Writer's Block: Screenwriter Who Doesn't Read

Writer's Block: Screenwriter Who Doesn't Read

There is a paradox defining a certain type of amateur writer: they have the entire story in their head, knowing what happens in each chapter, yet they stare at the blinking cursor for hours. The case sparking a discussion of over a hundred replies describes this without sugarcoating: two unfinished novels, one surreal thriller with tragicomic undertones, another noir with romance and crime. The scripts are "well-planned," but at the chapter-by-chapter development stage, they hit a wall. The cause he identifies is more common than it seems: he visualizes stories as a TV series, not as a book. In his mind, there is dialogue, scenes, and visual silence. On paper, this becomes filler he doesn't know how to spin.

The problem isn't a lack of ideas. It's the format. "In series, there are tons of scenes that fill everything and explain it all through visual silence. In writing, I feel I ramble describing things," he summarizes. He adds a fact many keep silent about: he has been trying to write novels without reading novels for years. The result is a text that gets stuck exactly where narrative requires craft: in the transitions, the connectors, what he calls "intermediate nonsense connectors."

What exactly trips up those who write without reading

The discussion quickly moves to technical diagnosis. Writing a clear, incisive, and concise page comes easily; the problem arises when sustaining 70 pages in book format. The first-person narrative is limiting: you cannot speak about other characters unless you cross paths with them. And the filler between major events becomes a wall. "Once you've explained their life, the..." he cuts off, and there's no need to finish.

Some point to the most obvious and uncomfortable solution: all good writers are better readers. Without this substrate, development becomes an exercise in constant invention that exhausts. Others suggest sticking directly to screenwriting, with the thesis that within a decade, tools will exist capable of converting a script into a series or movie. The proposal isn't far-fetched: if the mind already works in audiovisual mode, perhaps the wrong format is the novel.

The author himself rebels against genre conventions. He advocates for a more theatrical format, with the character's name preceding each line of dialogue, and attacks attribution verbs —"I stress, I murmur, I..."— which he considers ridiculous. "It's as if everything must be done like everyone else," he complains. The response he receives is equally direct: if they aren't going to publish you anyway, write in your own style and stop looking at what others do.

The most repeated advice: vomit first, organize later

The most repeated recommendation in the conversation is the sketch. Trinc the story's knot as it comes to mind, reach the end, and only then review what is missing, what is superfluous, and what can be changed. This is the method he ultimately adopts as his own. The risk he detects is the butterfly effect: a small detail at the beginning can condition everything else, and regretting it forces you to rewrite the entire story.

Another current proposes dividing characters into subplots. No single-protagonist stories: minimum three or five main characters and between eight and twelve supporting ones. Creating many versions of the same plot, like polishing a drawing starting from the simplest version, generates subplots that enrich the whole. And a warning about narrative time: wanting to cover twenty years or a single day and staying in a middle ground produces chapters that last for specific scenes while others jump years.

The block also has a material dimension. Finishing a fifteen-page chapter and dropping to four in the next generates doubts about whether to leave them as is and move on. The temptation to reread and rewrite the first chapter a million times appears as the error to avoid. And a practical question revealing how much the author is just starting: what is the standard font size.

Publishing, the second wall

The thread doesn't stay on technique. The conversation shifts to the publishing market with the usual pessimism: "these days, not even God publishes anything." Someone sarcastically describes the predictable itinerary —548-page manuscript sent cold to 37 publishers, zero responses, self-publishing on Amazon, zero sales, budgets to 62 printing presses— and the author's response doesn't lag. The accusation that certain intermediaries are responsible for the country being a mess closes the exchange with more heat than arguments.

In between, a suggestion appears connecting to the initial problem: visual novels. An interactive format, with concrete examples of plots built from characters and subplots, which the author was completely unaware of. For someone who thinks in scenes and dialogues, the structure of a visual novel —text, choices, development by routes— is less a genre than a technical solution to the block.

The inventory closing the discussion has something of a generational portrait: intimate diaries, narrative schemes, short stories, unfinished essay, posthumous debut, novel with a pseudonym for the publisher, unfinished saga, and will. Every self-respecting writer has that drawer. The question lingering is whether the problem was the format, the lack of reading, or simply that no one warned them that writing a novel is, above all, a craft of transitions.