickly on a creative project if you waste it all on naming every mean girl and guard. Instead, try giving them a 1-3 word descriptor in [ ] and move on. Like this:
[TOWNSPERSON B]
You can always Find/Replace the placeholder name in the first round of edits. (Yes I am 100% making a Haikyuu!! reference)
👉 Use symbols or shorthand codes to denote “a word should be here, but isn’t.”
3) THE WORLD IS A STAGE
9 times out of 10, creative blocks aren’t from a lack of ideas. Rather they’re caused by the fear of having to create something perfect right from the start.
So take a breath and take perfection out of the equation. Literally. Write what needs to happen in a scene, chapter, or in the whole story itself as you were writing scene directions.
Don’t worry yourself with writing pretty prose, because you’re the only person who ever needs to see this.
Need a bit of help, Reader? Then start with the basic formula:
LEGENDARY CHARACTER + ACTION = OUTCOME
Example: The Valiant Knight + Rescues the dragon from the villagers = Is branded a traitor by the Crown
And remember, the only one who needs to see your rough draft is you. So if your scene—or story—goes a bit awry at some point, that’s perfectly okay. Because your story—just like your Legendary Characters—will find their happily ever after in the end.
👉 Try writing your scenes as if you’re giving stage directions.
Well, Reader, I hope these 3 tips help pull you free from the Swamp of Sorrows and conquer that Blank Page Syndrome. Or at the very least, save you a bit of time. Until next time, this is your friendly neighborhood storytelling Kat wishing you a wonderfully creative week.
Your cohort in storytelling,
Kat Vancil
🐱
PS 👉 I’d like to apologize for the slightly chaotic schedule of these emails this year. As you probably know, I suffer from chronic illness. But what I haven’t talked about is that my mother has been gravely ill since January.
However, after several complications at the start of summer that delayed things considerably, this past week she was able to have a successful life-saving transplant. It’s been an extremely stressful time for my family, but we’re optimistic that everything will go well from here onward.
I hope this explains in part, why my project schedule has been altered and some stories and mini-courses had to be rescheduled for Fall or Winter.
As always, thank you for your continued support of me and my story studio.
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