How to get unstuck when a draft stalls

1 The bottom line

Keep the draft moving by writing the bad version, skipping the hard part, walking away, or changing your method. A stall says something about your approach, not your talent, and only a finished draft can be fixed.

2 Key takeaways

• Write the bad version on purpose. Pressure to be good is what stops the words, and a rough draft is something you can fix.
  • Ali Abdaal wrote about 70,000 words in seven days by following the rule "fast, bad, wrong" Ali Abdaal18:23.
  • Gillian Flynn's Cool Girl passage began as a stuck-day exercise, written in one afternoon and barely changed Gillian Flynn27:30.
• Skip the hard part and write something you can write. Forward motion matters more than order, and the gap often solves itself later.
  • Stuck on page 37, jump to page 50 and write the scene where two enemies in a broken elevator step off with small smiles Anne Lamott44:40.
  • Ryan Holiday parked a chapter he lacked material for and wrote the others first Ryan Holiday17:55.
• Name the kind of stuck before you push. Each kind has a different fix.
  • Tim Urban finds three: you need more research, you need to wrangle structure, or you need to rework boring sentences Tim Urban25:05.
• Leave the page and move your body. Motion and a busy rational mind give new connections room to form.
  • In a lab study, people walking on a treadmill produced about three times as many uses for a brick as people sitting Daniel Pink9:14.
• Change the method, not just the effort. Often the frame is the problem, not the writing.
  • A student wrote a brilliant email to a friend, then froze when writing for a public audience Paul Graham17:41.
  • Shaan Puri cannot get a surprising draft while typing, so he walks and talks it into voice transcription Shaan Puri1:03:03.

you don't get to get to the nice sentence until you've written the bad sentence

Andrew Stanton, Pixar

2.1 Give yourself permission to write badly

A rough draft takes the pressure off, and it gives you something to fix.

• Finish the sentence, even if it will be bad. Advice from Andrew Stanton50:13.
  • Stanton tells writers who lack an ending or a middle to finish the sentence anyway and promises it will be bad, so the pressure is off.
  • If a first line feels weak or you start comparing yourself to others, move on and fix it later Jack Carr22:32.
  • Most people spend more time describing the symphony they will write than writing it.
  • Yann Martel never liked the first sentence of Life of Pi, and he simply moved on Yann Martel20:43.
• Write to the end before you judge the draft. Advice from Jodi Picoult1:05.
  • Nearly every beginner hits the middle, decides the draft is the worst ever written, and quits. Reach the end, then decide whether to fix it or scrap it.
  • Get "paint on every part of the canvas." A draft with an end gives you something to fix Steven Pressfield6:42.
  • Expect the first full assembly to be terrible. Keep working and the result lands somewhere new, in the middle David Gelb15:22.
  • Andrew Hunter Murray keeps a neon sign reading "This is not the cake," because your draft is flour and eggs Andrew Hunter Murray33:50.
• Lower the stakes so the words can come out fast.
  • Treat the early draft as a letter to a friend, and raise the standard in editing Paul Graham17:41.
  • Write as if no one is ever going to read it Mark Manson1:26:30.
  • Call the first draft a vomit draft. Fragments, nonsense and garbage are allowed because it is only for you Tucker Max37:12.
  • Ali Abdaal wrote the first draft of one 10,000-word chapter a day, using Safi Bahcall's rule of fast, bad and wrong Ali Abdaal18:23.
• Keep the tap running until the water clears.
  • Ed Sheeran's image: dirty water comes out first, so keep the faucet on Taylor Tomlinson43:35.
  • Write many options without judging them. Harry Dry tried "roll Monopoly dice" and "spaghetti at wall" and ended with "throw money and pray" Harry Dry35:16.
  • A study found people expect ideas to fade, but the best ones arrive after a low point Sahil Bloom8:07.

2.2 Skip ahead instead of pushing at the wall

When one spot will not move, write the part you can, and come back.

