Writer's Block Exercise - Week 18

Got Writer’s Block?

Yeah, it happens to the best of us.  Life gets in the way and your brain is taken in another direction and before you know it, it’s been days or weeks since you last looked at that book you’re trying to write.  You’ve forgotten little details.  What eye color did you give your hero?  What town was your heroine born in?  Perhaps you need to jumpstart your creative mojo, and that's what this series is designed for. Not to explain writer's block, but to help you move in a different direction.

This could be a fun experiment and one that might be a game changer on not only what you write but HOW you write. It actually might even be fun taking a romantic comedy, adding an axe murder, but keep the under-lining humor. Maybe even write a hybrid genre…mixing this and that to make completely different genre.

Remember the book Warm Bodies? It was a romantic comedy featuring a zombie who falls in love with a human. The movie was fun too. It was a refreshing take on the horror genre. Or the movie “Hansel and Greta”, which took a fairy tale and made the brother and sister into badass witch hunters.

If you are trying to fit your story into a mold, and it’s just not working, don’t be afraid to break out of the confines you think you have to write in.  Remember, there is no one way to write.

#18 Switch Genres

Consider how your story might play out if it were in a completely different genre.


>Pick a wildly different genre, and talk through your hero’s plot if it were set in that world.

 
> Choose another time frame (e.g., Middle Ages, the 1970s) and reimagine your story taking place then. What would change? What would stay the same?


> Insert a hero from a different genre. Put a pirate in your romantic comedy. Bring a rowdy bachelor to your historical drama.


What would this be like as a western? Or a thriller? Or a comedy?

What would your hero do differently? What would the reader expect in this kind of story? Switching genres can help you brainstorm many possible plot turns, and alternate choices your hero could make.


Remember that characters often don’t know what genre they’re in. Characters in a horror movie may thing they’re in a comedy , and act that way until the chainsaws come out.

Happy Writing!
 


***John August designed these cards to help writers fix plot holes, spice up stock characters and

rethink your themes.  They, of course, do not guarantee you’ll get published or that you’ll become the next J.K. Rowling, and of course they are only a tool to help you think outside the box. I make no monetary gain with them nor do I expect anything in return.  I do not own the contents in these cards. If you're interested in them, here's the amazon link: https://www.amazon.com/Writer-Emergency-Pack/dp/B00R6ZLIOY/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1502046610&sr=8-2&keywords=john+august