32 Ways to Get Moving on Your Novel Again
When You're Feeling Hopelessly Stuck

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  1. Change your setting. Send your character on an unexpected trip.
  2. Foist a new responsibility on your protagonist. Baby on the doorstep? Dragon in the attic?
  3. Follow your favorite minor character for a chapter and see what they do when no one's looking.
  4. Go back and flesh out previous scenes. (Adding only! No editing!)
  5. Go for a walk.
  6. Go write in a café or fancy hotel lobby.
  7. Have someone come through the door with a gun. (Thanks, Raymond Chandler!)
  8. Have something explode.
  9. Change the point of view. 
  10. Have your character do something completely out of character.
  11. Have your character confide in a stranger. (Bonus: Bring that stranger back at the end of your book for a cameo.)
  12. Have your character take a personality quiz that makes them angry.
  13. Introduce a new character.
  14. Kill a character.
  15. Kill your main character.
  16. If you're feeling lost, go back to the last point in your story where things felt solid. Start out again from there. (Keep all tangents—you might need them later.)
  17. Take 15 minutes to outline the next couple scenes before moving forward.
  18. Pick three wildly different story directions and write 200 words of each.
  19. Read a few pages of a book you love that has a similar tone.
  20. Read an interview with your favorite author about their process.   
  21. Skip ahead and write a scene you've been looking forward to.
  22. Take a nap.
  23. Take a shower.
  24. Talking badger.
  25. Think about the one thing your character can't live without, and take it away from them. (Thanks, Rachael Herron!)
  26. Tomorrow, write in your most creative time window.
  27. Have your character tell or hear an uncomfortable truth.
  28. Have your character accidentally Reply All.
  29. Write a throwaway scene where your characters all gather and discuss how miserably stuck you are. Let them offer suggestions on getting the story unstuck. (They will have good ideas.)
  30. Write an interstitial chapter where a narrator appears, and offers his/her take on everything that's happened. Let the narrator editorialize, quibble, and add to the tale.
  31. Drop everything and write for 40 minutes. Often the difference between a hopeless mess and a promising story is one productive writing session.
  32. Three-minute dance party!
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