Fiction Writer’s Toolshed | Practical Tools for Authors
You sit down to write chapter four. Then you check your email. Or you get two paragraphs down, decide they aren’t good enough, and reach for your phone.
Both can feel like writer’s block. But getting started and staying with the work may need different tools.
In this follow-up conversation, Steven Puri and I explore flow state, rough drafts, and the friction that keeps us from writing. We also revisit my earlier explanation of writer’s block. That’s part of having a current best approach: working with what I understand now, then improving that understanding when someone helps me see more.
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Fiction Writer’s Toolshed
Writer’s Block and Flow State: Start Writing, Stay Focused (with Steven Puri) | ep 023
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What this episode covers
- The difference between a cold start and losing momentum midway.
- Making an oversized or unclear task easier to begin.
- How self-editing can interrupt a draft before it has a shape.
- A familiar first line that you don’t have to keep.
- Steven’s experience of flow and why the tools need to fit the person.
Where does the writing stop?
Steven describes two kinds of friction. The first is the cold start: you intend to begin, but the next task feels too large or you don’t know how to enter it.
The second happens after you’ve started. You dislike what you’ve written, run into a problem, or get frustrated. Checking your phone seems like a brief escape. Then the brief escape becomes the rest of your writing time.
Those situations can look similar at the end of the day: the work didn’t get done. Looking at where they begin gives us something more specific to work on.
Cold start: give yourself a next action
“Write chapter four” tells you the destination. It may leave you with a lot to figure out before you can take the first step.
Steven talks about breaking a large task into smaller pieces. A quick outline can help make the work concrete. Instead of facing the whole thing at once, you can see what you’re doing next.
He uses 15–20-minute pieces as an example of a manageable task. The useful part is finding a piece you can begin; that particular number isn’t a requirement.
Give yourself a warm start
One trick I use is a familiar boilerplate line. It’s part of why I begin the podcast the same way each time. Whatever else I still need to figure out, I know where to start.
In the conversation, I suggest a deliberately ordinary opening: the weather, the time, or the color of the room. Even disagreeing with the description can give you something to write next. Is the room beige? Do you like that color? You’re already responding to something on the page.
The line can be disposable. You don’t have to keep it in the finished piece, and it doesn’t have to earn its place as your story’s opening. It gives you an entrance into the work.
That’s the warm start I’m after: having something available to begin with, so I don’t have to invent the entrance every time.
For a way to make rough material by speaking, listen to and read Say it First: Drafting Your Fiction Out Loud, with four spoken drafting modes and nine ways to begin.
Midway friction: notice what sends you away
Steven’s example begins with two paragraphs he doesn’t like. That frustration makes a phone check appealing. The check can turn into fifteen, thirty, or forty minutes away from the task.
I recognize the self-editing in that. I can start judging the first two paragraphs against the ending I want before I’ve written enough to see how the piece might work.
That’s what I’m trying to describe with my earlier “story math” metaphor. I’m doing the calculation in my head, deciding the pieces don’t add up, and stopping before I put them on the page.
Noticing that moment gives me a more useful question: am I working on the draft, or have I started requiring it to be finished while I’m still making it?
Let the rough draft show you its shape
Steven partly disagrees with my earlier explanation, but we meet on the value of getting material down. He talks about reading early drafts of professional screenplays that still needed substantial work.
A scene might not survive. A relationship might need development. The draft can still capture the shape of the story and give the next pass something to work with.
That’s the value of the “kitchen sink draft” we discuss. Let yourself get the material onto the page before making every decision about what belongs. Rewriting can then work with something that exists.
I don’t take that to mean judgment has no place in writing. I want to notice when I’m using it to improve the work and when I’m using it so early that I never make the work available to improve.
What flow felt like to Steven
Steven describes becoming absorbed in a task, losing track of time, and finding that distractions fall away. His story about a flight makes that experience concrete.
He planned to work on a feature mockup on the way from Austin to San Francisco. The plane’s Wi-Fi was broken. When they began descending, he thought about fifteen minutes had passed. It had been two hours and forty minutes, and the designs were done.
Instead of spending the evening finishing them at a hotel desk, he could meet a friend for dinner. What mattered was both the work he had completed and the time it made available afterward.
That’s Steven’s account of an experience. It gives us something to recognize and investigate in our own process, without assuming we can reproduce it on command.
A careful note on the science
We discuss a study of jazz improvisation as part of the conversation about self-monitoring. The study found reduced activity in some lateral prefrontal areas alongside increased activity in medial prefrontal regions. That is more specific than saying the whole prefrontal cortex switches off, and the study does not directly establish what happens when someone writes fiction.
The practical distinction I’m taking back to my writing is between making material and evaluating it. The scientific explanation deserves care as we keep learning.
Read the jazz improvisation study by Charles J. Limb and Allen R. Braun (opens in new tab).
Find tools that fit your writing
Steven built Sukha to bring several tools together, including music, task support, and distraction blocking. He also makes clear that you don’t need his app to begin understanding your own process.
Our earlier conversation gives one example of that personal fit: I can listen to vocals while drafting, but they get in the way when I’m editing. The same writing conditions don’t serve every task, even for the same person.
Start with the friction you can notice. A clearer next action might help with a cold start. A familiar opening might make it easier to enter the page. Getting more rough material down might help when you keep judging the beginning before reaching the rest.
Try what seems useful, see what happens, and let that experience inform your current best approach.
Steven’s resources
Read Steven’s article, The Magic & Science of Flow States (opens in new tab). It expands on his explanation of flow; the research note above qualifies the brain-activity shorthand used in our discussion.
Explore Sukha for writers (opens in new tab). This is Steven’s optional product resource.
The earlier conversation: music and writing conditions
For the discussion that led to this follow-up, listen to our August 10 episode. We explore timing, workspace, and sound as things you can experiment with to find conditions that fit your writing.
Listen to and read How to Get Into Flow State While Writing (with Steven Puri).
Fiction Writer’s Toolshed: Practical Tools for Authors is a Make Exist podcast hosted by Tim Kearney. It offers hands-on training for fiction writers to diagnose writing problems, build their skills, and finish more work.