THE WRITING CHEAT CODE MANUAL

Chapter 9: Plot-ideas to help with Writer's block

A lot of self-help books here on Wattpad tackle the Writer's block by challenging the writer to deal with the emotional or psychological reasons why they can't write anything (which is fine)

But they fail to consider the fact that sometimes you really want to write. Its just that you don't know what else to explore in your story so you end up getting stuck.

So here are some plot-prompts/ ideas that you can use to power through the writer's block which will be exciting for you to write but more importantly, exciting for your readers to read!

So without further ado;

1.Do an outline of the story: To know what to do next, you need to outline all the events that have happened to your characters in the storyline so you can come up with new ways to manipulate the future of your characters.

2. Conflicts and obstacles: Hurt the protagonist, put things in their way. This keeps things interesting. An easy journey makes for a boring story.

3. Change the POV: Sometimes, in order to make things more interesting to write,  writing it from a different character point of view helps break the monotony. So use that villain, that lovable sidekick or even an unnamed mystery character to shift focus from the main character.

4. Know the characters: To write better or have something to write continuously, you have to discover your characters. Know their likes, dislikes, fears and motivations. This will help you move further..

5. Fill in holes: Writing doesn't have to be linear. You can always go back and fill in plot holes in your story to solidify your story structure.

6. Have flashbacks: Use creative flashbacks, hallucinations, dream sequences and foreshadowing events to keep your story moving while breaking from the story line.

7. Introduce a new mystery: If the story is just not adding up, a big mystery will spice things up so use this to your advantage to fill up your plot holes with a good mystery.

8. Take something from your protagonist: A weapon, asset, ally or loved one. By doing this you can explore a situation where your character is forced to operate without it and this adds to creating good character development.

9. Twists and betrayals: Have someone betray your character, preferably someone who the main character trusts or doesn't expect to be betrayed by.

10. Secrets:  If someone has a deep dark secret that they're forced to hide, it creates tension in the story.

11. Kill someone: Kill someone who plays a major role in the story. Avoid killing a character just because. Make the character's death instrumental to the plot.

12. Ill-advised character actions: This happens where a character your readers adore does something your readers do not approve of. So identify what your readers don't want to happen then use that to make your beloved character do just that to add conflict/tension in the story.

13. Create cliffhangers: Keep your readers hooked to the story by putting your characters in situations where they have to dig themselves out of, then leave them hangi-

14. Raise the stakes: Make the consequence of failure worse. Make the journey harder, put the main character in a rock and a hard place and then make them choose.

15. Different threat levels: Make each obstacle harder and more difficult to overcome as the character goes through the journey. This will help to make the character tough and stronger.

16. Figure out the ending: To know what to do in the middle of the story, you must find out the final outcome if the story.

Like, what will happen to my main character, the sidekick, the villain, the society which my character exists in.

You must find out what the problems in your story you're painting are, and how they will have changed in the end to know what to do in the middle of the story.

17. Ask yourself, what if?: What if the main character dies? What if the villain isn't the main threat to the story? What if there are more problems that the main character has to overcome? What if there are more evil people behind the scenes affecting the plot?

18. And if all else fails,start afresh or skip ahead:  There is no written law that states that you must keep the story going if it's not working anymore.

You can choose to delete the whole book or just the part that's led to your writer's block.

You can even take time off to edit through your work and fill up any plot holes or use them to strike up new content.

Or...(and I'm very skeptical about this option because of our chapter to chapter updating format here on Wattpad) you can just...skip the chapter you've failed to power through.