Thread: a little to close to home...

I'm trying to come up with some scenes for one of mine and I'm having a little trouble and it's giving me writers block.

okay heres what's going on. I like to base things (loosly most of the time) on things or people i know, or even aspects of my self. this paticular character has my "lack of experience in the dating scene", and her friends are trying to set her up on dates, but then here's where it gets me. I have no idea how to write these scenes because of what my character and I have in common.

should I just stop and/or scrap the whole thing? do i ask people who have been through it? I don't want to just copy movie cliches becuase i hate cliches more than anything on earth ( well second only to the telephone busy signal, but thats another thread for another day.)

... You're not making your problem clear enough. Are you saying that you can't write this character... Because it's too much like you?

You SHOULD have the BEST idea of how to write these scenes if they're about you.

Use real-life stories and experience.

well, no it's not Completely about me. I take aspects of my life and give them to some of my characters. this one character has the same problem I do in the dating scene, and the other characters in it are trying to help her. but I don't know how they go about doing this. I don't know how to phrase this exactly.

It's like someone who doesn't know how to knit who writes a character who doesn't know how to knit, and in the "story" they make another character help them out and show them how to knit. but what does the person writing do when they don't know the first thing about knitting?

thats kind of what i mean. except substitute knitting for dating.

I'm such a nerd. lol.

substitute knitting for dating

Hey, there's your solution.


I think I get a glimmer here. It sounds like you have created a situtation that, because it's something you haven't figure out how to handle, is giving you problems in handling it on paper.

Tough one.
You could wait until you get more experience.
You could contrive a cool movie ending solution.
You could talk to people about it, try to hammer out something that works. Might end up paying off in real life.
Or you character could end up being just as baffled as you are. But aware or comfortable or resigned or supported in that bafflement.
"I just can't figure out boys!"
"Who can, honey?"
sort of thing.

I would say that what you are doing is one of the main works of personal drama, trying to solve a seemingly insoluble problem. It's worth going nuts over because you might figure something out you can live with and you might be learning some of the mental tricks that help you solve the conflicts and dilemmas of drama.

substitute knitting for dating

Hey, there's your solution.


I think I get a glimmer here. It sounds like you have created a situtation that, because it's something you haven't figure out how to handle, is giving you problems in handling it on paper.

Tough one.
You could wait until you get more experience.
You could contrive a cool movie ending solution.
You could talk to people about it, try to hammer out something that works. Might end up paying off in real life.
Or you character could end up being just as baffled as you are. But aware or comfortable or resigned or supported in that bafflement.
"I just can't figure out boys!"
"Who can, honey?"
sort of thing.

I would say that what you are doing is one of the main works of personal drama, trying to solve a seemingly insoluble problem. It's worth going nuts over because you might figure something out you can live with and you might be learning some of the mental tricks that help you solve the conflicts and dilemmas of drama.