Stuck? Draw a Map

No, I'm no star anise.  I've not shriveled up and died.  If its worth anything to you, I'm still here and I'm still trucking along.  The work continues.  The dude abides.

The swing of things have been so gloriously tuned, if you can believe it, that lately I haven't needed to warm up much.  There have been a few days, in fact, where I was able to just jump right in.  Other's I've needed only to lay down a few words, get a few blockades out of my head and proceed.  The warm up exercises from those days are hardly worth reading, much less posting.  

Today is a whole other story.

A lot of it depends on where in the story you end the previous day.  I assume that a lot of you writing types have by now figured out the secret but if you haven't, I'll be glad to share it with you.  Its not a big deal, really, just end the writing day at a point where you know what the next word, the next sentence, the next scene will be.  Don't write it.  Let it be and write it the next day.  If you know Baxter, the former world heavy-weight champion of chapter 2, now needs in Chapter 4 to confront his drug-addicted manager at the Piggly Wiggly, then end Chapter 3 on the way there. 

Not too tough.  Fairly obvious.

I failed to do that last night.  What?  Of course I have an outline!  No, you can't see it!  Get away from me you maniac!

I know where the next scene needs to go story-wise, I just don't know the setting, the ambiance, the exact logistics of how I'm going to get from the emotional start to the emotional end.  Its going to take some figuring.  A little elbow grease, if you will.  

I have a notepad in my desk, a small one, for just such moments of anxiety.  The idea, when you don't know how a scene should progress, is to take this notepad out and begin to draw a map.  Put the circumstances of the scene's beginning in the top corner and the end in the bottom corner.  The add events in small boxes as stepping stones along the way.  You can either add them to the top corner, reaching down, or to the bottom corner reaching up.  If you don't know whether one direction is better than the other, branch with both options and continue creating the map with multiple possible routes.  Add enough stepping stones, connected with a little line from one end to the other, and you'll find yourself with a clear path for the scene, and very often with a logical emotional arch.

Next time you're stuck, give it a shot.  Tell me how it went.