10 Tips for Getting Unstuck When a Story Won’t Tell Itself
April 2025
St. Basil News by Anna
Dear friends,
Today’s quick tip list is inspired by the experience of… every author ever. Enjoy, and please comment with exercises you find helpful to add to this list!
10 Tips for Getting Unstuck When a Story Won’t Tell Itself
Switch POV. Yes, experimenting with a new POV can feel like you’re wasting work on words that won’t make the final cut. But you might be surprised by what’s unlocked when you try writing a scene from a different POV. Worst case scenario, you’ll receive confirmation that your original POV is right while seeing the story from a new angle.
Increase the sense of urgency: What’s at stake if your character fails, not only to achieve his overarching goal, but also to achieve the mini mile markers in each individual scene? Author and editor Susan DeFreitas breaks this down in her example on coaching a client struggling with pacing and tension. (For those focusing on revising, read the whole article—it’s gold!)
Play “What If?” Instead of writing your story, journal about your story. This exercise is especially helpful if you’re 1) stuck on a plot point or 2) making characters too predictable. Try writing proleptically. Grab a notebook and a pen, and ask yourself “What if?”— What if the story went another way? What if the antagonist actually succeeded at hacking into other people’s minds? What if your main character suddenly lost her cool and hurled a flower pot at her brother? What would happen next?
Write a scene exclusively in dialogue. Now write it exclusively in prose: Shifting back and forth here can force you into new ways of relaying information and getting to know your characters. On a related note, in Nicole Bianchi’s helpful article on writing exercises, she quotes George R.R. Martin saying:
“I sometimes teach writing classes. And there are various exercises you can give to students. One of them is to describe a half dozen different characters. Write a speech for each of these different characters without a name tag. Just say, ‘Here’s a priest, here’s a soldier, here’s a housewife’… Invent whatever you want. Write a speech for each of them in which…they don’t give their name…just make each speech sound different from the other so you can instantly know just from the words this is the priest speaking, this is the prostitute speaking… If they all sound the same, you have a problem. They should sound different.”
Whatever you think of George R.R. Martin, this is a great exercise.
Shake it up: Write a poem, write flash fiction, write a letter, write a song—change up the genre you’re working in and see if something in your story breaks loose.
Do something creative that engages your whole body: Dn. Nicholas has talked about how adventure running inspires creative break-throughs. For me, it’s ballroom dancing. Other authors in our Story Hearth writing community swim. It’s amazing how easy it is for us to forget that getting the body moving—especially if you’re engaging in an exercise that requires creativity and elegance of form—can get the brain moving.
Phone a friend: Not all of us are verbal processors, but sometimes, talking out a plot point that’s tripping up your story can help you figure out that the problem has a different origin than you expected or isn’t as complex as you’re convincing yourself it is. (On a related note, check out our post on how to know when to share your writing.)
Start small: Jane Delury recommends writing a single perfect sentence.
Resist the urge to rewrite: Sometimes our writing is flowing just fine until we suddenly realize we need to rewrite the beginning (again) to fix mistakes. One of our St. Basil’s students recently recommended a trick for this: pacify your critical brain by making a list of things you’ll fix when you do eventually rewrite, then keep writing. Getting draft one done is your priority.
Set an artificial deadline: Victor Hugo, Maya Angelou, Douglas Adams, and several other authors famously combatted distraction by locking themselves inside a room with nothing but their writing. One way to simulate the focus you get from minimizing external distractions is to give yourself an artificial deadline like “I won’t eat lunch until I have 200 words on the page” or “I must finish draft one by October 1st.”
Bonus tip—inventory your lifestyle: Most of us probably don’t have the luxury of hermetically sealing ourselves within a perfectly designed writing chamber, but we can do a lot to make sure our lifestyles as a whole move toward supporting our creative work. Check out Dn. Nicholas’s free audio mini series on Cultivating the Lifestyle of a Writer.
What am I missing? What have you found to be some of the most effective ways to get unstuck? Any favorite writing prompts or exercises? Please share them in the comments!