All language subtitles for MasterClass Neil Gaiman Teaches The Art of Storytelling - 16Dealing With Writer s Block

When you're staring at a blank page or a

blank screen, the biggest thing that you

can do is just give into despair, give

into blankness.

People love to talk about writer's

block, and they love to talk about

writer's block because it sounds fancy.

It sounds like a real thing. It also

sounds like something that you can do

nothing about.

I have writer's block. I cannot write

and it is the will of the gods. Now I

must alphabetize my spice rack whenever

you you can't do anything about it. And

that of course isn't true.

I have received long emails from people

with writer's block and I'm going,

"Well, if you had real writer's block,

how can you how can you be writing me a

long email?" And what they're actually

saying is, "I'm stuck on the thing. I

don't know what's happening. It's dead

on the page."

So, what you do is one

start

one step away.

First thing to do if you're actually

stuck,

don't just sit there staring at the

page, staring at the screen, staring at

your keyboard, being angry. Go do

something else. Chop wood. Go for a

walk. Go for a run. Go for a swim. Go

garden. Go play with small children. Go

explore kittens. Go feed the chickens.

Go do whatever it is that you can do.

Two, come back pretending you've never

read it before. The old pretend you've

never read it before technique. Start at

the beginning and read it through.

Very, very often once you do that, where

the story should be becomes obvious.

Where you went off the rails becomes

obvious. And you did go off the rails.

The problem is always earlier. problems

always earlier than the place where, you

know, the car goes off the road and now

you're stuck there. Um, you know, you

actually took a wrong turning a couple

of streets back or or a town or two

back. So, but that's something that you

can see normally if you just come to it

and go from the beginning and come

through, you're suddenly going, "Oh,

well, hang on. Why are we with him

anyway? She was much more interesting

and and we should be with her here. It

doesn't matter what happens to him. And

so I abandon half a chapter that had led

me down a dead end and go back. And you

can do that. Nobody but you ever gets to

read your first draft. Nobody but you

ever needs to know that you got stuck.

I think the biggest things when you are

stuck that you can do and there's a

whole bunch of things. The the biggest

thing of all is remembering that you are

stuck. Sometimes

it's just you're being shallow.

Sometimes you actually need to

be a bit better than you are. Go a bit

deeper. Get a bit more honest. Okay. Why

have I stopped writing this? I've

stopped writing this because if

I have to go into it, it's a deeper,

darker place. It maybe you've stopped

because if you wrote that scene, you

would be writing a scene you don't want

to write. Well, why don't you want to

write it?

Why is it painful for you?

What happens if you do write it? I

remember with the Nancy Boys,

I was about

tiny bit about halfway through, maybe a

little bit more. And I had one character

going to see another character.

And I had a plot that was running and

everything was good. And then I suddenly

thought, hang on, if she goes to see him

at this point in the plot, he's just

going to kill her.

That's the most efficient thing for him

to do. Then I thought, but I'm writing a

comedy. People can't kill each other in

comedies. No, there's there's no point

in, you know, PG Woodhouse where Jeves

picks up an ashtray and smashes it on

Bertie Worers's head. You don't do that.

That's that's wrong.

And so I had to stop. And I did stop.

And I stopped the book for a couple of

months while I just thought about, okay,

this is going to happen.

What does that mean for the rest of the

plot? Where does the rest of the plot

need to go?

How can something

be a comedy? What what is the difference

between tragedy and comedy? What is the

difference between horror and comedy?

And I started to think that actually

really

as long as each character gets what they

need

at the end of the story, it's fine.

And

that is something that I really tried to

deliver on

in an Nancy Boys. Each of the characters

gets the thing they need, even the

appalling ones. And sometimes what they

need is appalling and sometimes what

happens to them is appalling. But I had

to be willing to follow that and I had

to learn that and I had to stop

and actually figure it out and replplot

and recalibrate.

And once I felt that I got it and it was

part of me, then I started again and

wrote it all the way to the end.

I wrote a story once.

It's a Hugo Award nominated story that

was actually made into a movie called

How to Talk to Girls at Parties.

I was asked

for a short story

for an anthology

of science fiction stories for young

people.

