I can't compete.

Every writer inevitably gets to that scene that just doesn't want to work. It doesn't flow, no matter how hard you try. Well, here are some things to try to get out of that rut:

1. Change the weather

I know this doesn't sound like it'll make much of a difference, but trust me when I say it does.

Every single time I've tried this, it worked and the scene flowed magically.

2. Change the POV

If your book has multiple POV characters, it might be a good idea to switch the scene to another character's perspective.

9/10 times, this will make the scene flow better.

3. Start the scene earlier/later

Oftentimes, a scene just doesn't work because you're not starting in the right place.

Perhaps you're starting too late and giving too little context. Perhaps some description or character introspection is needed before you dive in.

Alternatively, you may be taking too long to get to the actual point of the scene. Would it help to dive straight into the action without much ado?

4. Write only the dialogue

If your scene involves dialogue, it can help immensely to write only the spoken words the first time round.

It's even better if you highlight different characters' speech in different colors.

Then, later on, you can go back and fill in the dialogue tags, description etc.

5. Fuck it and use a placeholder

If nothing works, it's time to move on.

Rather than perpetually getting stuck on that one scene, use a placeholder. Something like: [they escape somehow] or [big emotional talk].

And then continue with the draft.

This'll help you keep momentum and, maybe, make the scene easier to write later on once you have a better grasp on the plot and characters.

Trust me, I do this all the time.

It can take some practice to get past your Type A brain screaming at you, but it's worth it.

So, those are some things to try when a scene is being difficult. I hope that these tips help :)

it had been gentle and slow, just the brush of lips against each other as dean traced the shape of cas’ mouth and cas pushed closer towards dean.

and then cas had pulled back, startled, stuttering out some ridiculous excuse about checking on the laundry, and then he bolted from the room.

the moment left dean stunned; bringing his fingers to his lips in shock as he grazed over the place cas’ lips had touched just seconds before. the kiss had been so quick that it almost felt like it hadn’t even happened. and for a moment, dean thought he’d dreamed the whole thing, until he felt a shivering tingle across his lips; the same way he felt cas’ grace whenever the angel healed him.

oh.

the kiss was real.

it left dean feeling dazed and dizzy as he made his way back to his room. he thought the feeling would fade, but as he flopped down onto his bed he swore he could still taste cas on his lips. minutes ticked by, and that sensation of cas’ lips against his lingered; a taste of warm summer breeze and a hint of sweetness crackling with energy. it was addicting and dean was insatiable. he wanted more; wanted to chase cas’ mouth into another kiss and another, until all he could taste was cas.

when the thoughts felt like they were consuming dean, he stumbled out of his room in search of the angel. but he didn’t have to go far. cas was in the hallway right outside of dean’s room, leaning against the wall with an expression of longing etched into his face. when their eyes locked, dean reached out as cas leaned forward towards him.

“dean, i’m-” cas started to say.

“don’t pull away this time,” dean quickly said as he pulled cas closer.

“i won’t,” cas said, words ghosting against dean’s mouth as their lips slotted together in another kiss.

this time, it wasn’t just a hint of grace that dean could feel and taste on his lips, it was an overwhelming torrent and dean couldn’t get enough. as dean deepened the kiss, he felt cas’ arms slip around his neck and his grace sparked warmly against dean’s mouth. one kiss blended into two and then three, and when dean broke the kiss, absolutely breathless, cas was utterly beaming at him.

“you’re the one who pulled away,” cas pointed out a moment later, a smile on his face as he shared dean’s breath.

“whatcha gonna do about it?” dean said, wrapping a hand around cas’ tie and tugging him closer.

My posts stopped circulating, my art gets stuck between about 10 to 50 notes. What’s going on?

A More Profound Con is a fan-run convention, free of actors and focused on fanworks & fandom creatives.

Join us on March 12th from 1 to 6 p.m. EST for the first ever A More Profound Con event–a mini-con zoom webinar focused on fan creators and transformative works, mostly in the Destiel subfandom (though multi-shippers are welcome!) 

Attendance will be limited, so be sure to register early!

Speakers at this event will include fanfic authors (of both AU and canon universe), meta writers, and fan artists, and we’ll be sharing our full list of guests and panels on Twitter over the coming days.

While this event is free to attend, attendees and supporters may enter a charity raffle with proof of donation of $1USD or more to Random Acts or The Trevor Project. Each dollar donated is an additional chance to win prizes including:

- A podfic of the winners choice (under 20k words, and with author permission) from NerdyNerdenstein aka @DustyLCanon - Stickers and notecards from Valerie Gritsch - A copy of @lizleeships recent art book - Commissioned art by JackieDeeArt aka @winchester-reload - Pinefest logo notebook & stickers from @deancaspinefest  - An art print bundle from @scarlettmichkat

DM us on Twitter, or shoot an email to [email protected] with any questions (or to submit a donation screenshot for raffle entry!)

