Sometimes you throw a log on the fire and it surges; flames reach for the sky and you’re basking in its glow. Other times you throw that log at the wrong time or wrong angle and suddenly you’ve extinguished the flame. It gets dark. Real dark.

Dark, and scary

The same is true for writing. Some ideas send your word count skyrocketing and others have you TBD-ing all over the place. You get lost in the darkness and find yourself ending every paragraph with the dreaded ellipses.

No wants that. No one…

This is where you have to look hard at each of your characters. After all, if plot is the blood of your story, then characters are the heart that keeps it moving. To get momentum, you need the heart to start racing. You have no choice but to turn up the pressure. Basically, you’ve gotta ask yourself: What would George RR Martin do?

Wait, come back! Don’t kill ALL of your favorite characters!

Whatever your characters are most scared of, make them face it. Give them a moment that will change them, haunt them, motivate them or dissuade them.

A moment that will define them.

Maybe you’ll realize… they’re a zombie! Or not.

Write that moment, every detail. It’s okay if you feel terrible, or even shed a few tears. Sometimes—actually, a lot of the time—writing is emotionally painful. But the more you feel, the more your reader will feel. The tension should make your actual heart race.

Once the scene is done, you’ve caught your breath, and your character’s shadows have been illuminated, you have to decide if that moment stays in the story. We know, we know—you bled on the page and now we’re saying you might not even be able to use it?! Yep. That moment may not make it into the finished product, but it’s almost certainly going to be a key part of your character—who they were before they became part of the story, why they were that way, etc. This moment could be a critical part of the path that leads you to the greatest version of your story—be ready!

Whichever way it goes, all the tension you created should generate the friction you needed to get the writing fire surging again. Be the mother of word-dragons you know you can be!