There is a lot of power in a blank page. Can it be intimidating? Of course, but to me, writing a scene smack in the middle of something I already wrote is way more frightening. Ensuring that one thing flows into another and everything makes sense in the big picture is terrifying. On a blank page, you have none of that. Any mistake you make doesn’t matter. Your universe doesn’t exist at this point, beyond a few simple neurons firing in your mind, if it’s even that far along.
A blank page, in this sense, is perfect. The only thing you have left to do is screw it up with a beautiful story set in any universe you can imagine. You owe a lot to that blank page or that mostly empty computer screen with its blinking cursor.
A blank page has another beautiful quality. They are endless. You can always find another blank page to extend your story further or to start over again. Don’t like the story you began? Put it away, pull another blank sheet or document file out of the ether, and start over.
I find myself doing this even on big stories. No, especially on big stories. If I need to write a scene that I hadn’t planned for, it can be scary to just start writing in the middle of something, worry about all that pesky connective tissue, and still write something that’s worthwhile reading. Those scenes are always tricky. Usually, they exist—at least in my writing—because I have some detail I want to include or some relationship that I haven’t justified. By definition, this means that the scene isn’t going to fit perfectly, no matter what. It’s like building a tricycle, and realizing you really need a fourth wheel. There isn’t going to be a clean way to do it
To continue the simile, sometimes it helps to build the new wheel assembly and just stick it on. You’ll have to rebuild and rework the rest of the trike with that new wheel assembly in mind. A lot will have to change, including the assembly itself, but you have the benefit of working on a page and not in the real world. If you are stuck on a scene, try pulling a blank page out of your quiver, and just try to write a good scene that does what you want it to. To hell with all those pages with words already littered across them. Just focus on the blank space and see what you can do. You can always massage out all the oddities on your next draft.
Screw up some perfectly blank pages, and see what you can create.
Quote of the Moment:
“You have to be a bit of a liar to tell a story the right way.”
― Patrick Rothfuss, The Name of the Wind
Current Reads:
Shakespeare’s Planet by Clifford D. Simak
Words of Radiance by Brandon Sanderson