The Backward OX

I'm still having a problem making a start on my magnum opus.

My imagination seems to be in permanent lock-down mode. It’s locked down tighter than Mugabe’s vote count.

Foxee can harangue me about using ‘what if’ until she’s blue in the face, but if I can’t think of a string of ‘what ifs’, nothing happens.

And I can’t think of them.

So I’m wondering why my imagination isn’t working.

Could it be connected with personality type?

I’m very reserved.

Could that be it?

Has this ever happened to you? Has your imagination ever vanished? What did you do about it?

Maybe I should consider writing non-fiction?

Non Serviam

It's called writers' block, and in a few minutes all the usual suspects will show up to tell me writers' block doesn't exist (again).

The only cure for writers' block is time, but I find I can get temporary relief by sitting at my computer, typing. Which sounds ridiculous, when you've got block, but it works for me.

The rule is, do not let your fingers cease to strike keys, no matter how much rubbish is coming out of them. I stick the rubbish in little brackets so I can delete it later.

I end up with pieces of writing that look like this:

Once upon a time there was a {what the hell was there? I have no idea what there was. Let's introduce a protagonist and call him--her?--him, er, ah, Bill. Or Ted. I can change that later. Bill} young man who worked on a farm. His name was Bill and he had a {err, wicked stepfather? Fairy godmother? Some kind of combination of adjective/noun, reach for the dictionary, select a couple words at random, let me see} invalid donkey. {Invalid donkey wtf? Okay it's a young man whose donkey is sick, I can rephrase that later, so what does he do? Takes it to the vet?}

Then you go back and delete all the crap you've typed in the curly brackets, and you end up with page after page of material that's still complete rubbish, when taken together, but, there'll be at least two or three sentences of usable material per page.

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Born naked, helpless, unable to care for himself and completely open-minded, Non Serviam has subsequently surmounted all these difficulties and gone on to become a decently-clothed, self-sufficient, close-minded sod.

Malone

Man, you're old. Go smoke some hash or eat some mushrooms. What can it hurt? You're old.

So...WHAT IF you got really high or tripped balls? You just might get a little creative...


My writing professors would have said something more along the lines of Serv, though. Just sit down with a topic and write constantly for fifteen or thirty minutes without thinking or pausing.
Sometimes if I sit in the dark listening to music through headphones my imagination will start twirling too. Usually music with little to no words is best.

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There Is A Policeman Inside All Our Heads: He Must Be Destroyed

lilacstarflower

Adding to that ^^^

music with words in a different language can work too - only if you don't know the language e.g. an Il Divo song once helped me figure out how to word a part of a romance I was writing. I typed up what I thought the song was about and then searched for the lyrics in English. I was completely wrong of course, but I got a really good bit of dialog for a character from it

I'm with you though - it can be tough thinking up the start to a story

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One day I will live by this code:

Noirllyn

I didn't know anyone intended for his magnum opus to be so before he began it. Learn something new everyday, I suppose.

Are you trying to start from the beginning? Because if that's not working for you, I can easily suggest against it. Most of the gigantic books I've read--I'm sure the beginnings came much later in the process.

One thing that helps me is to set an event that it excites me to write about at some point in the future of the story. The first time I planned to put a detailed sexual encounter into a story, I hashed out 6k words in less than an evening. Of course, this doesn't have to be sex (it was my first time... give me a break.), just anything interesting or new. Perhaps you've never written a domestic fight seen before, never written a funeral, never written a vacation, never written a scene inside a train. What would it be fun to try? What do you think you could make really incredible... that you've never tried to make at all before? That's something that helps me, at least. Set several miniature climaxes out in the story (you only need one to get started) a few feet away from where you are (30 book-days, 5 Earth-hours, 38k words...) and get in your word plow and do your damn best to get there. If you set it too far away, you'll get bored writing to get there (and people will get bored reading to get there, perhaps), but if you set it too close, it fails the purpose of being there to coax you into pounding those words out.


My other suggestion would be to get to know your characters--I have a feeling most magna opera reached their sizes because the authors developed such strong relationships with the protagonists, and they just couldn't let them alone. Sit down with one of your characters, describe him in every way possible, from every perspective possible. Learn to know him well enough that if you heard something about him through the grapevine, you'd know whether or not it was true, who started the rumor, why she started it, and what was going on in your character's life for that to arise.



It's easiest for me to write things when I know my characters and I'm excited about the detail involved in what is going to happen. That's when I'm most prolific.

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Foxee

This made me laugh...especially the 'invalid donkey'. I'm sorry, your donkey is invalid...please try again.

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Non Serviam

Did you ever read about the plans Chaucer had for the Canterbury Tales?

Now he was nuts. That was definitely going to be his magnum opus.

On the other hand, Wordsworth spent his whole life building up to writing his philosophical magnum opus, which was addressed to his friend Samuel Taylor Coleridge. He finished the Prelude to it in 1805, but didn't feel the Prelude was quite good enough yet, so he spent the next 45 years polishing it, then died.

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Born naked, helpless, unable to care for himself and completely open-minded, Non Serviam has subsequently surmounted all these difficulties and gone on to become a decently-clothed, self-sufficient, close-minded sod.

Foxee

There is a lesson there.

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Non Serviam

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Born naked, helpless, unable to care for himself and completely open-minded, Non Serviam has subsequently surmounted all these difficulties and gone on to become a decently-clothed, self-sufficient, close-minded sod.

The Backward OX

I don’t know if you two are having a go at me or not.

On the off-chance you are, all I asked was how does one develop their creative imagination. I didn’t ask for a lot of smart talk.

And also on the off-chance you are, you, Non, should know better. You’ve had quite a bit to say in the past about sufferers from Asperger’s Syndrome, which is what I am. I pray you never father a child who has it. Have a read of http://www.autismresearchcentre.com/docs/papers/1999_Craig_BC.pdf – it tells all about AS and creative imagination.

Katastrof

Ox, it's not what cards you're dealt but how you play them. If you think you can't do it, you won't do it. Simple as that.

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Read:

When The Man Comes Around

"Carpe Diem, quam minimum credula postero"
(Seize the day put no trust in tomorrow.) ~ Horace

The Backward OX

You’re as out of the loop as they are.

I never said I didn’t want to do it. I said I didn’t have the ability to do it.

Foxee

Ox, I've never 'harangued' you, I am not 'having a go at you' and if you have determined that the situation is hopeless what do you want us to say?

What you've described sounds like a relatively normal case of being stuck on what to write. In my opinion the wisest input you've gotten is that you may be starting in the wrong place in your story.

But if you're going to tell everyone that you don't have the ability to do it anything we say is useless...why the thread?

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The Backward OX

I agree, anything that’s off the topic is useless.

I simply asked if anyone knew of a technique to unlock imagination.

Admittedly, the question may do better in a psychology forum, but what the heck - the more, the merrier.

Katastrof

I'm not out of the loop.

Ox, you can do it, you just need to stop finding excuses not to be able to do it and find reasons to do it. Honestly just write anything. Write about how you woke up in the morning. Write about the groceries you have to get. Write about what you see outside. Just write anything. It doesn't need to be great, but judging by your posts, it probably will be pretty good.

So just write. I think everyone here wants you to succeed.

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Read:

When The Man Comes Around

"Carpe Diem, quam minimum credula postero"
(Seize the day put no trust in tomorrow.) ~ Horace