We are surrounded with things to write about, enough to fill all the novels you could write in a long lifetime. If you are feeling blocked, go down into your feelings. Mine your emotions and reactions to inform your characters.
We don’t have just one epidemic. Besides COVID-19, we have epidemics of:
- loneliness
- existential angst
- ignorance
- willful ignorance
- plain old stupidity
- fear
- poverty
- frustration
- anger
- sadness
- grief
- loss
- claustrophobia
- emptiness
- loss of identity
- feeling our best times are behind us
- helplessness/lack of power
For drama to arise from conflict, before your narrative arrives at love, renewed love, redemption, or resolution, you’ll probably have to go deep on the lack of those ideals.
Name your poison. Write about it.
~ Robert Chazz Chute writes apocalyptic epics and killer crime thrillers. Check out all his books at his author site, AllThatChazz.com.
Filed under: writing, writing advice, writing tips, Robert Chazz Chute, writer's block
C h a z z W r i t e s . c o m 
I have heaps of anger at the moment but nowhere to channel it except blog posts about the utter stupidity of homo-not-so-sapiens. On days when I’m not so angry, I try to lose myself in a story about sociopathic aliens who still have a sense of honour. Wishful thinking?
Stay well.
I’d like to read about sociopathic aliens.
lol – I’m sorry, I wasn’t trying to ‘market’ you.
Oh, I didn’t take it that way at all. From your comment, I wasn’t sure you meant you were writing or reading about sociopathic aliens.
I’m glad. I’m old school, or may just plain old, so I cringe at the thought of using people.
Like a lot of scifi writers, I challenged myself to create an alien that was not just a human in spotty skin. I’m proud of my aliens but, as a lot of those scifi writers also discover, most readers prefer spotty aliens as sidekicks to humans. -shrug- And so it goes.