4 ms·

Advice for Overcoming Writer’s Block (2016)

101 points by sieste 4y ago

texaslonghorn5 4y ago
https://web.archive.org/web/20220518195424/https://www.vulture.com/2016/11/read-dan-harmons-excellent-advice-for-overcoming-writers-block.html https://web.archive.org/web/20220518195424/https://www.vultu...
jb1991 4y ago
A very successful screenwriter that I saw interviewed once said, “my goal is simply to write 10 bad pages every day.”
- dmitriid 4y ago
  Stephen King writes 6 pages a day. Here's him talking about it with George R. R. Martin https://youtu.be/xR7XMkjDGw0 https://youtu.be/xR7XMkjDGw0
  - theshrike79 4y ago
    Ahh GRRM, the patron saint of procrastinators :D I just realised that all of the Expanse books (9 + a bunch of novellas) AND the full 6 season TV show were written and released during the time GRRM has tried to write one damn book. And now that the GoT series went down the hill so fast that it's used as an example of something disappearing from the zeitgeist surprisingly fast, people don't even care about the books anymore - because the chance of getting the whole series finished is nearing 0.
    - Thorrez 4y ago
      >And now that the GoT series went down the hill so fast that it's used as an example of something disappearing from the zeitgeist surprisingly fast It looks to me like every season was more popular than the last[1]. Do you mean that just the end of the last season was bad, and it was so bad that people immediately stopped talking about it when it finished? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Game_of_Thrones_episodes#Series_overview https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Game_of_Thrones_episod...
      - Narretz 4y ago
        The quality of show declined as soon as the book material ran out but at the same time it was good enough for it to still grow in popularity. But yes, the last season / ending was so badly received that it irreparably damaged the show's legacy.
        accountofme 4y ago
        Yeah, IIRC the show runners were contracted to do a star wars movie... They wanted to wrap up GoT and move on to that. Sadly, I think their failure to finish GoT properly screwed their star wars movie ambition too.... Edit: spelling
        988747 4y ago
        > Sadly, I think their failure to finish GoT properly screwed their star wars movie ambition too.... Why being sad about it? Seems like a proper punishment.
        accountofme 4y ago
        For them I guess ...
        jkestner 4y ago
        The quality of the story, yes, but the filmmaking (and each episode _was_ a film by the end) got better. Someday I can hope that they do a writer’s cut, right after Martin’s contracted writer finishes the books. That was a damn good show for the most part.
      - probably_wrong 4y ago
        > Do you mean that just the end of the last season was bad, and it was so bad that people immediately stopped talking about it when it finished? I never watched the show, but the conversations my friends had about its last season match the conclusions of Lindsay Ellis' second video about GOT[1], namely, "yes, the ending has ruined it all". As she puts it: > What is the legacy of GOT going to be? Because there are endings that ruin a story in hindsight. I used to watch and rewatch the earlier seasons of the show. But now, knowing how it ends, knowing what they are building towards, knowing how nihilistic and stupid and mean it ends up being, there is just no enjoyment in the journey even anymore. Even in the very long process of making these two episodes, rewatching old GOT was just an exercise in frustration because you know now that the buildup that they are going towards has little or no payoff. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGr0NRx3TKU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGr0NRx3TKU
    - AlwaysRock 4y ago
      To be fair, GRRM has written multiple books during this time period. He's not cranking out .25 pages a day. He's just not writing the book everyone wants him to write.
  - slothtrop 4y ago
    Yes, but it's also a 3-4 hour block if memory serves.
dilyevsky 4y ago
Similar/related read: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/01/06/fire-and-motion/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/01/06/fire-and-motion/
johnson98 4y ago
[dead]
klodolph 4y ago
This is just a reposting of something originally posted on Reddit. It took me a while to dig through Reddit’s interface, and the link from Vulture to Internet Archive to new Reddit to old Reddit. What a fucking mess. But you can read the original comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/5azrwi/im_dan_harmon_executive_producer_and_star_of/d9l3sxr/ https://old.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/5azrwi/im_dan_harmon_...
- jason-phillips 4y ago
  Well that's certainly one way to overcome it.
cupofjoakim 4y ago
The comment hits hard tbh, and I think it applies to any creative endeavour – even coding to an extent when you're new to a domain.
fab1an 4y ago
I love how he's basically describing a GAN, incidentally a super apt analogy for how human creativity seems to work more generally...
jraph 4y ago
When I block while trying to write, what usually blocks me is the lack of ideas.
raverbashing 4y ago
Oh I guess I confused Dan Harmon with Bill Hammack (the Enginnering guy) It's great advice nonetheless. (I mean, it probably explains some things about R&M but anyway)
totetsu 4y ago
Dan Harmon also had Excellent advice for apologizing
bakul 4y ago
There is also the idea of “Morning Pages” by Julia Cameron: https://juliacameronlive.com/basic-tools/morning-pages/ https://juliacameronlive.com/basic-tools/morning-pages/ Just still your inner critic and write 3 pages about anything and everything! Every day. In long hand.
jmkd 4y ago
I had writer's block for quite some time. I spent two decades thinking it didn't really exist and was just an excuse, but sure enough it came to bite. Harmon's advice is excellent.
jason-phillips 4y ago
Even though I'm a software engineer, I had the opportunity to study literature and practice writing under some remarkably amazing teachers and professors. Now, at fifty, I regularly practice that skill and it's served me quite well. The process for me starts with a strong realization, feeling or epiphany. The exercise, then, is to take that thought and scaffold it with words so that the entire thought is clearly understandable by anyone (and hopefully expressed with some cleverness). As David Lynch said, if you sit really still, those big ideas deep down there will start to surface and it's your job to make them real. They want to be something.
- rkhassen9 4y ago
  Jason-Phillips. IMHO what you wrote is the best writing or creative advice I've ever read.
eismcc 4y ago
There’s two things coming to mind: 1) Reminds me of that story about clay sculptures where they focused on quantity on one team and quality on the other. The quantity team produced better art. 2) this applies to startups or anything like that where just doing something and adjusting is more valuable than analysis paralysis
thenerdhead 4y ago
I've also heard "get your two shitty pages in a day".
meatsauce 4y ago
Just start. Get the pen or fingers moving. Write about anything. Stupid, silly, insulting - doesn't matter. Make yourself laugh. The point is to warm up. Just like free-writing, eventually you will get into a flow.