Registration is FREE & begins on March 5th.

hello!! i make louis-based fan art because i love that man beyond words. so please support me if you can :”) 💛

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there's no guaranteed way out of it of course, other than time, but here are some ideas of the kinds of things that have helped me in the past...

change the scenery: whatever your typical writing routine looks like, mix it up. write by hand instead of on a computer. sit in a different room of your house, on the floor instead of on your sofa, etc. go to a park or a coffee shop or a library, if you feel safe doing so. listen to completely different music. personally when i get stuck in general, whether it's a writers block kind of thing or more of an i'm a complete imposter and who the hell allowed me to try writing in the first place kind of thing, i'm a fan of writing in the shower. it's probably something about the white noise of the running water and the lack of distractions. i know not everyone has a waterproof notepad for that purpose, but you could try noise-cancelling headphones with white noise/rain sounds instead.

analyze your old writing: re-read something you've written that you love, but don't let yourself get caught up in feeling bad that what you're doing now doesn't live up to it. instead, look at what you were actually doing and how you were doing it. what is it that is so good about it? is it word choice? is it the plotting? is it pacing? really look at it and figure out why you think it's good, and that will help you figure out what you're doing "wrong" now. for me, for example, when i've done this in the past, i've often realized that when i'm in a funk my writing becomes less complex. it gets very david said this. then he did that. patrick replied "blah." it's all fairly simple sentences and very straightforward subject-verb constructions, like my brain resorts to just putting the literal plot on the page and nothing more. re-reading my old work helps me notice that that's what i'm doing AND reminds me of other ways i could be writing those sentences. that doesn't mean putting them together that way doesn't feel like pulling teeth sometimes anyway, but it can help.

give yourself a deadline: if you're the kind of person who writes well under pressure, find a deadline for yourself to get things done. for me, i know that soft deadlines like i'm gonna finish this by next friday really don't motivate me the way harder deadlines do though. if you're like that, too, then find a fest you can sign up for. or tie your deadline to a specific date of importance (a holiday, a friend's birthday) where you can say i am publishing this specifically to celebrate this day. or find a writer friend who will agree to do an exchange with you on a particular date so that you HAVE to be done then or you'll disappoint them. i gave myself a hard deadline with my most recent fic, which i decided to write for claire's birthday, after not being able to make myself make any progress on any of my other wips for more than a month, and it worked—something about having a solid deadline just makes my brain get its shit together, lol.

start fresh: if you've written something and feel that the way you've written it is truly bad, start over. re-read that section, open a fresh doc (i'm a fan of using a distraction-free writer for this process, like zenpen), paste in the last line of the previous section, and then start writing from there all over again from scratch. a lot of times when we write a scene for the first time, we're still finding our way through it. when we re-write though, we have a much better idea of what the scene needs to accomplish, which makes it much easier to focus on how we get there—on writing it in a better way—than on just getting through it. you can always synthesize the two versions after, if there are things from the first one that you want to keep, but i find that at least starting the process with a blank page rather than trying to edit what i already have often produces much better results.

hold up, who says it’s craptastic? you? we all think our own writing is shit. that is a time-honored tradition going back to the ancient greeks, and that’s a fact.*

now i preface ALL of this by saying that i am not an expert on the subject. it’s impossible to be an expert on writing because writing is so personal to every writer. there’s no one way to do it. king doesn’t write like poe. shelley didn’t write like le guin. i am, however, an expert on how I write. and what works for me might not work for you, and that’s okay. writing is nothing but trial and error, cursing and crying, staring at a blinking cursor and willing words to write themselves until you find what fits.

what i’m trying to say is how long you sit on something is entirely up to you. some people can tinker and tinker and tinker until they drive themselves crazy. other people drive themselves crazy from the get-go, but eventually concede that what they’ve written is not actually the worst thing in the world. personally, i am the latter. i need space from something for a bit; not long, maybe a day or two if it’s short, a few more if it’s long, and then i reread and toss it out into the world before self-doubt can dig its claws into me. i still find sentences that i don’t like and words that could have been chosen more carefully, but i’m making peace with the fact that nothing’s perfect. and certainly not me.

you spent time on this, though. time from your busy life that you could have spent doing literally anything else. and you chose this topic, these characters, this journey. it obviously meant something. it meant enough to motivate you to metaphorically put pen to paper and that, my friend, is often the hardest part.

only you have the power to scrap it. no one can make that decision for you. maybe give it a few days, take a look again with fresh eyes, and then decide.

But I will also add, just in my opinion, I don’t think anything should be scrapped. The more you write, the better you get. Keep that first thing as a reminder of where you started. Keep it for parts you can transform into something else you love later.

exactly what @blackandwhiteandrose said. ‘scrapped’ doesn’t mean deleted or thrown out. maybe it means ‘saved.’ maybe it means ‘remembered.’ hold onto everything. it’s evidence of your effort and benchmarks of your journey. 

Prompts are now open for SC Mediafest!

We’re so excited to share with you that prompting is now open for SC Mediafest. Find us on AO3 here!

SC Mediafest is a prompt fest (not an exchange) for Schitt's Creek fanworks inspired by any and all types of media—inspired by a book, movie, TV show, song, artwork, or more.

Got an AU idea—inspired by a book, movie, TV show, song, artwork, or more—that you’ve always wanted to read or write? How about a fic set in canon, post-canon, or loosely-inspired by canon that features our favorite characters enjoying any piece of media?

If you’ve always wanted to see Patrick introduce Star Wars to David, read an AU in which Twyla is the Little Mermaid, or see Stevie reluctantly co-organize the RMG book club with Ruth, we’ve got the fest for you. Give us Alexis organizing an Ocean’s Eight-inspired heist, or Jake Tucker Must Die. If it’s inspired by media or features our characters enjoying media, you’re in the right place!