Quantum Storytelling

If you’re stumped or have writers’ block, the reason is probably due to one of two things:

1. You’re not visualizing what you need to write.
2. You can’t see the big picture.

Visualization

I’ve been playing this great computer game called Oblivion. It’s a huge open world, with many towns, and characters walking around. We’re not far from that whole dated viritual reality thing people have been talking about for years and years. It’s pretty much here now, albeit in limited form.

If I can live in a virtual world, and travel miles and miles across countryside, talking to fictional characters and being a part of fictional events, it’s here.

Now aside from this being a great distraction from actually getting any writing done, it has helped me to think about my story a little better. And no that’s not just a rationalization for my gaming goof-offs.

You see, as I play through the world I’m paying attention to the towns, the people, how they are laid out and established, and how the entire thing seems real and credible. That’s a compliment considering many of the people look the same, talk the same, and most of the houses and buildings look the same.

It’s all procedurally generated using the minimum assets they could get away with. Many characters share the same voices, artwork, etc. Stuff just gets re-used. This lends a homogenized generic quality to the world. It doesn’t feel that deep or unique. Yet, the experience on the whole is still convincing.

There is something to be said about world-building process of writing fiction from looking at a game like Oblivion.

Not everything has to be unique.

Not everything has to be custom-tailored.

You don’t need to have a unique name and life story for the guy who lives five blocks away from your hero. It wouldn’t hurt, but it’s not necessary. What is necessary, is that you do give some level of thought to these kind of details.

What kind of neighborhood does the hero live in?

If the hero has a certain outlook on life, does that match where they live? For example, if the person is homeless or lives in a dump, wouldn’t they be upset or unhappy? If they’re not, why not?

Do they have some magical ray of hope in their lives that keeps them going?

You can raise a lot of interesting character and drama questions just by thinking about the surroundings of the characters. And to think about the locations or surroundings, you’ve got to have a visual. At very least, a rough picture in your head of what the place and people look like.

Where does the hero work? How far is that from their house? Do they have a commute? What kinds of things do they encounter on the commute? Anything interesting worth writing about, or just passive narrative?

When you can’t see the big picture.

A story is just a bunch of connected parts. Sometimes when we’re overwhelmed by the process of writing a novel or piece as a whole, the solution is to simply break it down into smaller bits. If you’re having trouble with a chapter, stop writing a chapter and start writing a scene. If you’re having trouble with a scene, stop writing it as a scene and start by writing a few lines of an encounter or conversation. No matter what the problem, you can break it down into smaller pieces.

There is a reverse problem too though. It’s one I’ve been encountering lately. I’ve been so focused lately on individual scenes that I can’t see the whole story anymore. I’ve lost sight of the big picture. My solution for this is to stop and take stock of what you have. Take a look at everything you have, then compare that to all the things you’d like to do. Make a huge list of things you already have, and things you’d like to do. This is your Stock. It’s your Asset List.

My problem is I often obsess over the holes and empty parts of my story. The problem is, you can’t solve the problem by focusing on nothingness. Staring at a hole, and worrying about a hole isn’t productive. You’re literally staring at the void and your mind goes blank. It’s best not to fixate on the void at all.

A better way would be to focus on what you DO have. Think about the positive-space of your story, not the negative-space.

You’ve probably heard the advice, use your strengths, don’t try to fix weaknesses. We should all strive to improve ourselves, but especially for writers there are times when you can get too absorbed in trying to correct things that have nothing to do with your overall story.

Don’t obsess over things that are wrong at the creation stage. While drafting, it’s often advised to “turn off the critic,” and this is true not just while drafting but while problem-solving holes in your story as well.

You can’t solve a problem by thinking about how bad the problem is, or only paying attention to the problem itself. You need to look at what you’ve done right. Run with your strengths. Take your strengths as far as they will stretch. Often times you’d be suprised how quickly this solves problems and fills holes.

This is also a visualization process. It’s learning to think about what you have as positive space, and what you don’t have as negative space. Like sculpture, or carving.

If you were making a sculpture of a person’s face, and you wanted it to be a very specific kind of face, you’d run into some of the same kinds of problems that writers do. You might carve out a nose exactly how you want it.

But what if you don’t know what kind of eyes you want the sculpture to have?

You’d probably leave that blank or unshaped, uncarved. Staring at the unshaped material isn’t going to give you an idea for cool eyes to put on the sculpture. You can stare at it all day long, and still draw a blank. The reason is because by specifically staring at nothing… a lack of shape, a void… you’re failing to use your visualization powers.

Instead, look at the nose or mouth you’ve already carved out. Think about how those parts work really well together. What kind of eyes would match the kind of nose and mouth you’ve already completed?

Writing works the exact same way as the sculpture analogy. Take stock of what you have. If you’ve got a really strong character or two, but are missing another key character… or you have a generic character that isn’t up to snuff, think about the strong characters you already have and what would make a nice complement or contrast to them.

Work with what you have, not with what you don’t have. You can’t use your imagination when it’s rooted in the void, or rooted in nothing. Staring at a blank page will only inspire staring at a blank page. It will only inspire blankness, because you’re fueling yourself with zero, nothing.

Feed off the things you’ve already created. It’s an organic process, just like a tree grows, or a human baby. The trunk grows from the roots, the banches grow from the trunk. You don’t have branches floating in space waiting for inspiration to decide what kind of foundation the branches will have. Babies don’t develop as arms waiting for a shoulder or a body. Things grow as a logical or evolved extension from the things that already exist.

Grow your story. Start with what you already have, and grow from there. It’s a great way to kill writers’ block and avoid punishing yourself.