Pulling Prose From The Plot When People On The Page Won’t Play

Whether you’ve plotted a detailed outline, or are flying by the seat of your pants, you may reach a point where you don’t know exactly how the next scene should play out. This can happen at any stage of the writing process.
Your characters are leaning against walls, pacing the floors, or rolling their eyes like rebellious teenagers. You might think the best way to move forward is to force your characters into action. The problem with this strategy is that it most likely won’t ring true for your readers.
This is a good time to ask yourself whose story is it. If you don’t already know this, I’m sorry to say that the story is not yours. You are the author. The story belongs to the main character. If you’re writing from multiple viewpoints, each scene belongs to the viewpoint character of that particular scene.
I’ve written extensively about character development. If you haven’t had a chance to check out those articles, this might be a good time. Writing detailed character sketches, composed of background that will never make it into your novel, can sometimes feel like a waste of time. On the contrary, it will actually save you a great deal of time and frustration when you begin writing the individual scenes and the novel as a whole.
When you know who your characters are, and what they want, you will easily determine how they will act and react. The key here is in knowing what they want. They must want something with every ounce of their being. This drive must be so urgent they are willing to risk life or limb to achieve it. They cannot go on with life, the way it is, for one more minute.
Each of us has insecurities and internal drives that result from childhood wounds. We may not always understand why something gets under our skin, or why we might be obsessively compelled to react in a certain way. However, we must understand these compulsive urges in our characters.
In fact, the deeper we wound our characters, the stronger their motives will be. When your readers empathize and identify with your characters, they will take the journey with them. Your readers must feel the pain your characters are trying to resolve.
Accomplish this and you will never have to drag your characters off of the sofa or force them into action. They will be so driven, they will be charging forward, and leaving you in the dust.