Why so many writers feel stuck, and the four questions that can help solve that problem.
• Why writing a book can feel overwhelming
• How to figure out what kind of “lost” you are
• One simple way to start planning your story
Many writers who want to write a book have plenty of ideas but don’t know where to start.
When I first started writing, I had notebooks full of ideas and finished (but mostly unfinished) stories. I knew the stories I wanted to tell, but didn’t know how to construct that idea into a full story arc which would lead to a satisfying ending.
So I would get bored with the current story and start a new one.
Maybe this is how you feel, too—you know what story you want to tell, but you don’t know exactly how to create all the pieces so they fit together and create a compelling story.
Some advice says you should outline the whole story before you start writing. Other, contradictory advice, warns that outlining will destroy your creativity and that you should follow the characters and plot wherever they happen to go.
Writers who outline are called “plotters,” and writers who discover the story as they write are called “pantsers.”
Both methods work, which is why it is so confusing. For example, well-known plotters are J.K. Rowling and John Grisham, and famous “pantsers” are Stephen King and Margaret Atwood.
If you’ve here because you want to write a book but aren’t sure where to begin, articles here can help. They’re designed to help make the steps of writing a story clear and understandable.
In this article, we’ll talk about why writers often feel stuck at the beginning. Believe it or not, there is a simple way to fix that problem.
Reasons Why Writers Feel Stuck
- Writing advice often focuses on problems that occur several steps into the writing process.
For example, it may presume the writer already has a clear premise, well-rounded characters, stakes that matter, and a main conflict. So the advice focuses on structure, pacing, revision, editing, and so on. But many writers are still at an earlier stage, trying to figure out how to create the basic elements of the story itself.
- Writing a novel is a big job.
A book has a lot of moving parts: characters, theme, plot, subplot, stakes, structure, pacing, scenes, etc. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed if you believe all of these issues should be solved before you can write the first page.
That expectation can make a writer feel paralyzed.
- Fear and perfectionism
Writing can expose our ideas and sometimes even parts of our heart to judgment. Perfectionism can be a way to protect ourselves from criticism. If you don’t write the story, it can never fail.
- Feeling “ready” to write
If all of these problems weren’t enough, here is another one:
Many writers think that being ready to write will correspond with feeling ready to write. They expect that when they feel ready to write the story will flow perfectly, with well-rounded characters, a dynamic, page-turning plot, and perfect scenes ready to be written.
Unfortunately, that rarely happens.
I’ve felt stuck many, many times in my writing career…
A Quick Example
In the past, (as a “pantser”) I would start with a great premise and a general sense of how I wanted the book to end, but it was fairly fuzzy. As a result, the path to get there was fuzzy, too.
The characters led me through the story, finding adventures and drama along the way. Often, I stared at a blank screen each morning, having no idea whatsoever what to write next.
Prayer is my go-to. After that, the ideas would flow again. But I didn’t have a plan, a theme, or a clear idea of all the pieces needed to make the story work.
It always seemed like a miracle when the story wrapped up as a fairly cohesive whole after weeks of writing… serendipity. But some pieces were usually missing, which meant going back to revise, which I don’t enjoy.
Early ideas often feel exciting. The concept seems promising until you get stuck.
That’s where the confusion usually begins.
How to Tell What Kind of “Lost” You Are
Idea overload
Do you have a lot of story ideas but don’t know which one to choose?
Do you start new stories instead of finishing old ones?
Idea uncertainty
Do you have a story idea but wonder if it is strong enough to write a whole book?
Are you worried you’ll start but won’t want to finish the story?
If so, the problem is usually not the idea. It’s that the idea hasn’t been developed into a clear premise with meaningful stakes and conflict.
Unclear story direction
Do you know the characters but not the plot?
Or the beginning of the story but not what happens in the middle?
This often happens when the story’s central goal/obstacle isn’t clear. Once those ideas come into focus, the next steps will be easier.
Overwhelm
Do you feel like you need to learn everything about storytelling before you begin?
Writing involves multiple different skills. Facing them all at the same time can make writing a book feel much more complicated than it really is. This can cause “writer’s block.” Psychologists suggest that writer’s block isn’t a mysterious creative condition. Writing requires intense mental effort. When too many decisions compete for your attention at once, you can feel overwhelmed. And that can grind your creativity to a halt.
Feeling stuck can be a sign that your story needs to become clearer. It’s not a sign that you lack creativity.
If any of these patterns feel familiar, you’re not alone. Most writers experience some (or many) of these problems when writing a story.
A Simple Way to Begin
Eventually, I realized that most stories don’t unfold perfectly formed, without effort. They become clear when you begin asking the right questions.
When you wonder how to start writing a book, the answer is usually simple.
Start by answering four questions:
• Who is the story about?
• What do they want?
• What stands in their way?
• Why does it matter—to them?
These questions create the foundation for everything that follows.
Characters need clear desires, because those desires drive action. Once you know what the character wants, you can begin imagining the obstacles that make the goal difficult to achieve. Those obstacles create conflict, and conflict powers the story engine and momentum.
This is the vital question:
Why does it matter?
That answer = the story stakes. If it really doesn’t matter if the character gets what they want, then the story will be emotionally flat. Boring, in other words. Readers won’t care and they will put down your book, probably for good.
Without clear wants, needs, fears, stakes and obstacles, writers don’t know what to put their characters through, because they don’t fully understand who their characters are yet.
An additional benefit comes from clarifying these points. Research has shown that writers who develop even a simple plan for their book are much more likely to finish it. The plan doesn’t need to be complicated. It just needs to provide direction for your story.
A Small Example
Think about the difference between these two starting points:
“I want to write a romance.”
This idea has potential, but it doesn’t give any information about the story.
Now here is the expanded version:
A shy bookstore owner trying to save the town’s historic library is forced to work with the developer whose project would replace it.
Now we can see the core elements of the story.
The protagonist: a shy bookstore owner.
The goal: saving the library.
The obstacle: working with the developer whose project threatens it.
Why it matters to the protagonist: the developer’s project would mean the end of the library
Once you know the answers to these basic questions, it becomes much easier to imagine scenes, complications, and character growth. The story begins to take shape because the central conflict is clear.
One Important Takeaway
Feeling lost at the beginning of a book is usually not a creativity problem.
It’s usually a plot clarity problem.
Once the central character, goal, obstacle, and stakes are defined, the story will have a solid foundation.
In the next articles, we’ll talk about simple ways to clarify those pieces so the story becomes easier to build.