Stuck on a chapter? Not sure what happens next in your story? Write all the things that won't happen. Write down what is crazy and silly and will never happen. And eventually what should happen will come to you.
This works because it tricks your brain out of judgment mode. When you're hunting for the "right" next scene, every idea gets measured and found wanting before it even finishes forming. But nobody grades the wrong answers, so they arrive loose, fast, and often weirdly close to the truth hiding underneath. Say your hero is stuck in a quiet kitchen scene. Write that a dragon crashes through the wall, that she confesses love to the toaster, that the phone rings with news of an inheritance from a stranger. Somewhere in that nonsense you'll feel a tug — maybe it's the phone call, softened into something real. The caution: don't let the silly list become its own detour. Ten minutes, then return to the page and write the thing that actually happened.
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