• Jump to a later scene.
  • You do not need to know how the characters got there. Say "I don't know," and seeing the later scene often shows you the route Anne Lamott44:40.
  • If you cannot begin or proceed, jump further down the book and write the part you already know Robert Macfarlane1:06:20.
  • Macfarlane builds his books as mosaics of set pieces, sometimes a hundred of them Robert Macfarlane1:06:20.
  • Nick Bilton writes the paragraphs he can picture, gets bored, writes elsewhere, then pastes the pieces into order Nick Bilton59:12.
• Go around the obstacle.
  • Pressfield borrows General Israel Tal's order to keep advancing whatever blocks you. In a first draft, "movement forward is everything" Steven Pressfield7:45.
  • Do not let a gap in the outline stall you. You will solve it while writing Jack Carr14:24.
  • Carr says stewing for a week over how his hero escapes a cave in China would have been a wasted week Jack Carr14:24.
  • Holiday put a pin in the Queen Elizabeth chapter and kept reading about her while he wrote the others Ryan Holiday17:55.
• Write a placeholder and decide fast.
  • When unsure of an ending, write a "pen ending," then work on something else while your brain keeps going David Baldacci28:49.
  • Pick a direction, move on, and fix it if you are wrong Steven Levitan20:36.
  • Baldacci may have four or five plausible endings and blend pieces of them David Baldacci28:49.
• Write scenes that will never appear in the book.
  • Set the characters outside the book's timeline, from unusual points of view. It keeps you writing on days the draft won't move Gillian Flynn31:10.
  • Flynn wrote Nick's first-grade parent-teacher conference from the teacher's point of view, and it fed into the book Gillian Flynn31:10.

2.3 Name the kind of stuck

A stall is information, so find out what it says before you push.

• Ask which of three problems you have. Advice from Tim Urban25:05.
  • If the next section is daunting and not yet understood, do more research. If you know the material but not the order, wrangle structure. If the order is set but the sentences bore you, rework the writing.
• Check whether you have enough raw material.
  • If you do not know what to do next, collect more material. If you have nothing interesting to write about, go do something interesting first Tim Ferriss1:56.
  • When the draft stalls, fall back into research. It keeps you inside the world while the next scene gathers Jayne Anne Phillips18:16.
  • Or reread your pages. If you still don't know where to go, go back 10 pages, then to the very beginning Jayne Anne Phillips20:29.
  • Phillips used this on Night Watch, a book she worked on for about eight years Jayne Anne Phillips20:29.
• Ask whether you are being honest.
  • Block can be shame fighting the wish for honesty. Ask what you really feel, want and think Alain de Botton56:10.
  • Write out the nature of your doubt and level with the reader about why Johann Hari36:45.
  • When you don't know what to say next, say whatever is true Tucker Max2:59.
  • David Perell unblocked a piece by admitting that the thing he wanted to say wasn't true Johann Hari36:45.
• Ask whether it is funny and fun enough.
  • Franzen says "I don't see the humor in it" and "this isn't fun enough" are the two things he tells himself when work isn't working Jonathan Franzen17:45.
  • Frustration shows what you want. Name the cause, such as a deaf ear for speech or characters who would not really disagree Richard Powers51:51.

2.4 Leave the page and move

Breaks are part of the work, and the best ones use your body.

• Treat breaks as part of performance.
  • Good breaks are in motion, outdoors, with other people, and away from your phone Daniel Pink9:14.
  • Pick a break that is not text based. Answering email swaps one set of text for another Byrne Hobart51:39.
  • Hobart says roughly 10% of his topic and conclusion sentences come to him in the shower Byrne Hobart51:39.
• Do physical work and let your unconscious solve it.
  • When Dana Gioia hits an impasse, he prunes a tree for an hour. The rational mind is busy, and the answer is there when he returns Dana Gioia25:11.
  • Work on something else, because creativity is connections Steven Levitan1:03:40.
• Walk away and come back the next day.
  • For a short piece whose rhythm she couldn't find, Rosanne Cash keeps walking away and returning, and the rhythm starts to reveal itself Rosanne Cash5:00.
  • Paul Millerd took long walks and weeks off with no strategy Paul Millerd20:04.
  • His intro puzzle broke on a scooter ride. Within minutes he pulled over and wrote the why-this-matters section in one flow Paul Millerd20:04.
• Feed the well when you have nothing to say.
  • Block ends when you experience life in a way that makes you want to write again. Read, talk and expose yourself to things Ava Huang1:03:38.
  • Riva Tez took an oil painting course, hoping to think in a different medium Riva Tez38:19.

2.5 Change the method

If typing and staring fail, switch the way you produce words.

