It has been years since I even thought about writing a short story. Which is probably why it felt like a lightbulb moment when a writer friend suggested I start.
The situation at hand was me, stuck in a decision-making loop as to which project to work on next. As you can probably imagine, my default was watching Netflix while waiting for “inspiration”!
Taking her advice (and traveling along the path of least resistance!) I decided to start with writing a “short story” chapter for the project that most lent itself to short story telling. This worked for me in screenwriting, where each scene should effectively be a complete story with a beginning, middle and end.
It was not easy to change forms! In the end, the exercise pushed me out of my inertia and back into my current project, serving its real purpose. The exercise also taught me that if I’m stuck, taking a look at my writing from the perspective of a different literary form is another way of getting back on track.
What exercises do you use when you’re stuck?