So I’ve been planning Blood Legacy for a week now but I’ve had a major plot hole the entire time. So much so that every time I sat down to further my planning I found myself returning to the gaping hole, unable to focus on anything else. I tried writing around it, that didn’t help, then I tried writing through the problem and came up against a solid wall, I even tried my stream of consciousness method, which normally works (this basically just involves me writing everything about the subject directly from my head onto the page without any sort of censoring, I ask questions and try to answer them), but alas it was all for naught.
Eventually I did work it out, but not through writing. I had to talk about it. I have a pretty solid support group of friends and just by being able to use them as sounding boards for what my problem was and hearing their questions really helped.
I’m a mixed bag when it comes to novel writing, I’m a planner and a pantser. I write out what should happen in an outline but if something else happens then I let it and change the plan as I go (this is how my last novel turned from a fantasy novel into an Epic fantasy).
So I guess what I’ve learned today is that while an important part of writing is getting in and doing the job, that sometimes you need to look at it from a different angle if you’re coming up against a problem that seems unfixable.