I’ve never been a big fan of the term writer’s block.
Think about it: what if someone said “I have driver’s block?” It could mean that they’re too scared to drive, or they don’t have their license, or they don’t have their glasses, or they don’t know how to drive stick, or they haven’t decided where to go. I suppose it’s good to recognize the problem exists, but I’ve come to believe the term itself is an impediment to progress.
In my own work, I’ve come to favor an alternate term: sticking points. It might seem like a trivial distinction – whatever you call it, you’re still having trouble writing – but I believe it’s better to encourage the mindset that this is a problem to be fixed, rather than this is an affliction that has befallen me.
Before we continue, I should note my focus is exclusive on technical issues. If you can’t write because you’re too depressed or distracted or stressed, those are problems that seem more appropriate to call writer’s block. There was a recent New Yorker article exploring that side of the problem, which is definitely worth a read.
But when I’ve spoken with writers in the past about writer’s block, they would immediately follow it up with the phrase “I don’t know…” or “I can’t figure out….”
That is sticking point language.
When reduced to its simplest form, I would argue writing is communication. Whether you’re trying to describe a character, express an idea, or share an emotion, it’s about expressing that through the written word.
Thus, we have two elements: idea and expression. The concept we are attempting to convey, and the means by which we express it. In the context of the novel, when we talk about expression, we’re typically talking about prose – words and sentences and paragraphs.
Issues with prose, in my experience, tend to be simple but tedious to contend with. In the past, I’ve generally fixed these problems by going out and finding examples similar to what I’m trying to accomplish, and just buckling down and writing through it – experimenting and trying different things. I might talk about this a bit more in the future, but I’m not sure I have any deep insight on the topic, and other texts have explored the issue in considerable detail.
But let’s move on to those ideas.
At the end of the day, the plot of a book is an idea. It might be simple: in the case of The Old Man and the Sea, an old man goes out to catch a fish, catches the fish, but ultimately loses the fish. It might be complex, like War and Peace, which is about the rise and fall of Russian families during the Napoleonic Wars, but is also about religion and history and historiography.
If you write your story in a single paragraph, are you satisfied with it? Does it make sense in your head? A lot of stories fail here, because the author doesn’t have a clear vision of the story they want to tell. There are some writers who are quite weak in this department, who rely on the quality of their prose – but we’ve all read stories that feel loose and pointless, and it’s worth investigating to see if there’s something you can do.
Closely related to this is theme. I can hear rustling now, as some people, traumatized by their high school English classes, flinch uncomfortably and look anxiously toward the door, but I don’t believe that serious writers can avoid the topic any more than musicians can avoid musical keys. Even if you’re not aware of them, you’re still using them.
Returning to our initial proposition: if plot is the explicit series of events, then theme is simply the meaning of those events, that which remains unsaid in the actual beats.
Themes do not necessarily need to be particularly deep or sophisticated. Let’s confront the dread beast head on, by taking a look at The Great Gatsby. On the plot level, it’s not too complicated: a man attempts to ingratiate himself into high society and pursues the favor of a woman, but ultimately fails to achieve either goal.
One perfectly acceptable theme we could take away from the story is that wealth does not make you a worthwhile person. The novel demonstrates this first by establishing the residents of West Egg are racist, lazy, arrogant, and cruel, as per this often-quoted passage:
They were careless people, Tom and Daisy—they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made …
But Fitzgerald also cleverly inverts this, by inviting us to feel sympathy for Gatsby. Gatsby is a criminal, a social climber, and a fraud, but he is still sympathetic, and deserves more than what he gets:
“They’re a rotten crowd,” I shouted across the lawn. “You’re worth the whole damn bunch put together.”
There are plenty of other themes in this book – and I would argue thematic depth is one of the hallmarks of capital-L Literature – but this is enough, I think, to demonstrate my point: understanding theme can help us identify potential sticking points in our writing.
Some writers consider this anathema; there’s a popular quote (origin unknown) that suggests that criticism is like dissecting a butterfly; you may gain a better understanding of how it flies, but it will never fly again.
I’d be more inclined to compare it to working on a bomb: high risk, high reward. I prefer to work out my themes early on, but there’s certainly other approaches. In his book On Writing, for example, Stephen King takes what might be considered the moderate position:
Writing and literature classes can be annoyingly preoccupied by (and pretentious about) theme, approaching it as the most sacred of sacred cows, but (don’t be shocked) it’s really no big deal. If you write a novel, spend weeks and then months catching it word by word, you owe it both to the book and to yourself to lean back (or take a long walk) when you’ve finished and ask yourself why you bothered—why you spent all that time, why it seemed so important. In other words, what’s it all about, Alfie?
When you write a book, you spend day after day scanning and identifying the trees. When you’re done, you have to step back and look at the forest. Not every book has to be loaded with symbolism, irony, or musical language (they call it prose for a reason, y’know), but it seems to me that every book—at least every one worth reading—is about something. Your job during or just after the first draft is to decide what something or somethings yours is about. Your job in the second draft— one of them, anyway—is to make that something even more clear. This may necessitate some big changes and revisions. The benefits to you and your reader will be clearer focus and a more unified story. It hardly ever fails.
Or, consider this anecdote, from Story, by Robert McKee:
Paddy Chayefsky once told me that when he finally discovered his story’s meaning, he’d scratch it out on a scrap of paper and tape it to his typewriter, so that nothing going through the machine wouldn’t in one way or another express his central theme. With a clear statement of Value plus Cause staring him in the eye, he could resist intriguing irrelevancies and concentrate on unifying the telling around the story’s core meaning.
I know what the plot of Razors is. I know what the themes are. These aren’t sticking points for me, because I spent considerable time on them early on, running my stone across the blade, making sure they are smooth and clean and sharp. I find it a great comfort, to not have to worry about where I’m going or what I’m trying to say.
Next week, we’ll move down to explore the next level of sticking points, where life isn’t quite so simple or easy.