How to Get Stuck Words to Flow Again
Your fingers hover above the keyboard as you stare blankly at your empty document. You have an assignment, a topic, a project that you need to work on.
And you have no idea where to go from where you are.
It isn’t burnout. You aren’t exhausted, or sick of writing and wishing everyone who wants you to write something would just go away for a week
What you are is stuck. You know what you want to do, but you just can’t seem to get anything out to work on.
The first thing to do is make sure you’ve accepted that your goal right now is a rough draft. If you think your writing is going to be perfect on the first go, well… it won’t be. Believe me on this one.
If your response to that pointer was along the lines of “No kidding,” then you likely just need a bit of help knocking a few chunks out of the dam that’s blocking your writing. How on earth can you do that?
There are several things you can try, some of which work best used in combination. Try them as you like and figure out which work best for you. Most likely, you’ll find that different situations need different approaches.
Compile Your Main Points
Before you automatically respond with the fact that you already have all the information you need, consider if you have them all in one place. Other than in your head, I mean. If you don’t, take the time to jot down a list that covers at least your main points. Jotting down your main information can also help.
This even goes for things where all the information you need is in your head. Unless you happen to keep a cork board up there—and if you do, mind teaching me that trick?—organizing things in your head is difficult. It’s doable, yes, otherwise no one would ever be able to hold a coherent conversation, but it’s a lot easier to take a list of things and organize it on paper or screen than to figure out how it’s all going to fit together when it’s all still in your head.
Having all your main points written down also makes it harder for your to accidentally omit one of them, or to forget where you were planning to go next. It also helps you see what details aren’t necessary for your project.
Skip the Introduction
Skip the intro to your project and jump right in the middle. It doesn’t even have to be the second paragraph or section. Jump in at whatever point has the facts and figures in it that are at the front of your mind at the time.
Then, once you’ve continued from there and written all the meat, go back and write what you’ve skipped in the middle. Only when you’re done with the middle, go back and write the introduction and conclusion.
Will it transition smoothly? Probably not. Will it be incoherent? Possibly. The goal here is to get your first draft out so you have something to organize and chop and rehash. Rough drafts are meant to be put through the shredder.
Distract Yourself
Remind yourself that it’s only a rough draft. It’s no big deal; it’s expected to be terrible and need a lot of work. Then go watch an online video or something. Take a walk, get some exercise; toss your mind off-track from whatever you’re working on.
When you’ve relaxed a bit, come back to the project, remind yourself again of the all-important rough half of rough draft, and see if you can’t start.
If you find this one necessary, you may want to also make sure you’ve done your research. For me, at least, this tip becomes necessary when I’m trying too hard when I’m not yet ready to begin writing.
Write What You’re Thinking
And yes, that includes “I have no idea what to write!” It’s called “free-associative” or “stream-of-consciousness” writing. Write whatever you’re thinking and keep going, prodding yourself into to the topic.
Ask yourself questions about your topic and project, to extract articulations about your project. You’ll probably continue for pages if you keep asking yourself questions, but at the end of that, you should have some good lines in there, which might be enough to knock you back into gear.
At the least, you might realize why you’re having such a hard time putting that article together. Maybe you don’t have as firm a handle on that topic as you think you do; maybe you’re just nervous. Either way, figuring that out can help you get over it.
Talk it Over With a Friend
Of course, this requires you to have a friend who is at least halfway interested in your topic. Or at least someone who’s willing to feign interest and let you use him as a sounding board.
This tends to work best when it’s someone who knows what you’re talking about, because then that person can offer input and his own ideas. But sometimes you might have an idea that even gets the attention of someone who doesn’t care for the topic, so don’t necessarily dismiss this one if you don’t happen to know anyone else who likes your topic.
The more technical your topic, the more… interesting… this tactic can get. It can be hard to find a person who works well as a sounding board, but it’s worth taking the time to try to find someone.
When attempting these, also bear the medium in mind. Some people work better planning in a text document on the computer; some prefer notebook paper and a pencil. Some people like index cards, and most like different things according to whatever type of planning they’re working on at the time.
