Tell me if this sounds familiar: you’re working on your story. Parts of it flow from your fingertips like manna falling delicately from heaven. But then something goes wrong. You’re stuck. You know what already happened and you know what needs to happen later, but bridging that gap begins to feel insurmountable.

That heavenly manna has turned into a poop storm.

I don’t care what writing method you use, I don’t care how brilliant you are or how successful, we all hit that moment where the writing stops dead and we don’t know what comes next. If this doesn’t ever happen to you let me know about it in the comments, including who your dealer is. ‘Cause I want some of that.

Well, sometimes the biggest discoveries stare us right in the face before we notice them. And a potential solution to this particular problem hit me like a sack of bricks as I was wallowing in authorial indecision.

How do I get back on-track when my story gets stuck in the mud?

Stuck on the basics

Quick (but highly relevant) aside: there are basic lessons, stupidly simple lessons, which I find I have to remind myself over and over. They’re almost like mantras.

In product management, the field I worked in until recently, these were usually core statements of purpose like “exactly what problem are we solving, and who are we solving it for?” or “are we asking the right people the right questions?”

In software engineering, another field I practiced for many years, we often reminded ourselves of fundamental best practices: for example, there’s a thing called the “single responsibility principle” that simply states that a unit of code is responsible for one and only one thing. Sticking to this basic idea seems simple enough – until it isn’t.

In my experience, core ideas often work this way: you know them, but somehow you need to keep reminding yourself and others, because the reminder itself is a useful guide.

I think this is why Yoda, as he lays on his deathbed in The Return of the Jedi, reminds Luke of the most basic tenets of being a Jedi Knight. Sure, it’s exposition for the audience who may have forgotten everything between films, but at 900 years old, Yoda also recognizes how important those fundamentals are and how easy they are to forget.

The funny thing is that it’s really easy to forget the simple stuff, the basic stuff. Sometimes we get so wrapped up in the details of product management or engineering or writing or “Jediing” that we forget the simplest lessons.

Stuck on process

So I’m not too proud to admit that I recently got stuck while writing my novel. I knew where things were headed, but in the midst of breaking my chapters I found that my storyboard lacked detail around a few critical moments. In reality, I had only the vaguest idea what actually happened within them.

This had me on the ropes for weeks. I stared at these giant gaps and felt utterly out of ideas.

You know why I write these blog posts? Some of it is to help explain what I think is a useful approach to writing. But some of it, my friends, is pure personal therapy: I write out my missives to you – I explain my process – so that I can understand it myself. And as I was writing a post a lot like this one it hit me.

As Yoda says, “already have you, that which you need.”

It was right in front of me the entire time. I had already written about the Process-Oriented approach, beginning with The End and then adding in the Anchor Beats, followed by the rest of the beats. As it turns out, this exact process works at a microscopic as well as a macroscopic level.

Unstuck using process

I can’t promise that this will work for you, but it certainly makes a huge difference for me.

It comes in the following steps: start with The End, then add the anchor beats.

When stuck, start with The End

Firstly, If you’re stuck, there’s a pretty good chance that you’re trying to bridge a gap. What’s nice about this is that you can see the negative space: the hole you’re trying to fill.

So start by asking yourself, what’s the last thing that needs to happen? What are we trying to get to? If you know that, you have a pointer to help fill the empty space.

When stuck, find the anchor beats

Within this negative space, you have a story to tell. It’s not a novel, just a chapter or scene or something similar. But regardless, nearly all stories have the essential anchor beats:

• Catalyst
• Break into two
• Midpoint
• All is Lost
• Break into three

If you need a refresher on what these anchor beats are, check out my blog post here.

Anchor Beats work at all levels

The simple lesson we need to remind ourselves is this:

Nearly all stories have the essential anchor beats.

This can be a novel or a chapter or a scene or a 30-second shampoo commercial. Don’t believe me? Picture this made-up advertisement:

Man: Hey wanna go out tonight?

Woman: [thinking] I would but I think he has dandruff.

Announcer: They all know you have dandruff! Try Get Some Body anti-dandruff shampoo!

We see the man using Get Some Body anti-dandruff shampoo.

Man: Hey wanna go out tonight?

Woman: [thinking] He’s so hot! [Out loud] Sure!

• Catalyst: Man asks woman out.
• Break into two: Rejected! What can our hero do?
• Midpoint: Announcer offers a new direction: the hinge-point of the story.
• All is Lost: The guy’s gotta get this date! It’s literally the only reason he exists.
• Break into three: He asks again.

Admittedly, this is kind of a stupid example, but I trust you get the point: a story arc doesn’t have to be big and complex to contain the anchor beats. These are the load-bearing walls of almost any story, big or small. It can even work at the level of an individual scene.

It’s a wonderful scene

Let’s look at a more concrete and meaningful example. Here’s a scene from one of my favorite movies: It’s a Wonderful Life. George Bailey (James Stewart) is faced with a crisis that threatens to close his business and destroy everything he and his father have built.

All the anchor moments are here:

• Catalyst: “That has all the earmarks of being a run!”
• Break into two: George opens the gates and lets his customers inside.
• Midpoint: False defeat: Potter tells George “if you close your doors before 6pm, you will never reopen!”
• All is Lost: George’s customers all begin to flee to Potter. If they do this, not only will George’s business go under, but his father’s life and death will have been in vain and the entire town will suffer.
• Break into three: George’s wife, Mary, selflessly saves the day by offering up the money they were supposed to spend on their honeymoon.

Most (if not quite all) of the other key beats can be found here as well.

Unstuck by getting stuck in

To get unstuck, I recommend starting by knowing your ending. Then plant the anchor beats: put some stakes in the ground and see if they feel right. Among the anchor beats, I actually like to start with the midpoint: the event which changes the fundamental direction of this chapter or scene. After this, I fill in the remaining anchor beats. This may not always be easy, but since I know that these beats need to be there – and since I know The End of the scene – I can at least brainstorm with a bit of structure in place.

And that structure helps get me through.

Fill in the rest

Once I have the anchors in place, I can simply fill in the rest of the Save the Cat beats, followed by any remaining beats necessary to refine the action.

(Note that – at the scene level – you might not truly fill in all the key beats. This is simply a general tool to help you get unstuck; and while a full story nearly always contains all the beats, I’ve found plenty of examples where a single scene lacks several, for the simple reason that a scene does not exist in a vacuum, but rather as a support piece for the rest of the story.)

In a nutshell

To recap, my suggestion for getting unstuck: return to the Process-Oriented basics.

• Start with The End
• Fill in the anchor beats (perhaps starting with the midpoint)
• Add any remaining, useful story beats
• Fill in detail

It’s a simple mantra, one I’ll undoubtedly need to remind myself of again and again and again.

Oh, I feel the Force flowing through me! (Ah…no…just a bit of gas.)

---

If you get any value out of my musings, please consider subscribing to this blog.