You ever get partway through writing a story and the flow stops?
Like that scene in My Big Fat Greek Wedding when Toula sees Ian for the first time and is stunned speechless, sometimes your story can seem to be going well until something happens which interferes with the forward motion. Either the story becomes arrested completely because a character did or said something unexpected, or the story fizzles because there’s little for the character to actually do, nowhere for them to go.
If you’re currently facing a stuck manuscript unsure how you’re going to unstick the story and finish, here are a few methods that have helped some of the authors with whom I’ve worked depending on the reasons their stories got stuck.
Like a story excavator, let’s dig in.
The writing fizzles because you don’t have enough information.
Sometimes, when you lack vital information needed to understand the internality of your character — why they do what they do, say what they say, move the way they move — pausing your writing and stepping into research mode may be your best option.
Perhaps your character performs a job with which you’re unfamiliar. If your main character is an architect, for example, but you don’t have deep knowledge of architecture or how buildings come to be, you may be missing critical information about the practice of architecture — from stakeholder vision, to concept, to schematics, engineering, and more. Being an architect involves a lot more than drawing a picture and sending it to a team of construction engineers to build. There are ecological and economic considerations, stakeholder teams, and legal requirements on top of conceptualization and design.
If you don’t know the ins and outs of what it means to be an architect, chances are you need help. I’m not talking about a quick internet search and a 500-word blog on the steps of architecture. I’m talking about a visit to the library or a bookshop for deep research, or curating a list of sources to review, including interviewing architects, even asking to job-shadow a real-life analog of your character. Through the research, you may uncover interesting details to help you understand how your architect-character thinks and what they may be dealing with outside the story you’re writing, which may influence the story overall.
However, once you dive into research, make a plan to climb back out of it. Otherwise, you may risk going too deep into research rabbit holes and never come back to the writing. Set yourself a research timeline, including an end date by which you will return to your writing.
The writing fizzles because there’s nothing happening.
If research is not the issue, you may be facing a lack of conflict, and a lack of conflict can stop any story from progressing. Remember, “story” is conflict, goal, and motivation, and if you’re missing one key ingredient, the whole-story cake will fall flat.
Think of conflict like the fulcrum of a seesaw, the point on which the story moves up and down. No fulcrum means no dips, no heights, no change. Just stagnant, flat storytelling that lacks real stakes or any real reason for readers to remain invested. Conflicts don’t have to be massive, body-counting events like wars; they can be small and introspective conflicts like self-deprecation. Regardless of the size of the conflict or whether it’s true for your character or just a figment of their imagination, your story will pull all of its tension from the characters who are at odds because of the conflict at hand.
If you’re staring at your manuscript and your character’s main conflict seems to have fizzled or isn’t big enough to sustain the writing, ask yourself a series of “What if?” questions. Let’s say your character is a bakery owner facing the closure of their bakery, and they see the business closure as a personal failing. If a lack of foot traffic is driving the closure, and the town itself seems to be dying, which happens often enough in the real world, but can be rather lackluster on the page, ask yourself what the bakery owner may have been dealing with, or what they could be dealing with, to heighten the conflict. What if a rival baker opened a shop across the street, effectively taking business from your humble character? Does that give you a new perspective on the current conflict? Taken further, what if a rival baker opened the shop and ripped off generations-old recipes from your humble character? You get the idea.
Ask yourself a series of questions specific to your character’s life, needs, and hangups, and explore new ways to broaden the scope of the conflict, which may lead to subplots to enhance character development, the introduction of new characters or new information about existing characters, and more.
The writing fizzles because your process is fizzling.
If your conflicts are neatly lined up in a row, their subplots understood and well-developed, the research finished and notes all taken, yet you still find yourself feeling a little blah about the writing, it may not be your story that’s missing something. It may be your process.
Perhaps you’ve been in fiction land for far too long, or have read too many thrillers in a row, or have exclusively read flash fiction for the last several months. But think about your writing process, which includes reading, and note all the similarities you’ve carried from day to day. Then, look for ways to change your processes toward the new. If you’ve been exclusive reading fiction, grab a non-fiction book about a topic that interests you. If you’ve been reading nothing but flash fiction, try a novella or a novel. Nothing but thrillers? Pick up a slow-burn romance or literary novel. Switching up your usual literary flavor acts as a powerful way to cleanse your writing palate and ignite the spark that fuels your process. After all, there’s a reason many boxers practice ballet.
If switching up the reading alone doesn’t quite do the trick, challenge yourself to write in a new genre or style as a practice exercise, which may jumpstart your language use or help you think differently about your plot structure, settings, or characterization. While the goal is to get back to your process, you may find the old one no longer suits, that it’s time for something new, whether it be a new time of day to focus on writing, a new medium to write in, writing a scene out of chronology, even asking your tarot deck to show you what’s missing. Whatever your usual flavor, change it up to discover a new process that works for you. And if you need some inspiration, here are The Daily Routines of 12 Famous Writers to start you off.
The writing is arrested but the reason is elusive, amorphous, or otherwise absent.
Sometimes you can do all the things — research, conflict development, process change-ups, and more — and still find yourself and your story stagnating. If your book was a kid practicing oppositional defiance, this would be the time to call in the other parent or a trusted friend or family member off which to bounce ideas. It may also be time to call in a specialist.
When your story is stuck completely and you know you’ve done everything in your power to jiggle loose the story from your gray matter, yet you still find yourself lacking, the uncomfortable truth is that you may need a fresh perspective to help you weed out things you know that your reader can’t know, or shed light on something you’ve missed that your readers will expect. When that happens, you may be too close to your manuscript; it’s time for another set of eyes.
When writing a story, there are proven benefits of impartial feedback, like gaining a fresh perspective, helping to identify strengths and weaknesses, and enhancing your creativity. Ask a trusted friend who reads widely in your genre, or a beta reader or story development editor to read your full or partial manuscript and help you locate the stickiness leaving you with that blah taste in your writing mouth.
So, how do you unstick your stuck manuscript?
Happy writing!
♥ Fal
Prefer video?
Come hang with me on the MetaStellar channel:
Fallon Clark is the book pal who helps you tell your story in your words and voice using editorial, coaching, writing, and project management expertise for revision assistance, one-on-one guidance, and ghostwriting for development. Her writing has been published in Flash Fiction Magazine. Check out her website, FallonClark.com, or connect with her on LinkedIn or Substack.