101 points by sieste 4y ago

https://web.archive.org/web/20220518195424/https://www.vulture.com/2016/11/read-dan-harmons-excellent-advice-for-overcoming-writers-block.html https://web.archive.org/web/20220518195424/https://www.vultu...

jb1991 4y ago

A very successful screenwriter that I saw interviewed once said, “my goal is simply to write 10 bad pages every day.”

dmitriid 4y ago
Stephen King writes 6 pages a day. Here's him talking about it with George R. R. Martin https://youtu.be/xR7XMkjDGw0 https://youtu.be/xR7XMkjDGw0
- theshrike79 4y ago
  Ahh GRRM, the patron saint of procrastinators :D I just realised that all of the Expanse books (9 + a bunch of novellas) AND the full 6 season TV show were written and released during the time GRRM has tried to write one damn book. And now that the GoT series went down the hill so fast that it's used as an example of something disappearing from the zeitgeist surprisingly fast, people don't even care about the books anymore - because the chance of getting the whole series finished is nearing 0.
  - Thorrez 4y ago
    >And now that the GoT series went down the hill so fast that it's used as an example of something disappearing from the zeitgeist surprisingly fast It looks to me like every season was more popular than the last[1]. Do you mean that just the end of the last season was bad, and it was so bad that people immediately stopped talking about it when it finished? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Game_of_Thrones_episodes#Series_overview https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Game_of_Thrones_episod...
    - Narretz 4y ago
      The quality of show declined as soon as the book material ran out but at the same time it was good enough for it to still grow in popularity. But yes, the last season / ending was so badly received that it irreparably damaged the show's legacy.
      - accountofme 4y ago
        Yeah, IIRC the show runners were contracted to do a star wars movie... They wanted to wrap up GoT and move on to that. Sadly, I think their failure to finish GoT properly screwed their star wars movie ambition too.... Edit: spelling
        988747 4y ago
        > Sadly, I think their failure to finish GoT properly screwed their star wars movie ambition too.... Why being sad about it? Seems like a proper punishment.
        accountofme 4y ago
        For them I guess ...
      - jkestner 4y ago
        The quality of the story, yes, but the filmmaking (and each episode _was_ a film by the end) got better. Someday I can hope that they do a writer’s cut, right after Martin’s contracted writer finishes the books. That was a damn good show for the most part.
    - probably_wrong 4y ago
      > Do you mean that just the end of the last season was bad, and it was so bad that people immediately stopped talking about it when it finished? I never watched the show, but the conversations my friends had about its last season match the conclusions of Lindsay Ellis' second video about GOT[1], namely, "yes, the ending has ruined it all". As she puts it: > What is the legacy of GOT going to be? Because there are endings that ruin a story in hindsight. I used to watch and rewatch the earlier seasons of the show. But now, knowing how it ends, knowing what they are building towards, knowing how nihilistic and stupid and mean it ends up being, there is just no enjoyment in the journey even anymore. Even in the very long process of making these two episodes, rewatching old GOT was just an exercise in frustration because you know now that the buildup that they are going towards has little or no payoff. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGr0NRx3TKU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGr0NRx3TKU
  - AlwaysRock 4y ago
    To be fair, GRRM has written multiple books during this time period. He's not cranking out .25 pages a day. He's just not writing the book everyone wants him to write.
- slothtrop 4y ago
  Yes, but it's also a 3-4 hour block if memory serves.

