The Blank Page

It’s a lovely evening. The sun is about to set. There is a beautiful breeze flowing. You have a cup of your favourite coffee beside you. Your laptop is in your hand (or a pen if you prefer). You are all set to let your creativity flow. You touch your pen to paper and…..

Stare at it! For a long time…

“Write!” you tell yourself. “Write what?” “I don’t have anything to say” or “I have so much in my head, I don’t know how to put it into words.” These are some of the things your brain screams out at you.

The Blank Page Syndrome or Writer’s Block as we commonly know it, affects most writers at some point or another. Although there are quite a few writers who scoff at this concept and claim that they have never faced any difficulty writing, let’s concentrate on the ones who have.

Some of the most common causes of writer’s block are incorrect timing, fear of the results and expecting perfection.

Sometimes, we have ideas that need more time to develop in our mind before we can actually recreate them on paper. If we begin the process before that, we may be unsure of what to write and end up with a blank page.

As writers, we fear the end result of our writing process. Our minds can create imagery that is too unreal at times which may not go down well with the norms of society. The world tends to judge each writer on the basis of content produced. It is this fear of critique that often blocks creativity.

Writers tend to judge themselves harshly too. We want everything to be perfect. But the obsession of perfection many times makes our writing go awry.

It is because nobody ever delves deep into the writer’s block, that we fail to overcome it. One can find a lot of tips and tricks to begin writing again but those solutions will only work if we know what type of block we are facing.
The following are the various problems a writer may come up against:

1. You have no ideas
2. You have too many ideas
3. You have a rough sketch in your mind but no details
4. You are stuck in a particular spot and don’t know where to go next
5. You realize you have taken a wrong path somewhere/ hit a dead end
6. Your story/characters seem flat
7. You can’t find the right words to say what you want to
8. What you have written seems stupid

Different solutions work for different problems. If you are at number 1, for example, the age old writing exercises can help. These may put some ideas into your mind and give you a starting point.

If you have too many ideas, you could always work on them one by one. Even if you can’t elaborate all of them at once, save them for another time and execute each one when comfortable.

When you don’t have a clear picture of what you want, start by making an outline and stick to it. Some writers work better this way rather than just starting off and hoping to stay on a linear path. Writing also flourishes as you progress and you can add details that come to you then.

When stuck in a particular spot, it may help to back up a bit. This can bring you back on the same thinking track you were on when you wrote the earlier parts. If you do come up with more than one direction for your writing to go in, give them a try by all means. But make sure you finalize one before you stray too far.

This will help you avoid problem number 5. If you still do end up in a place where you feel there is no scope to elaborate, (it sounds awful) you must backtrack and go up a different route. Don’t try this until you have searched for all possible means to keep going ahead. But when you do realize that branching out from the current spot might get your writing all twisted up, it’s best to restart from the point you lost logic.

Stories or characters that are static are not going to please anybody. It is always better to have a clear idea of the protagonist and supporting cast before you begin but obviously that is easier said than done. So fret not. Continue developing your characters and something will certainly jump out at you.

Writers find inspiration everywhere and there are so many things we feel very strongly about that we often have too much to say but don’t know how to say it. How often have we suffered from brain teasers wherein we are just waiting for that one particular word or expression that is going to fit perfectly in the sentence, to come to us? We often waste a whole lot of time obsessing over it and we are not satisfied with any close associations or alternatives. It is a pain but you just have to move on. You will suddenly come across what you were looking for when you least expect it. Or maybe when you are revising your text.

And then, epiphany! Lastly, when you find your own writing style, it is possible that you may have found a real problem with your production. And you can of course start afresh (although this is cumbersome). But don’t give up easily. Your idea may actually have merit but you may not be able to execute it properly. Take some time off and then try a different approach.

Each writer has a unique process and there can be no black and white when it comes to overcoming the blank page syndrome. But a general method that can definitely help all of us is the Kaizen. Although it sounds Japanese, this is an American philosophy. ‘Get 1% better each day’ is the bottom-line of the Kaizen method. Rather than trying to improve drastically in a day or two wherein you write two pages at the start of a week and hope to finish a short story by the weekend, it is better to take one step at a time and get better than what you were yesterday. And then tomorrow, perform better than today. It is the philosophy of small, continuous improvement that can do the trick; especially for writers. These small efforts will eventually result in a big achievement helping writers avoid pressure, fear and monotony in the process.

Remember- nobody published a novel or won a prize in a month. So have patience, work calmly and turn your blank pages into animated stories.