• Talk the draft instead of typing it.
  • Shaan Puri saves typing for editing. He goes outside and talks the draft into voice transcription Shaan Puri1:03:03.
  • Start from one sentence and a rough structure, say the idea aloud, and compress it on each pass. By the third time the structure is clear David Perell32:02.
  • Pace the room and talk the bit out, then write down what sounds funny Mark Normand1:58.
  • Perell's words per session doubled, at the cost of more editing David Perell32:02.
  • Jason Fried says speaking removes the pressure of writing something down, so it becomes pure communication Jason Fried1:15:15.
• Dictate a rough draft by voice.
  • Speak your thoughts, get a cleaned-up transcript, and polish it. You reach a bad draft fast, before ego interferes Jimmy Soni1:03:29.
  • Cover your screen with a manila folder and describe the scene aloud. Not seeing typos keeps you from judging Jimmy Soni32:27.
  • Soni used the folder trick for the McLaren crash scene in his PayPal book, after the research was done Jimmy Soni32:27.
  • He turned an apology note he had dreaded for months into a sendable email Jimmy Soni1:03:29.
• Try longhand, automatic writing or an odd trick.
  • Suleika Jaouad writes first drafts by hand. There is only so much crossing out you can do, and typing it up later feels like editing a different genre Suleika Jaouad9:05.
  • Follow Balzac and cover a couple of pages with gobbledygook, keeping the pen moving Henry Shukman51:58.
  • Write in second person, all caps or question and answer, then take the trick out before you hand in Tom Junod50:04.
  • Junod wrote all of book three of his memoir in second person, then changed it back to first Tom Junod50:04.
• Switch from quality to quantity.
  • When breakthroughs slow, move to the quantity track, then return to the draft Tiago Forte10:23.
  • Run timed drills on silly prompts. Fifteen minutes, an unseen prompt, and a requirement to share R.F. Kuang55:25.
  • Forte's painter father drew a hundred pineapples to train his hand, then made the perfect one in a single try Tiago Forte10:23.
  • Jaouad says the prompts she resists often yield the most interesting writing Suleika Jaouad33:32.
• Change the scene itself.
  • Make it rain, snow or blow a gale. Characters put on coats and hats and act differently Eric Roth46:02.
  • Ask for the children's story version of your idea and borrow its tools Matt Haig37:24.
  • Roth made a scene in his Scorsese script so windy that hats swirled around, and it unlocked the scene Eric Roth46:02.
  • Haig's first draft of The Midnight Train was a dystopia that wasn't working. Borrowing the magic train from children's books fixed it Matt Haig37:24.

2.6 Where writers disagree

Some advice points in opposite directions, so match the tactic to the stall.

• Restart or push through?
  • Jason Fried treats struggle as a signal to stop, then returns to a clean sheet instead of reworking the failed draft Jason Fried.
  • Robert Greene says the point of maximum frustration is when the cloud is about to burst Robert Greene47:40.
  • Fried's guide came out in about an hour once he caught a flow Jason Fried.
  • Scriabin's fifth piano sonata poured out in six days after his frustration peaked Robert Greene47:40.
• Is the block a bad idea or just self-doubt?
  • Morgan Housel says every time he got writer's block, the idea was wrong Morgan Housel50:45.
  • Dean Koontz says all writer's block is self-doubt, and that you shouldn't be afraid of it Dean Koontz1:19:45.
  • Housel's proudest posts took a couple of hours, and the ones he labored over for a week were his biggest disappointments Morgan Housel50:45.
• Fast or slow?
  • Steven Levitan calls himself a fast-twitch writer who keeps momentum and goes back to fix Steven Levitan20:36.
  • Dean Koontz writes slowly so he arrives at a plot knot with several solutions, not the quickest one Dean Koontz1:07:58.
• Keep the draft private or share it?
  • Harlan Coben says the one rule you cannot break is to show nobody your first draft Harlan Coben13:17.
  • Johann Hari records arguments with friends to break a block Johann Hari40:36.
  • A friend told Hari he kept framing weight-loss drugs as health versus risk when it was really about vanity Johann Hari40:36.
• Banish the critic or put it to work?
  • Anne Lamott pictures the discouraging voice, asks who hired it, and sends it to the library Anne Lamott6:32.
  • Neil Strauss saves the critic for the final draft, then answers likely attacks inside the work Neil Strauss11:18.
  • Rosanne Cash still hears the voice, but now says "that's part of it, I'll get through that" Rosanne Cash19:59.