What matters is finding what works for you when you need to get your writing unstuck. These tips can help you do that.
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Really useful article! A lot of times when writing articles or school papers you just get stuck, not knowing what to write! Good stuff!
Great article.
Start writing. Anything. Everything. Writing without caution for 10 or 20 minutes is a confidence booster and can result in the creation of a first draft that you can polish later.
Boy, is this a timely article. I’m writing one of those Great Big proposals. It’s probably competing against a lot of other proposals, but what the heck, you can’t win if you don’t play.
Anyway, I did something related to the proposal last night. I went to a speech given by someone who is associated with the project. I took copious notes and forbade my attention from wandering. (It has a tendency to do that.)
Today’s project is to work those notes into the proposal.
So, my tip is this: Don’t just sit there and write. Go out and get some backgrounder on your topic.
This is a great article, and some excellent advice. My contribution:
- Write the headings first… use the Heading styles in your word processor, and make the headings “headlines” — i.e. they make sense on their own, and summarize the points you want to make. Use a LOT of headings
- Turn on Document Map (in Word) or headings Navigator (in OOo) — this will display a list of all the headings in the document
Now you can jump around and write about any aspect of the topic in any order. If you get stuck on the section you are on, scan up and down the document map and you’ll probably spot another section that is ripe for some of your attention. Or maybe you’ll think of a new heading to add.
You end up with a document where most of the time is spent on the most interesting parts, which is likely to lead to a more interesting document too. I’ve never had writers’ block when I’ve used this technique.
Being stuck is a bad feeling! Some days, no matter how I try to arrange the words, nothing seems to look like. If I can afford to, I just take the day off. Often, I am too hard on myself on days like that and my writing is actually fine – my mood is just off.
Great stuff! Stream of consciousness (SOC) writing has helped me so many times when starting a rough draft. Especially on topics I’m a little intimidated by. With tech topics that I’m not comfortable with, SOC beefs up my confidence and reassures me that I did understand what I researched
My method, when I was writing 15-20 page papers was to start with the body and do the intro and conclusion last. I’d start with a rough outline of the body and slowly add detail to each point. This way you get out the gist of it and the rest writes itself.
This is called “writing off the top of your head,” and it doesn’t work very well, if at all. And it’s stupidly stressful.
My two favorite tips are to start writing in the middle and to write whatever you are thinking. Very often when I’m stuck, it’s because I’m trying to pay attention to structure while I’m creating content. It;s like trying to make both sides of your brain work at the same time.
I usually schedule my projects so I can do them over a couple of days. I know this doesn’t work for everybody, but it works well for me.
On Sunday I’ll lay out my writing for the week. Each article I plan to write, I plan a compelling (yet limiting) title, something that has a solid hook in it, yet is specific enough to keep me from trying to cover too much ground. Under each title, I write the words, “Intro” and “Conclusion” on separate lines. Then I write two to four headings for each article between those two lines to establish my structure.
Sometimes, I jot down notes about specific analogies, facts, or ideas I want to cover under the headings. If inspiration strikes as I write all this down, I follow it. If not, I let everything sit until Monday.
Then I tackle one article at a time. I don’t look at any article except the one I’ve chosen to start with. That focuses me on the task at hand. I read over the headings and notes and start wherever the first thought hits me. I fill in the other headings and, eventually, the introduction and conclusion. If content under one heading gets too long and involved, I pull it out to write as a separate article the next week.
I take each article in turn, taking enough of a break in between to clear my mind. By the end of two or three days, I have first drafts of all my articles for the week.
Then I set them aside for a day or two and go back to polish them. By Saturday, everything is polished and ready to distribute. The rythym of this process works for me, although finding this process took quite a while.
I think that’s what it ultimately comes down to: experimenting to find your own rythym. Each of us is unique. What works for one won’t work for another. But once you find your rythym, writing is even more of a joy.
if you stuck, and stuck and stuck. and none of the advices help you. go offline, take a walk at the park and talk to people about interested things like movies and songs. get back to your desk with coffee and bagels, start everything from the top, again.
go offline really helps. believe me on this one.