HOW TO JUMP-START YOUR MUSE

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So little to make my day!

Has the battery of your Muse gone dead?

It happens to all of us sooner or later, right?

1) BE EVOCATIVE --

I use titles to my chapters as teasers.  

Just when a reader ends the prior chapter and is tempted to put the book down, 

I tease her with the title of the next to keep her reading.

In my End of Days, the title to my fourth chapter is THEY RUSHED THROUGH LIFE.

Its first paragraph is short, evocative:

"The undead do not dream.  They nightmare.  

Mine were anguished, happily evaporating upon awakening except for haunting echoes of guilt and regret."

Toward the end of the chapter, 

National Guardsmen, confident that in the chaos following Katrina, 

they could vent their prejudice on civilians who could not fight back, 

are in the midst of shooting a dog, the only thing a poor old woman has left to love and be loved by.

The Turquoise Woman (Mother Nature) steps in to protect the love of her deceased grandson 

and chides the guardsmen for rushing through life without realizing how precious it is.  

Then, she speeds up time around them until they are but dust in the winds.

When McCord comes upon the scene, 

he asks what just happened to the Guardsmen he heard yelling from upstairs.

The old woman laughs, "They rushed through life, Sam."

Try writing an evocative chapter title and then see where that prompt takes you.

2) LUBRICATE YOUR TRANSITIONS --

How do you make your chapter transitions flow?

Well, again using End of Days, 

I used my chapter titles and repeating the last line of the prior chapter to begin the next one.

Chapter 13 ended with these sentences:

(Victor Standish, believed dead, has appeared only to disappear.)

Victor sighed as he faded away, "And a good time was had by none." 

{the title of Chapter 13}

As pale as I had ever seen him, Samuel turned to Magda, "What just happened here?"

Magda, looking as stunned as I felt, said, "I do not understand."

Chapter 14 {THE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL ALWAYS SUCKS}

begins this way --

"I still do not understand," muttered Maxine for well over the hundredth time.

She might have become family but still Cain and Abel had been family, too.

The chapter ends with the ghostly voice of Victor Standish comforting his ghoul friend 

by murmuring in her mind, "Don't sweat it, Alice.  The first day of school always sucks."

Chapter 15 {NONE RETURN THE SAME}

begins ...

Becca yelled over the roar of the boat's engine, "I just want you to know, Trish, the first day of school sucked!"

To keep things different I did not end with the title of the chapter 

but echoed how chapter 13 ended with Maxine whining, "Did any of you understand that?"

Chapter 16 {CRAZY? PROBABLY.}

begins ...

Now, inside Meilori's, we all tried to ignore Maxine who was still whining, "Did any of you understand any bit of that?"

Towards the end of the chapter, Becca sings a song proclaiming that everyone including herself was crazy.  

As Alice slowly walks up the stairs to her bedroom, she softly echoes Becca who sings, "Crazy?  Probably."

The next chapter begins 

with Alice awakening with the bruises gained from yesterday's foolish heroics making her whole body ache.

She mutters, "Crazy?  Definitely!"

 * Try this trick with your own story to see if you cannot make your own chapter transitions flow more smoothly 

and ease you into each new chapter without hitting any potholes.

3) SKIMMING STONES

Have you stalled in your writing?

You huff and puff but the writer's block still sits ponderously in front of your muse, refusing to budge.

Here's a trick:

Skim the stone of your muse past it to a great future scene you are just aching to get to and write.

So write it.

Don't know how to get the characters there?

Fake it.  

Put your characters there and write away.  

In the midst of writing that longed-for scene, ideas of how your heroes got there will come to you.  

And ideas of where they will go from there will pop into your head.

Maybe you will come up with an even better ending that you had envisioned.

It works every time.  Trust me.


4) WHAT'S THAT YOU SAID?

Still stuck?

Write the first bit of dialogue that occurs to you 

and then have one of your characters respond to it in as dramatic or funny a way as you can.

Then, write a scene around how that conversation happened to occur.

This works wonders.  Or at least it does for me.  Usually in the shower.  

(Hey, I do some of my best writing in there.)  

Of course, Midnight, my cat, thinks I have finally lost my last marble when he catches me doing it.  

HEY, DID ANY OF THIS HELP?

GOT ANY OTHER IDEAS HOW TO PRIME THE PUMP OF YOUR MUSE?

LET ME KNOW!