Big Questions in Life and Writer’s Block

Existential Questions

You’ll often hear in literature, media, and from friends, that one must ask oneself the hard questions in life. Questions like “Who are you” and “What do you want in life” and “What makes you really happy” are some common examples from the present era, while other timeless, if less popular considerations including “Why do I exist” and “How did the world come to exist”. Speaking from personal experience, we avoid answering these questions and avoid admitting they remain unanswered with equal fervor. This naturally changes when we meet and overcome challenges that essentially force us to do what we would otherwise avoid. I like to think that this is the main reason experience is called the greatest teacher.

In a similar fashion, I think authors often avoid the hard questions about their novels. And in a similar fashion, we are sometimes forced to face those questions, usually in one of two ways.

Prepare to be Blindsided

The first is the worst. When we show our work to other people, they naturally think up the questions we’ve been avoiding. They do this because they care about us, or they are just being reasonable, but it’s often quite injurious to the sensitive confidence of a burgeoning writer. This is a bit like when you are a teenager, and everyone and their brother has a hard question for you because they can all see that you don’t have the answers yet.

Consider some common examples. “Do you plan to publish?” “Will/do they sell?” “How much time will you devote to this?” “Where will your support come from?” “How will you live?” Do you sense the similarity between these questions and the life questions above? It’s a bit like asking a baby to know everything about the world and have his whole life figured out, but because we’re adults and being an author is a recognized, if not distinguished, career path, we are expected to be certain and prepared.

But these are just the tip of the iceberg. There are other questions that anyone familiar with the industry will ask. “What makes your work different from the flood of written work out there?” “How will you cater to the widest market?” “Do you know how to make an inquiry, or catch the attention of an agent?” “Do you understand the writing process?” “Do you have a writing habit or community?” “Do you have a repertoire?” “Are you prepared to do this all your life and never get anywhere?” “Are you in it for the fame or the fun?” These are usually helpful questions, but the pressure can be overwhelming to anyone without the certainty or stubbornness to believe that there is nothing else in life they can or will do.

Then, there are the soul-sucking questions you may hear from readers. “What’s the point of this story?” “Why is this character this way?” “Isn’t this kind of similar to ­______?” Readers have an almost magical ability to pinpoint each and every imperfection in a story, especially if you get it in front of quite a few, yet you will set one story before a hundred judges and some how find that very few can actually agree on where the issues lie.

Blocked or Protected?

The second way we are forced to face questions is perhaps truer to “Experience’s” style, slower but more exacting. It’s when we run into a wall in our writing. Most people call it “writer’s block”. At the end of the day, “writer’s block” is nothing more or less than the moment when a writer realizes that they don’t know what to do with a story anymore. I would also suggest that most of the time, this happens because we don’t know what we’re doing.

Have you ever listened to someone try and tell you how to write a novel? I don’t care if it’s your English Comp teacher, Brandon Sanderson, or Joe from the corner at 20^th and South Street. No matter who you ask, no matter who you listen to, you can carefully observe all the master’s instructions and never learn to write a novel, never mind one that sells or moves people. It’s not the teacher’s fault either.

Again, I must compare it to life. Anyone can tell you a thing or two about living a better life, but no human can tell you how to live YOUR life. That’s just how it is. The only way humans know how to “learn to live” is by doing it themselves. Some people make more mistakes than other. Some people started out from harder places than other. Some people had better information earlier on, or were naturally inclined to better choices from the start. But no one lives their life knowing what they’re doing. We’re all just winging it.

Writing is like that. I don’t mean to suggest that it all comes down to your luck whether you make it or break it in the industry (though a case can be made for that, at least in part). What I mean to say is that no one starts writing because they’ve figured it out. They start writing, then realize they need to figure it out, and spend the rest of their writing career doing so.

When I’m writing, there comes a crunch time in every single story I write. A moment when writer’s block stops me dead in my tracks, and I’m forced to consider what I’m doing and ask myself the hard questions, one at a time. Despite my best efforts, I’ve never been able to understand my own stories enough from the beginning to ask these questions at the start, so I usually have to stop when I meet that old familiar feeling of writer’s block in the midst of a project. “Great,” I say, “I’m stuck… now what?”

That’s when I ask myself the hard questions, and when I find the best answers I have. Each time this happens, I get better at answering the questions, if in tiny ways each time.

Here are some of the questions that come up in times of writer’s block, in addition to all the questions that have already come up in this discussion: “What do I want to say with this story?” “Why did I start this story?” “How do I convey this feeling?” “How do I avoid boring my readers?” “How do I win over my readers?” “Is there a way to express a new idea without sounding preaching or contrived?” “How do I write this character to be understandable?” “Why does this make sense?” “What do I need to cut?” “What can I cut?” “What’s the point of this part?” “Does the story have to go in this direction?” “Is this detail necessary?” “How do I create this image in a reader’s mind?” “Does this point toward, or drag away from, the destination I have in mind?”

These are just common examples, and by no means exhaustive. The point is, “writer’s block” forces me to confront the issues with my story, rendering me completely unable to proceed until a new course has been determined or the issue fixed. For this reason, I like “writer’s block”. She’s a ruthless teacher, and she’s forced me to abandon many a project for a day when I’m much more skillful, but it’s thanks to “writer’s block” that I’ve continued to improve my skill and my stories.

It’s Time to Take Your Time

So, the next time you’re faced with writer’s block, you may try considering the hard questions, the ones someone else will ask you later down the line, if you don’t try to face them now. You’ve seen a lot of the questions I ask myself, but these may not be the questions you need to ask. You know better than anyone which issues tend to arise in your own writing. What I am saying is that writer’s block isn’t a sign that you’re a bad writer or it’s time to give up. Writer’s block is a sign that there’s a hard question or two hanging over your head, and it’s time you answered them.

Think of it as a luxury. No one get’s breaks from life when they don’t know what to do, but writer’s block is essentially a forced break. Take the opportunity to step back and evaluate at your leisure. What other profession can tell you that?