And I had an idea. Had an idea

about an alien tourist.

A girl from a another planet. And not

just another planet and traditional

alien, but somebody from almost a way of

thinking that that is beyond what we

thought.

visiting Earth as a tourist and what she

thought and her diary.

And I wrote

a few openings to this. I wrote a few

bits

and it kept dying on the page. It wasn't

a thing yet.

I was really interested in her voice.

I was interested in this weird alien

world, but it didn't feel like a story.

It wasn't coming together.

And I phoned the editor,

uh, lovely man named Jonathan Strand.

And I said, Jonathan, I'm really sorry

that the story isn't going to happen.

You won't get it in time. And Jonathan

said, "Ah, that's a pity." He said, "You

still have 24 hours to get the story

in."

and uh another writer and he named her.

I'm not going to. It was Kelly Link had

just written a story for him

in I believe 12 hours

and he mentioned that you know well

obviously I'm really sad that we aren't

going to get your story in but Kelly

wrote her story in 12 hours

and I went right

and I took my notebook with those

fragments

and I thought I can't tell that story.

it doesn't quite work. And I think it

doesn't work because the point of view

is wrong.

I need a human point of view. So, I'm

going to take a character who's

basically me, age 16,

and the idea

is simply going to be

it'll be a story. It's going to be

called How to Talk to Girls at Parties.

I know that. I don't know how I knew

that. Normally titling stories drives me

nuts, but this one I have this the title

was there. I thought, okay, it's got to

be called How to Talk to Girls at

Parties.

And it's going to be about what it's

like

when you're 15 going on 16

and girls have suddenly become aliens.

You know, five years ago, you all had

scabby knees. You were all part of the

same

tribe of things. You were all kids

together.

And now you're 15 going on 16 and girls

are something else. And they're wearing

makeup and they they dress differently

and they're they're a whole other tribe

and they seem to know all these amazing

secrets and they've headed off into

adulthood before you.

I thought I can tell that story

and I can do it all at a party.

And I can just have

a character who's basically me

wander around and talk to

these aliens. And because he hasn't

figured out how to talk to girls

because he hasn't really figured out how

to talk to other people and because he's

definitely not listening to anything

they say. If I get this to work right,

they will be telling him all about their

experiences

coming here as aliens on this planet and

he is going to absolutely fail to

understand anything he is being told.

And that was the story I wrote. And it

took

a day to write. I went down to the

bottom of the garden with a blank

notebook and came back that evening with

how to talk to girls parties written.

Um, I was able to take the bits that I'd

done

of the abandoned short story. Nothing

actually turned out to be abandoned

because those things I gave to uh

the girls at the party.

And I got to write a story that was

actually about something. And it was a

better story I felt actually than it

deserved to be given the place it was

written from, given the the need to get

it written, given the crunch. But on the

other hand, it's quite possible that

that time crunch is really what focused

me.

the willingness at the end to just throw

out what wasn't working, grab what would

work, and put it in.

They say that hanging concentrates the

mind wonderfully. You're going to be

hung. And uh missing that deadline

suddenly felt like a thing that was a

little bit like a hanging. I knew that

I needed to concentrate and I needed to

choose solutions that would work.

So, when you're writing a novel, there

are things that you know, and there are

things that you don't know. But a novel

is big enough that there are going to be

a lot more things that you don't know

going into it than things that you do

know.

Whether or not you write an outline or

you don't write an outline, you are

still going to be moving

from point to point with a lot of things

that you don't know happening on the

way. Eel Doctoro

said that writing a novel is like

driving through the fog with one

headlight out. You're trying to do it

just with one headlight.

You can't see very far ahead of yourself

most of the time and you're creeping

along fairly slowly, but you could get

from New York to Los Angeles like that.

You just have to keep going. So again,

it's about it's about the forward

motion.

It's about going from the things you

know to the things you know, walking

slowly. And every now and again

the mists will clear and you'll get a

wonderful view of the valley on the

other side of the town that you're

heading towards. You know what's

happening and then the mists will come

back in again and once more you're

creeping along. But that's how you write

a novel or that's how I write novels.