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?

3 comments

3 Comments

stone.sarah1mo 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.

vera2921mo ago

Totally get this. Read an article once about "decision fatigue." It said our brains treat picking a shirt the same as a big life choice. Drains the same energy. So if you're stuck on the small stuff, it's often because the bigger picture is fuzzy. Like Sarah said, you need the "why" first. Then the "what" gets easy. Makes so much sense now.

miles_campbell391mo 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.