path of the storyteller / blog

We writers are a funny lot, aren’t we? We spend half our time worried about not having enough ideas, and the other half worried about having too many!

Fear of the blank page gets a bit more attention, and understandably so. Who hasn't panicked at the specter of “writer’s block” (which is not a thing, in my opinion—we’ll discuss!), or skidded to a halt mid-draft because you just didn’t know what to do next? 

But creative overwhelm is an equal, if opposite, problem. We keep coming up with ideas. Characters. Potential scenes. We try writing in first person, then third, and now we can’t decide between them. As our cast gets bigger we waffle about who our main character is, and start wondering if we should try to include multiple viewpoints. Is two enough to cover all bases? Is twelve?

And what about the backstory? It feels important too; what if we weave it in as a subplot that takes...