Has this ever happened to you?
You sit down to write a scene, maybe a turning point scene in your novel. You know what needs to happen, you know your characters, you know how the scene will play out. You’ve got this. So, you begin writing, and somewhere in the process it dawns on you. Everything about your scene is predictable. Shit.
I think this happens to all of us sometimes. I have a similar situation in Edgewater right now. Mirrors play a big part in the novel, and I’ve realized that what I’m doing with them is pretty predictable. A few minutes of web searching revealed that the role they play has been done before, and not just once or twice.
Well, shit.
So, what to do? I don’t want to throw out the idea because
- I like it
- It works with the novel’s theme
- There’s folklore surrounding mirrors that I can play around with
If you’ve ever found yourself in this situation, how did you work through it?
I tend to do old-fashioned brainstorming. Specifically, I sit down with a computer or paper and pen, set a time limit or idea limit for myself, and start writing. The first ideas are usually pretty awful, trite, and/or predictable. Eventually I can get some interesting tidbits out of these exercises.
Your experience may vary, but I’ve noticed a few things about my brainstorming sessions.
- I tend to get different results using a pen/paper and the computer. One isn’t necessarily better or worse than the other, just different. I write a lot faster on the computer, so I suspect that’s part of it. If one doesn’t work, I’ll switch to the other.
- Similarly, my brainstorming sessions give varying results based on whether I time myself or give myself an idea goal. I might try two different variations and see what comes of it.
- Give myself 10 minutes to write about how mirrors might be used in the novel in unique ways. This method usually gives me longer paragraphs where I’m talking myself through the thought process of how this will go.
- Set myself a goal of listing 50 different ways mirrors might play a part in the novel. This gives me a traditional list with less talking to myself interspersed.
I’ve copied a couple snippets of a brainstorming session so you can see what I mean. I don’t worry about spelling or punctuation; the idea behind brainstorming is to get the ideas down and to use speed to overcome the internal editor. Just write, and don’t censor because you think it’s stupid or the idea is going nowhere.
How do mirrors play in to the story? Maggie uses them or avoids them for some reason. The idea that her reflection isn’t’ her might still work, but simply making it do different things doesn’t. That’s old and boring. Maybe part of her issue is that she beleives that she isn’t seeing herself in her reflection, but there’s nothing concrete to prove that. Maybe that’s part of why she ended up institutionalized in the first place. Ugh, still boring.
What does she see when she looks in the mirror? Someone that looks like her, but she believes isn’t her? Does she see anything else? Ghosts, the past, the future?
Does she seek out or avoid mirrors?
Yes, I literally ask myself questions and try to answer them. If it helps, think of it as talking to your muse. My brainstorming sessions are very much like talking to myself, and I’ll come back and work through this multiple times, following trains of thought until I feel that I’ve worked out the problem.
Here’s a snipped of a list-type brainstorming session I recently did for the same problem I’m working on.
Reflection of inner self, dark self, bad side
Where souls go when they die
Another world entirely
Another world – like bad spock in startrek
Multiverse – this is where the split happens
Opposite world – left is right, to go is to come, etc.
A storage spot for memories – as we see our reflections, our lives are being recorded there. Why? For whom?
I save these brainstorming sessions to a special folder in Scrivener under the Research folder. I store brainstorming sessions in separate documents for each general topic they’re focused on. I’ll come back to these sometimes days or even weeks later to refresh my memory and remind myself why I chose, or rejected, a particular idea.
Sometimes I just need to let an idea percolate for a while, and this is a good way to do that.
To summarize,
- Ask yourself questions and try to answer them regarding any issues you’re having in your writing. Follow any promising threads. Treat it as a conversation.
- Make a list of ideas to address the problem you’re facing. Push yourself to list as many as you can, and then list more. Often it’s when I’m really stretching that I’ll come up with the best ideas.
- Write as fast as you can and don’t censor yourself.
- Experiment with format. Switch from paper to computer, or vice versa. Try to write as fast as you can for a while, and then switch to generating as many separate ideas as you can. Keep alternating.
- Save the work even if you think it went nowhere. Come back to it later; sometimes I’ll spot something interesting only after I’ve had time away from it.
