Stood in line at a writer's conference in Portland for 45 minutes and it fixed my plotting problem

I was at Willamette Writers Conference last month and the keynote was an hour late. Everyone was just standing there in the hallway. So I pulled out my phone and started typing random scenes from my WIP into a notes app. By the time they opened the doors I had outlined the whole second act using just the stuff I overheard people talking about. One lady was arguing about her cat's diet and somehow that turned into a whole subplot. Now I go to coffee shops on purpose when I get stuck. Has anyone else tried using ambient noise from crowds to break through writer's block?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_rose1d agoMost Upvoted

lol "fixed my plotting problem" is doing a lot of heavy lifting there. You overheard someone argue about cat food and suddenly the second act falls into place? I mean I'm glad it worked but that sounds less like a magic solution and more like you just needed to get out of your own head for a minute. Crowds are fine but I've sat in coffee shops for hours and just ended up with a bunch of random snippets that don't connect to anything. Maybe it's just me but I think you got lucky with that one specific situation.

the_felix1d ago

Nah you're not wrong, sometimes it's just dumb luck and being in the right headspace.

nancyramirez1d ago

Three cups of coffee and two hours of people watching at a bus station got me unstuck once. Sometimes you just need random noise to shake loose the patterns in your head.