dilyevsky 4y ago

Similar/related read: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/01/06/fire-and-motion/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/01/06/fire-and-motion/

johnson98 4y ago

[dead]

klodolph 4y ago

This is just a reposting of something originally posted on Reddit. It took me a while to dig through Reddit’s interface, and the link from Vulture to Internet Archive to new Reddit to old Reddit. What a fucking mess. But you can read the original comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/5azrwi/im_dan_harmon_executive_producer_and_star_of/d9l3sxr/ https://old.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/5azrwi/im_dan_harmon_...

jason-phillips 4y ago
Well that's certainly one way to overcome it.

cupofjoakim 4y ago

The comment hits hard tbh, and I think it applies to any creative endeavour – even coding to an extent when you're new to a domain.

fab1an 4y ago

I love how he's basically describing a GAN, incidentally a super apt analogy for how human creativity seems to work more generally...

jraph 4y ago

When I block while trying to write, what usually blocks me is the lack of ideas.

raverbashing 4y ago

Oh I guess I confused Dan Harmon with Bill Hammack (the Enginnering guy) It's great advice nonetheless. (I mean, it probably explains some things about R&M but anyway)

totetsu 4y ago

Dan Harmon also had Excellent advice for apologizing

bakul 4y ago

There is also the idea of “Morning Pages” by Julia Cameron: https://juliacameronlive.com/basic-tools/morning-pages/ https://juliacameronlive.com/basic-tools/morning-pages/ Just still your inner critic and write 3 pages about anything and everything! Every day. In long hand.

jmkd 4y ago

I had writer's block for quite some time. I spent two decades thinking it didn't really exist and was just an excuse, but sure enough it came to bite. Harmon's advice is excellent.

jason-phillips 4y ago

Even though I'm a software engineer, I had the opportunity to study literature and practice writing under some remarkably amazing teachers and professors. Now, at fifty, I regularly practice that skill and it's served me quite well. The process for me starts with a strong realization, feeling or epiphany. The exercise, then, is to take that thought and scaffold it with words so that the entire thought is clearly understandable by anyone (and hopefully expressed with some cleverness). As David Lynch said, if you sit really still, those big ideas deep down there will start to surface and it's your job to make them real. They want to be something.

rkhassen9 4y ago
Jason-Phillips. IMHO what you wrote is the best writing or creative advice I've ever read.

eismcc 4y ago

There’s two things coming to mind: 1) Reminds me of that story about clay sculptures where they focused on quantity on one team and quality on the other. The quantity team produced better art. 2) this applies to startups or anything like that where just doing something and adjusting is more valuable than analysis paralysis

thenerdhead 4y ago

I've also heard "get your two shitty pages in a day".

meatsauce 4y ago

Just start. Get the pen or fingers moving. Write about anything. Stupid, silly, insulting - doesn't matter. Make yourself laugh. The point is to warm up. Just like free-writing, eventually you will get into a flow.