by Charles Moorhen

Created on: January 30, 2010   Last Updated: January 31, 2010

Banish Writers Block With Just One Word!

 Every writer who has ever put pen to paper has no doubt suffered from ‘writers block’; a silent, unseen enemy that attacks without warning and undermines the self-confidence, whether that writer is a novice, a hard-nosed media journalist, published poet or a well-known novelist often seen in the bestseller lists...no-one is immune!

 As every creative writer knows, there is nothing more soul-destroying than sitting at a desk staring at a blank sheet of dazzling white paper, or at that intimidating cursor blinking on a computer screen wondering, ‘whatever happened to those great ideas I had last night, just before I fell asleep?’

 If the following phrases sound even remotely familiar…‘where do I begin?’…’I can’t think of a single thing to write’ or, ‘I haven’t a clue how to approach this scene’ – the answer is literally at your fingertips.  An easy one-word technique that will ‘bust-through-the-block’ and move the writer forward…the use of a single KEYWORD.

 Using of one or two words, in no particular order of importance, to record or create a scene which, at a later date can be added to or removed from the list as required, the writer will be able to recall with clarity the relevant scene as he saw or imagined it.

 To illustrate this simple and effective technique, using 3 easy stages, let us assume that a Saturday market in a town is to form the basis of a poem, a non-fiction article, short story or part of the next chapter of a novel.  By writing down as many keywords as possible relating to the piece of work, separated by dashes, the scene will be sketched out covering all the basic points.

 STAGE 1: 

TOWN – AREA – WEATHER – STALLS – SHOPPERS – CROWDS – COLOURS – SMELLS – SOUNDS – CANOPIES – CRAFTS – BOOKS – HISTORY – etc. etc.

By reaching this point writers block has been banished, and several useful ideas may already be starting to form.  

 STAGE 2:

The second stage is to expand the selected keywords. 

Bear in mind that at this point nothing is set in stone and can be altered at any time, and that it is not important which keyword has been chosen to be developed.  By writing as much as possible for each keyword - remembering also that the aim is not to attempt to

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