Is Your Writer’s Block Really Writer’s Indecision?
Louise Tondeur (@louisetondeur), author of The Small Steps Guides, discusses not knowing the answers to crucial questions and not knowing which questions were which in the first place, and how to categorize the questions that hold you back from progress on a draft.
Types of questions to ask when writing
What types of questions are there?
- Many of these questions could fall into more than one category.
- A kind of overlapping Venn diagram of questions if you like
- Other categories of question when you make notes on your work
Technique questions
These questions relate to how you’re writing each chapter or scene.
Crucial questions
These are the most important questions to identify and could be what’s holding you back, especially if you don’t know about them yet
- When do the police start to treat the death as suspicious?
- Unless I can answer this, I can’t make progress.
Process questions
These can be described as “meta” or “contextual” and have to do with the writing process.
Consistency questions
These are easy to sort out using an old-fashioned read-through or your word processor’s “find and replace” function
Research questions (two types)
Can you move past these without knowing the answer?
- Some questions you must know the answer to, such as “what’s the name of the main shopping street in High Wycombe?”
- Others you can’t move past without answering, like “how would police investigate this crime”
How to resolve your questions or indecision
Keep a list of your questions all in one place so it is easy to refer back to and amend.
- Divide questions into three types: Those I definitely need to answer before I can make any more progress, those I possibly need to, and those I definitely do not.
- Once you identify whether you are being indecisive or whether you lack certain information or guidance, you can move on to the next step: What action do I need to take?
Decisions disguised as questions
You know what you want in your head, but you’ve still phrased it as a question.
Problem questions
Write down every idea you have, however wacky