One of our goals here at Today’s Author is to help all of the writers among us to do what we love to do: write. One of the best ways to accomplish this is by talking to each other and learning from each other. Our Writers Circle series is designed to do just that – provide a chance for us to discuss writing, editing and publishing questions.
This week’s topic is:
If you ever get stuck for an idea while writing, or if you ever have trouble getting your characters to behave within the world you’ve defined, what do you do to keep the writing going while at the same time trying to figure out how to work through the difficulty? Do you just plug through? Do you stop and go back to planning? Do you leave a note and plan to come back to the section later?
Let’s discuss this in the comments and see what our community thinks.
Today's Author 
This is not a problem for me. When I get stuck in a scene, I move to another and work on that for a while. Since I often don’t write in the order that my finished book will appear, this is easy for me. Sometimes rereading what I’ve written will help me sort out what isn’t working and will lead to a resolution. I’ll also refer to one of the many books I have that talk about writing craft. Eventually I’ll figure out what I need to write to correct the problem scene. I think the key is that I don’t use a little glitch as an excuse to stop writing.
If (and when) I get stuck, I try a number of things… the one that has proven most successful to me has been to write a diary entry for a character. This lets the character tell me about his or her day, gives me an idea of what brought them to where they currently are and what they might like to do differently. Usually, that unblocks the scene and lets me move forward. If, for some reason, that doesn’t work… I just move to another scene.
I’ve tried all of the above. What works best is listening to my muse, be it 2am or in the middle of a phone call. She talks; I listen.
If I’m stuck at a certain point, I leave it there and write another scene that I know will be coming up later in the story. Then I can usually link the two together.
I use many of the techniques listed above. Most of all, I move on and continue to write. Sometimes I literally get away from it, take a walk or go out for coffee. And magically it happens (well that might be a stretch).