Interim Step Eleven: What To Do When You Get Stuck

Because Writer's Block Happens To All Of Us

I want to tackle the elephant in the room—writers’ block. It happens. It happens to the best of us. It happens to professional career writers just as much as it does new writers. It is real, it is insidious, and it has its reasons for appearing.

But talking about it isn’t enough. Below you’re going to find multiple actionable ideas for breaking apart the block and moving forward in your creative life.

We all get stuck. Actually, I get stuck all the time, and quite a bit over the past few months. Granted, Q1 was a disaster, and since this 2025 is starting to feel like a Quarter Quell, I’ve been giving myself some grace. But I was getting that horrible, desperate, I’m never going to write again feeling, and then it broke! I was talking with my critique partner and shared the wonderful news that I had finally—finally—gotten out of the chapter I’d been stuck on for the past few weeks. Yes, weeks, on one chapter. We then had a bit of a laugh talking about some of my more notorious story-driven writing blocks. When we finished giggling, she said, “You really should write about this because it might help some folks.”

So here I am, to give you some specifics of places I’ve been stuck in my stories, and how I broke free and got writing again.

I think there is a commonality to most blocks: Your story is trying to tell you you’re going in the wrong direction.

You’re not blocked because you’re a bad writer, or you’re not doing the work, or you’re writing the wrong story. You’re blocked because there’s an element you’re missing. Is it that you don’t totally understand your character's motivation? Is it a lack of research? Is there something inauthentic to the story in what you’re trying to do? Are you bored and don’t know where to take things next? Are you writing in the wrong POV, the wrong tense, or with the wrong character names? Are you just distracted by the world?

All of the above, sometimes. The trick is to ascertain what, exactly the problem is, and develop a plan to fix it.

Talk To Me Of These Blocks You Have

I’ll start with probably my favorite ever block. In HER DARK LIES, Claire didn’t leave the room…for about 200 pages. She had jet lag, and I just couldn’t get her out the damn door. She drank espresso, she showered, she napped… I sent some pages to my friend and she made mention that perhaps the main character should actually be interacting with the rest of the story… well, duh.

When she did finally leave, there was still something wrong. Finally, we figured out that the estate needed dogs, and for some reason, the brothers Romulus and Remus made everything work.

In GOOD GIRLS LIE, I was about 70k in when things screeched to a halt. Like dead halt, couldn’t write another word. No idea what was stopping me, outside of not knowing for sure who was hanging from the gates in the opening scene.

It took a few weeks to realize I’d written the whole book in the wrong POV. I switched to first person present tense, rewrote the whole thing, and when I got to the spot where I’d been stuck, I miraculously blew past it and on to the finish line.

Photo by Steve Johnson on Unsplash