: Re: How do I work through writer's block? I wrote 3 chapters. I can't think of something to write to connect what I have already written to ideas I have for later on.

Take your criticism down A LOT of notches.

Instead of struggling on that One Great Idea you can't get, and dismissing everything you come by as crap, pick a painfully generic plot, add one simple, standard trick, and just start writing.

Pick any of fairy tales, even the most generic one, knight saves a princess from a dragon. Add one simple, trivial modification: "In Space". Or "On the Internet". Or "From the Dragon's perspective". Or "The Princess doesn't like it." Or "The Dragon is the Princess." Whatever to move away from the -totally bland- into -trite-.

Then start writing. And if ideas come, apply them. Change stuff. Let the plot wander wherever it wills. If they don't, just keep writing that generic stuff. Usually, they will come, sooner or later.

My recent story went like this. Pick: Spielberg's 'E.T.'. Twist: The alien has a quad-digit IQ (or more), and mastery of mathematics. The beginning is quite generic. Then the alien decides to obtain funds to build the phone to call home. How to build massive funds quickly? Through playing on the stock market. What are some risks associated with it? Getting caught up in the thrill of the gamble.

"That escalated quickly" would be an understatement.

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: Re: How do I work through writer's block? I wrote 3 chapters. I can't think of something to write to connect what I have already written to ideas I have for later on.

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: Speaking of Living Rooms Would you rather have the bulk of your play's action staged in the atrium or in the peristylium? That's not the question, actually. The difference between a movie and

: Seeking a humorous example of long winded paragraph one sentence long Back in the day, good writing meant it was a goal to make sentences short. As I have grown older this rule has served

: Can I add Drop Caps to my manuscript in the Storyist program? I have a manuscript that I'd like to add Drop Caps to at the beginning of each chapter. I currently have it loaded into my

: Avoiding repeating "I" and "you" in an epistolary piece I've had two recent ideas for short stories that I feel would be best written as epistolary pieces where the main character is basically

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