Stuck on a prompt about a character finding a key for 3 hours straight

I was trying to write from a prompt about someone discovering a mysterious key in their attic, but I just kept writing the same scene over and over. It took me three hours to realize the problem was I hadn't decided what the key actually unlocked. What's your trick for pushing past a prompt that feels stuck?

2 comments

2 Comments

stone.sarah2d ago

Oh man, that happens to me all the time with small decisions! I'll stare at my closet for twenty minutes because I can't pick a shirt, when the real problem is I'm not sure where I'm even going that day. You have to figure out the point of the thing before you can start.

miles_campbell391d ago

Ever have a friend who gets stuck in the planning stage? My buddy Mark spent weeks trying to write a song about a river. He had the melody but kept changing the words. The problem was he hadn't decided if the river was a memory, a real place, or a metaphor. He figured that out over coffee, and the lyrics just flowed. It reminds me of what @stone.sarah said about finding the point first. Sometimes you need to step back and ask what the key means to the character before you can write about finding it. That answer unlocks the whole story.