Rob Parnell's Writing Academy Blog

Writers have a tendency to complicate things. We think that's what is required of us. Character depth, we tell ourselves, is what counts. Plot complexity, we think, is what impresses. Layers of story threads woven into a sophisticated tapestry will mark us out as a literary master, we want to believe. But actually in the modern marketplace I don't think this is true. At least not when it comes to selling our work to agents and publishers, producers, indeed the general public. Just look at the way books, TV and films are pitched to us - in the media especially. You might think that it's journalists and editors that create these little snippets and brief synopses designed to encapsulate our work. Wrong. It's us - we have to do it. Novelists write their own back-blurbs. TV listings are derived from the screenwriter's original log lines... Even after we've written something as word-weighty as a novel, we have to learn how to distill dow...

I've always been loath to tackle the subject of writer's block. A personal, largely superstitious thing - but still I get asked what writers should do about it - all the time! So here goes: 1. Crisis, What Crisis? First off, you need to deny that there is any such thing as writer's block. This debilitating condition can only hurt you when you give it the privilege of a concrete name. Take away its name and you begin to take away its power over you. Tell yourself, there is no such thing as writer's block. There is writing and not-writing. Only writers have a name for something they're NOT doing. Think about the absurdity of builder's block, or doctor's block, or pilot's block. Any kind of inability to write is similarly absurd. Writing is like breathing - something you learned to do a long time ago without thinking. Stop thinking about it - and just do it. 2. Stop! In the Name of Love. If you've run out of ideas or you're st...