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[annamatic.livejournal.com]

HELP! I've reached the famed end-of-week-1 slump. I've gotten about 11,300 words written (43 pages) and I'm just sick to death of this thing. I can't stop, because I promised myself I'd finish, but it's getting harder and harder to come up with anything to write. I've tried longwinded description, I've tried filler, I just can't seem to care anymore. This is most disturbing. I'm writing in a fantasy-type setting. Please, any help? Words of encouragement? Bizarre plot twist ideas?

Comments

[china-lizard.livejournal.com]

throw in something completely unexpected.

[annamatic.livejournal.com]

such as?

[china-lizard.livejournal.com]

I haven't a clue, not having read your story thus far. ;)

An unexpected circumstance...meteors reigning down on earth...a crazy magician...a robot...an unexpected romance...

Something like that. ^_^

Also, don't try and force it; just relax your mind, and let your characters do the talking. =)

[galadhir.livejournal.com]

The sidekick character turns out to be working for the villain all along.

The mage was lying and the world is going to end tomorrow no matter what they do.

The evil villain is actually a nice guy with a genuine wish to help people, and your hero is in fact in the wrong.

All the magic stops working and they have to figure out why.

The hero dies and the sidekick takes over as the new hero.

(Incidentally, I know how you feel - I'm feeling the same today.)

[m-barnette.livejournal.com]

One of the characters turns out to be a dragon in disguise.

The hero turns out to be the villain and he knew about the dragon which he has sworn to kill over some long ago act the dragon committed even though it means the end of the world as the characters know it.

The heroine turns out to know that the hero is a jerk and does her best to protect the dragon.

Or the party discovers and artifiact that summons Ctuthulu.... let the mayhem ensue!

[evielsmith.livejournal.com]

I just have to say:
I LOVE CTHULHU!!!
I don't know many people who have even HEARD of Cthulhu!

[annamatic.livejournal.com]

Cthulhu Loves You!

[lapifors.livejournal.com]

Penguins invade, and set up a penguin empire. Your heroes need to thwart them, pronto, but then one of them falls in love with the penguin princess, and they must be parted forevermore if the penguin kingdom falls. Causes MAYHEM.

Should fill a few thousand words. :D

[erneuerung.livejournal.com]

I'm in the same place. Despite a high word count, my morale is really low and it's not that I find what I'm writing boring or uninspiring, it's just that I'm a little sick of it, coming back to the same thing every day. And the only thing I want right now is for it to have been written.

Have an ambush is broad daylight, or maybe make a character who is part of the MC's team turn out to be really evil or have them change sides. I don't know quite what your writing. If I had a better idea of it, I might be able to suggest things that would better fit your story.

Good luck, ne? You're doing really well. I know it's hard, but we've just got to keep pushing through.

[merrymagpie.livejournal.com]

My rule of thumb when stuck while writing fantasy: kill someone important. Then again, I enjoy killing off my chars as much as creating them, so... take it with a grain of salt. :)

Also, the creativefantasy community is doing weekly challenges to help WriMo-ers.

[poetic-art.livejournal.com]

Go back to a random spot in your story and have it take a different path. For instance, find a question where your character has answered 'yes' and have them answer 'no' instead. Go from there. You can still include everything you've written since then in your word count...consider it an alternative ending.

[reyl.livejournal.com]

Smut.

Or alternately, smut that turns out to be a dream. Or a nightmare.

But seriously:

One of the party goes missing. The heroes have to find them and what happened.

Someone the hero thought was dead isn't. This turns the plot in a new direction.

One of the party contracts a magical ailment. The heroes have to take them to a healer and go on a quest for the ingredients in the cure.

Someone unknown attempts to assasinate the villain. The heroes try and figure out who this possible ally is.

Hope those help :D

[m-barnette.livejournal.com]

Oh, yeah, and when all else fails, turn to demons. A bunch of them that the characters have to fight is always entertaining to write.

I just sold an erotic horror/fantasy novel to an erotic romance publisher where keeping a demon from taking over a fantasy world was the entire plot-- I added smut and stirred. LOL

[followthetisa.livejournal.com]

A couple ideas I offered a friend last night...

Taken in part from the upcoming movie Stranger than Fiction, have one of your characters narrate.

Have one of your characters repeat every other word they hear.

Have one of your characters repeat important events, but much exaggerated.

If you are a poet or song writer as well, have a character sing or present poetry. It doesn't kill a ton of words but it gives you a break from prose.

Have everything all your characters believe about one character as truth, turn out to be false. Make sure it's an important character or else this doesn't help much. :P This has been a plot point in my story from day one. ^_^

Insert a written news brief about the state of your fantasy world. Make sure to include how the enemy is doing, how the heroes are doing, and interviews with both. Once every 10k words should be perfect, and it could kill up to 1k words and probably more if you include detailed reports on the previous 10k words and interviews with all MC's.

Have an argument about the usage of the word to/too/two.

Re: previous. Create a "special news report", interrupting everything, and interview the enemy and smaller characters as to how they use to/two/too.


Lots of crazy things can happen in fantasy. ^_^

[deadache139.livejournal.com]

You can do ANYTHING in fantasy. (almost)

Have Winston Churchill float by in the sky or something.

Best of luck :)

[peregrin8.livejournal.com]

Pick a random sentence out of the newspaper and find a way to work it in.

[theravensclaw.livejournal.com]

PLOT NINJA!


Ask a friend for a random senario challenge. I have done this twice so far to get things moving

[shannon-zhang.livejournal.com]

Fantasy...hmmm...Create a band of outlaws to either waylay or help the main character.

Assassination of a major character.

Kill of a character temporarily (works really well with phoenixes...I had the phoenix die for three years. Heart-wrenching, but it works).

Write something totally different, just seperate of your novel. It can involve your characters, or just write fanfiction. Gets me thinking.

Good luck!